Another excellent piece Roger. I’ve worked in the industry for many years now and find it deeply concerning, just how unthinking and compliant so many people working in services are.
I wonder if people in certain sectors have tendencies to experience stronger cognitive biases cementing beliefs in place? Having said that I think its also mostly down to ignorance about the history of their own and related professions and the ongoing debates. In addition many have only worked in one service without much diversity of experience.
The bias, ignorance and limited experience combined acts as a sort of blinding agent, repelling any chance of learning and change and helping to cement the current toxic zeitgeist in place.
There is also something strangely alluring and powerful about psychiatric diagnosis and especially in applying them to others, that many in the therapy industry seem to really love. Perhaps its the illusion of professionalism or certainty or both?
I’ve tried mostly in vein over the years to share basic information about all of this, but very few are open to it. This is all the more disturbing given most of these people on a daily basis will be encouraging their own clients to look for the evidence, do their homework and question their thoughts, beliefs and assumptions, but are completely unable to do so themselves.
If its made it all the way to the lofty heights of a guideline its beyond question, right?
I saw a brief presentation by Brian Klass recently and he mentioned some ideas from self organised criticality and the sandpile model - we’ve created systems like sandpiles, more and more sand keeps getting added until the system enters a phase of being on ‘the edge of chaos’ whereby one more grain can cause collapses.
This felt to me like the mental ill health industry - its feasting on its own ignorant self interest and eventually will likely collapse in on itself and this phase I’ll call the Alice in Wonderland phase when Alice is talking to the cat:
“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
I would love to see some interviews with some of these folks - the authors of the PTMF
Sami Timimi psychiatrist in an award winning children's team in the NHS and author of several books such as Insane Medicine and he’s got a new book coming out soon -
Lucy Johnstone author of the excellent straight talking introduction to psychiatric diagnosis 2nd edition and founder of drop the disorder and much more
This book is also very good - ADHD is not an illness and Ritalin is not a cure: a comprehensive rebuttal off the (alleged) scientific consensus. Yaakov Ophir
Absolutely fantastic article. ADD/ADHD are simply terms that are used to label children as problematic and anyone in this world who is "problematic" is conditioned to think popping copious amounts of pharmaceuticals is the answer. Kids who exhibit the traits of ADD/ADHD are not built for the society that we live in. Children should be outside running around, getting into mischief, using their imaginations, not stuck in what can only be described as a prison and that is school. I was diagnosed with ADD, not ADHD, because of my lack of attention to stuff I did not care to learn or do. If I am interested in something I will get very involved in doing/learning it, if I am not there is nothing on this earth that will make me do so, not even large amounts of adderall will get me motivated. It's not that I'm slow or stupid, I read hundreds of novels a year and can be considered to be an autodidact, it's that my brain is not wired to give a shit about something that bores the ever loving hell out of me. Give me a book on the fall of Rome and I'll read it in a day, give me a book on systematic racism and my eyes will glaze over and I will never pick it up. In a normal society people like me would be allowed to study the topics we want to learn about and not be forced to conform to the lowest common denominators of society.
Another excellent piece Roger. I’ve worked in the industry for many years now and find it deeply concerning, just how unthinking and compliant so many people working in services are.
I wonder if people in certain sectors have tendencies to experience stronger cognitive biases cementing beliefs in place? Having said that I think its also mostly down to ignorance about the history of their own and related professions and the ongoing debates. In addition many have only worked in one service without much diversity of experience.
The bias, ignorance and limited experience combined acts as a sort of blinding agent, repelling any chance of learning and change and helping to cement the current toxic zeitgeist in place.
There is also something strangely alluring and powerful about psychiatric diagnosis and especially in applying them to others, that many in the therapy industry seem to really love. Perhaps its the illusion of professionalism or certainty or both?
I’ve tried mostly in vein over the years to share basic information about all of this, but very few are open to it. This is all the more disturbing given most of these people on a daily basis will be encouraging their own clients to look for the evidence, do their homework and question their thoughts, beliefs and assumptions, but are completely unable to do so themselves.
If its made it all the way to the lofty heights of a guideline its beyond question, right?
I saw a brief presentation by Brian Klass recently and he mentioned some ideas from self organised criticality and the sandpile model - we’ve created systems like sandpiles, more and more sand keeps getting added until the system enters a phase of being on ‘the edge of chaos’ whereby one more grain can cause collapses.
This felt to me like the mental ill health industry - its feasting on its own ignorant self interest and eventually will likely collapse in on itself and this phase I’ll call the Alice in Wonderland phase when Alice is talking to the cat:
“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
I would love to see some interviews with some of these folks - the authors of the PTMF
https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-clinical-psychology/power-threat-meaning-framework
Sami Timimi psychiatrist in an award winning children's team in the NHS and author of several books such as Insane Medicine and he’s got a new book coming out soon -
https://www.madinamerica.com/insane-medicine/ and this is great
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/psychiatry-social-construction-sami-timimi
Lucy Johnstone author of the excellent straight talking introduction to psychiatric diagnosis 2nd edition and founder of drop the disorder and much more
https://www.adisorder4everyone.com/ and this is very useful
https://www.madinamerica.com/neurodiversity-series/
This book is also very good - ADHD is not an illness and Ritalin is not a cure: a comprehensive rebuttal off the (alleged) scientific consensus. Yaakov Ophir
Keep up the good work its so needed.
Absolutely fantastic article. ADD/ADHD are simply terms that are used to label children as problematic and anyone in this world who is "problematic" is conditioned to think popping copious amounts of pharmaceuticals is the answer. Kids who exhibit the traits of ADD/ADHD are not built for the society that we live in. Children should be outside running around, getting into mischief, using their imaginations, not stuck in what can only be described as a prison and that is school. I was diagnosed with ADD, not ADHD, because of my lack of attention to stuff I did not care to learn or do. If I am interested in something I will get very involved in doing/learning it, if I am not there is nothing on this earth that will make me do so, not even large amounts of adderall will get me motivated. It's not that I'm slow or stupid, I read hundreds of novels a year and can be considered to be an autodidact, it's that my brain is not wired to give a shit about something that bores the ever loving hell out of me. Give me a book on the fall of Rome and I'll read it in a day, give me a book on systematic racism and my eyes will glaze over and I will never pick it up. In a normal society people like me would be allowed to study the topics we want to learn about and not be forced to conform to the lowest common denominators of society.