Yours Truly found this story while scouring one of my favorite webpages this morning. (It’s called instapundit.com and you should bookmark it.) It’s original title grabbed my intention: “How one man’s fake study changed a nation”.
It’s the story of David Ronsenhan, a Stanford University professor of no major accomplishment except for a riveting voice and charismatic presence. Like Alfred Kinsey, another cultural-destroying academic, he staged a scientific experiment in a psychiatric hospital in order to achieve the desired outcome. In Kinsey’s case, it was to justify his own perversions; in Rosenhan’s case, it was to get sane people to question what constitutes sanity.
His paper was called “On being sane in insane places” and it caused a generation of students and other future leaders to question decades (if not centuries) of practice, which was to involuntarily incarcerate those who were justifiably diagnosed as insane.
The methods used by Kinsey and Rosenhan were not scientific by any stretch of the imagination. One does not pursue science with a desired outcome in mind. That is putting the cart before the horse so to speak. Kinsey for his part completely fabricated the results of his sexological studies as well, using them to confirm his own perversions, which were many and variegated. Likewise Sigmund Freud altered his findings to a different outcome –that is to say “complexes”, or fantasies–when it became obvious that the level of child abuse was in fact, pervasive.
In almost each of these cases, and for some inexplicable reason, common sense was thrown out the window and criminology, conventional morality and national policy were reversed on a dime.
The results were catastrophic. Rosenhan’s in particular condemned thousands to miserable existences on the streets of America.
Mind you, the incarceration of the insane was never a particularly salubrious undertaking, for either the inmates nor the warders. But all things being equal, it was far better than what obtained after the doors of the nation’s insane asylums were opened and people who couldn’t fend for themselves were released into broad daylight. The human wreckage you can see for yourself, pretty much everywhere.
Question: How many other of our “smelly little orthodoxies” (borrowing Chesterton’s aphorism) are we as a society laboring under?
For me, the moral of the story (at the very least) is this: Don’t trust experts. When they say “Question authority”, do so. By all means question authority. But don’t forget, those who preach this cliché are setting themselves up as authority figures. Kinsey was one such false idol and the damage he did to the generations that followed was incalculable. Same with Freud. We can add Rosenhan to this diabolic pantheon.
George I experienced this working in mental health in North London psychiatrist hospital during the move to the so called community. Now yes there was a lot wrong with people wrongly put away etc . BUT ALSO a lot right with these institutions and for many they gave them a decent life in community. The ASYLUM bit of a psychiatrist hospital was often what they needed.
However this came up against the prevailing late 20the dogma ( and money saver for government) that illness is a social construct and what these people needed was a liberation to real world.
Well with some few good example, what has happened to these voiceless people is well known.
When ever we go to Southampton we always come across a greek cypriot guy who knew from his begging in the greek Church there, well in all weathers in same jacket, roaming the street begging for money for tobacco , to go back to his bare Council flat in late evening. That is his life. No day centre etc to go to.
On another Subject I am being made very aware of the progress of AI and the increasing voices discussing intelligent machines and the loss of need for God and disproof of the soul as they advanced beyond the current stage to THIBK for themselves. Where the soul?
I wonder if anybody has a informed view?? .
My first thoughts are is it not humans WHO ARE CREATING THIS INTELLIGENCE. ???
Nikos, along the same lines of giving the mentally ill a decent life in community, one has to consider how hard it is on families who have children who are a danger to themselves and others but no place to put them. We’ve seen this in school shootings. The parents have few resources available to help them. Institutions no longer exist so their kids are put on psychotropic drugs that often exacerbate the problem.
I knew a woman who had a child like this. There was just something wrong with him and whatever it was, it was there from the time he was 5 (perhaps before). His parents had the means to help him and did everything possible at the time but it just wasn’t enough and they knew it. I remember his mother asking me, “Gail, what else can I do?” I had no answers for her. I don’t think I ever saw her when she didn’t have tears in her eyes. Their son would lie, steal, bully and kill animals. Yet he was also sweet. I once came home late after some holiday shopping and found him standing in the dark in my kitchen. I was startled, as the house had been locked. He held out his small hands and in them were some little chili plants. He said, “I thought you might like these. I wanted to put them in the refrigerator to surprise you.”
This particular kid didn’t get the chance to erupt into violence but encountered someone who did. (See Below) My son was at that taping of 3rd Rock From The Sun but told me he and his girlfriend came straight home. I pray this is true. He told me the same story his friends told me long after he passed: “Bryan was dropped off at the liquor store payphone across the street from his apartment. . .”
Not true.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2005/02/06/secret-killing-haunts-friends-for-seven-years-2/
The real world presents many terrible difficulties. Some can survive them, some cannot.
A prominent used-book store owner of an earlier generation in my town, well-known around town, along with his wife, had a daughter who was extremely affected by cerebral palsy, to the extent that she had voluntary control only over a single foot. She was a contemporary of mine. They refused all conventional medical opinion of the time that she be institutionalized. She was a brilliant woman, who learned to type with the toes of a single foot.
I will never forget her father’s funeral, as her moving, profound letter of thanks and praise to him and her mother was read out, that they had not put her away, but kept her at home, educated her, and let her fulfil a greater destiny.
One of my brothers and his wife just last January lost to death their eldest son, who had lived in their home, for 29 years, on a hospital-type bed, ventilator-dependent since 7 months of age; unable to move or speak, but able to communicate, including about his love of Christ. He, too, was relegated to institutions by the experts, but his mother and his father said no.
Their love of God and one another enabled them to survive this and live full lives. Now, they are able to go out together and travel together away from home for the first time in almost 30 years.
So true, Tim. I am in awe of those families who are able to meet these challenges against all odds.
TimR, stories like these make me realize that there are saints walking among us and we should be grateful to God for this realization.
If President Trump would/could somehow mandate/pass a federal law that would, on a large scale, and in every state build and open mental health institutions again, it would be his greatest accomplishment.
It would also be a great counter to the phony medicare for all, that the Democratic socialists are running on, in the next election. Re-opening mental institutions could not be argued by either side and cement his legacy as a truly great President, and in my view, forgive ALL his past sins. Such healing, and humane care for the mentally ill, and their families, would make President Trump a saint in my book.
To all a Happy Thanksgiving! May we all love and forgive our friends and family around the dinner table, and those far from it.
Happy Thanksgiving, Dino!
Dino, just wondering if you have been in a “mental health institution”. Even short term ones are much like a prison, the inmates (patients) are controlled with high doses of psychoactive medications to get them to comply. One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest is not exactly fiction.
They are highly unpleasant places filled with fear, bewilderment and often semi-controlled chaos in which there is no basis for ordinary rational interaction and any objection from the outside is met with ejection and from the inside with confinement both physical and through use of drugs.
For long term patients the risk of sexual and emotional abuse tends to increase as well. The inmates, even short term ones, learn incredibly complex coping skills that require a great deal of lying and con games all within a mental/emotional space that is dysfunctional to begin with.
If the VA is any example of federal health facilities and their level of care of people with mental health problems, the outcome would not be good, the price high. None of which is an indictment of the people working in those facilities as many of the caregivers exist, out of necessity, in a self-protective bubble that attempts to make them impervious to the constant human pain around them. They are as much a victim of the system in some cases as those they care for.
The only mental health strategy that seems to really work is the willing combination of a skilled therapist, a cooperating patient who together gain insights into dysfunctional behavior along with learning alternate functional coping skills to help navigate a hostile(real and perceived) world. It can include appropriate and minimal medication when really needed but only as a last resort.
The brokenness that people with mental health disorders suffer is intensely personal and the ecology of each person’s disorder unique which makes mass, protocol driven approaches difficult at best.
Along with the emotional and physical disorders and imbalances there can be spiritual issues including deeply rooted, often unacknowledged, shame and grief that require repentance/forgiveness to reach a stable healing. I rather doubt that any government funded institution will be particularly open to such remedies.
Involuntary incarceration for any reason should require a high standard.
Dino, we live in a world that more and more mimics the stories of Franz Kafka: Systematized insanity overseen by a dark and mysterious bureaucracy. He and Nietzsche are the prophets of the mind of the world for our age. All politics is deeply imbedded in that dark and suffocating pseudo-reality.
There is no political solution to any human dilemma. At best, government maintains some semblance of a rational order. The hope for that, however, passed long ago. Indeed the destruction that began in 20th century has been largely focused on decimating any such order and replacing it with rule of the passions, by the passions and for the passions to benefit those who want worldly power or have it. The only political cause I support at all is The Tenth Amendment Center because they are exclusively dedicated to the reduction of federal power and control based on the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
Even better though is a 7th century Celtic saint venerated in the Church as well as the west: St. Dymphna. I would recommend her intercessions for those with medical health issues. My lovely wife seems to be developing a close friendship with St. Dymphna BTW because there are people in our lives who suffer deeply from such brokenness and are genuinely struggling to overcome. Those people, Orthodox or not, have accepted St. Dymphna readily as a helper. We will see….
St. Dymphna intercede for the salvation and the healing of our souls.
We are already in a mental health institution created by federal government don’t you know?
Michael. Thank you for yr imput. Having worked most of my life in mental health I found my self nodding agreement all down the line.
People get lost in systems not realizing it is what goes in them. An institution can be all you say and I have experienced it all working in Uk, but also can be a life saving facility. Care in the community can be that greek cypriot I mentioned. Or a wonderful supporting family and neighbourhood. SO THE CHURCH. God bless.
Gail thank you for that. U are an amazing lady I think. God bless you .
Yes at times in our small way we all need ASYLUM. Often with mental health needs, especially around schizophrenia, home is not the best place to be 24/7 unless parents have skills in care and often it’s difficult to be this with one’s flesh and blood. It’s the concept of ‘Expressed emmotion’ . People with mental health problems tend to.show this. I find that contact with emotionally labile people is like going full pelt down an escalator or water ride. Maybe now retired it’s different for me.
Indeed society, seems to be on highly expressed emmotion at present.
Interesting as an aside people often see greek or italian Culture as this but in actual fact re greek Culture we are quite sober, often without emmotion where ‘ western Culture ‘ is now with high degree of ‘ expressed high emotion ‘ . Greek peasants very laconic. Not given actually to great outward expression. I think of my grand father especially.
Ps re guns. I hestitate to enter this minefield. I think if one does one must see it from view of American history and how society was re new country ( not new for natives!!) and the frontier and need to defend one’s self and especially to hunt and distrust of government.
Now many countries have gun ownership without the massive loss of life from guns. So what is it about USA? Also when did Mass killing and guy violence become so widespread and daily?
I have to say being in USA i never felt at risk really or feeling in violence society. Indeed quite opposite.( New York, Buffalo. Chicago and Cisco and fresno , recently in news, etc ) It’s in Uk I often feel a sense of incipient violence, in some places. That is fact of english life but not as yet guns. But as we know yr side soon crosses the ‘herring pond ‘.
Pps. One of the pleasures travelling in USA was use of Amtrack!! Went from NY to Chicago and back and to Buffalo and back from NY. Amazing and in autumn going to Buffalo with the leaves!! ( good organ free active greek Parish there. Good priest) The size of USA was shown to me passing a lake. I slept for a while, about two hours, and woke to same lake!! Like Russia!!
Travelling by air with american air lines, to be blunt. A fore taste of hell!! ? Give me Amtrack any time.
Question ‘Experts’? Isn’t that precisely what our Lord did?
And what did ‘Authority’ do to him?
And what did he do then?
So, should we not also question ‘Authority’?
Gail thank you for that. U are an amazing lady I think. God bless you .
Yes at times in our small way we all need ASYLUM. Often with mental health needs, especially around schizophrenia, home is not the best place to be 24/7 unless parents have skills in care and often it’s difficult to be this with one’s flesh and blood. It’s the concept of Highly Expressed emmotion. People with mental health problems tend to.show this. I find that contact with emotionally labile people is like going full pelt down an escalator or water ride. Maybe now retired it’s different for me.
Indeed society, seems to be on highly expressed emmotion at present.
Interesting as an aside people often see greek or italian Culture as this but in actual fact re greek Culture we are quite sober, often without emmotion where ‘ western Culture ‘ is now highly emotional in this mental health sense of ‘high expressed emmotion ‘ Greek peasants very laconic. Not given actually to great outward expression. I think of my grand father especially.
Michael. Thank you for yr imput. Having worked most of my life in mental health I found my self nodding agreement all down the line.
People get lost in systems not realizing it is what goes in them. An institution can be all you say and I have experienced it all working in Uk, but also can be a life saving facility. Care in the community can be that greek cypriot I mentioned. Or a wonderful supporting family and neighbourhood. SO THE CHURCH. God bless.
Nikos, I have no doubt that good and faithful Orthodox, using some of the tools of psychology can make a profound impact for good on the lives and souls of those who struggle for mental balance. I have no doubt that in some circumstances involuntary incarceration in an institutional setting is necessary. BUT…as my son, who has suffered under the institutional approach says…it moves much too quickly to that.
I see several reasons for that most importantly the total lack of training by many medical intake personnel. The over-reliance of psychoactive medications to the exclusion of all actual treatment compounded by inertia, fear, and lack of empathy.
My son has since received a diagnosis working with a licensed clinical social worker that precludes psychoactive medication for the treatment of his difficulties. In fact, many of them could actually make his condition much worse. A condition that is compounded by brain damage and a mild but persistent seizure disorder. He has been misdiagnosed, incorrectly medicated and lied to and had so many things misrepresented to him in the last two years that it is miracle that he is even still working with anyone in the “profession”. Especially since in my own fear for him and colossal ignorance, I went along with many actions, I should not have.
By God’s grace, he found a fit.
We had a really good Thanksgiving BTW. A moment of healing since he was incarcerated last year. (Lest anyone think my conversation here might embarrass my son–he wants it made known both for his own sake and for others like him). He is a good a courageous man.
Please pray for us.
God bless you both
Michael. Thank you for yr words and also yr courage. All that u say is true. Of course mental health issues have multi- causual roots and so should their treatment. Unfortunately this is not always so. GOD BLESS AND KEEP YOU ALL.
George, I don’t even trust perts, let alone ex-perts.
“BE ALERT. YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS LERTS”;
but not so much perts,
far less ex-perts.
Experts?
Experts designed the Titanic.
Experts built the Titanic.
Experts sailed the Titanic…
Brendan true but main issue re Titanic, was the ‘full spend ahead ‘ mentality in ice berg zone of captain and firm wanting to win award.
But yes also the bulkheads did not actually close of each section as did not reach up to top.
But we do live in age where the roman governor’ s question to Christ, as to what is truth, is very pertinent.
All true, Nikos. But as the heading and story were about the dangers of putting trust in experts, my comment was made to address that point.
Brendan yes and u made well made point. As the ship’s designer sat enjoying his cigar saying, ‘FULL SPEED AHEAD’ GOD BLESS
The memorial to Titanic is in Southampton uk where I spent some time. It was port she sailed from and los of many , many sailors in the disaster. Affected the entire city.
I am told there used to be a sign in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast which read: “She was alright when she left here”. Not so much a memorial as a denial of blame…
http://joyofallwhosorrow-indy.org/2019/09/11/christian-you-should-get-counseling/
This article is on the website of my brother’s parish. Thought you might like it.
Napoleon, Charlemagne, Suleiman, Stalin, Hitler, all wanted to be seen as successors of Caesar and the evil empire that killed Jesus and stole his religion. Anyone who knows the cruel, vindictive ending of Vercingetorix, Spartacus and Carthage knows who really killed Jesus. That is why the Tower of Babel mandates the anarchist nationalism of the cowboy over the globalism of the puritan bureaucrats. The Young Turks of Gibbon and America, of Lapp, Hun, FInn and American Indian lineage, prefer the creative destruction of barbarism to the oppressive stagnation of ‘civilization’.
“…the Tower of Babel mandates the anarchist nationalism of the cowboy over the globalism of the puritan bureaucrats.”
Ehh…????
You have that precisely the wrong way round. Who do you think pays the cowboys?
Don’t know, but it sounds like this bloke read
https://www.amazon.com/Conservative-History-American-Left/dp/0307339467