"Medicalising mental health was a tragic error."

"Medicalising mental health was a tragic error.
    "It falsely taught people that emotions are solely the result of physical factors — i.e., brain chemistry.
    "With regard to your psyche, your character and your soul, the psychiatric industry turns you into a ward of the pharmaceutical industry — or a ward of the State....
    "In reality, emotions are the result of a long accumulation of choices, ideas, assumptions, hidden premises, values and so many other things.
    "Yes, we are brain chemistry. But we are so much more. And to date, science has refused to investigate how our choices and ideas determine our brain chemistry. Instead, 'science' assumes that brain chemistry determines all thoughts, choices and behaviour. This premise is never questioned, never explored, never investigated. In psychiatry, 'follow the science' means 'follow the drug companies.' And also follow the government, who funds most of the research ... and therefore now controls most of the doctors who administer it.
    "If you’re looking for a reason not to have to work for your mental health, then the psychiatric industry is there, waiting for you."

          ~ Dr Michael Hurd, from his post 'Medicalizing the Soul'

"Here’s the problem with the idea of 'toxic masculinity': It doesn’t seek to replace 'bad' masculinity with 'good,' or rational, masculinity. It seeks to annihilate masculinity altogether. The real toxic people are the ones pushing the idea of 'toxic masculinity.' You listen to them at your peril." #QotD

"Here’s the problem with the idea of 'toxic masculinity': It doesn’t seek to replace 'bad' masculinity with 'good,' or rational, masculinity. It seeks to annihilate masculinity altogether.
    "If you asked an opponent of toxic masculinity what 'healthy' masculinity consists of, you’ll either (a) get no answer, or (b) get an answer like, 'Sensitive, empathic, emotional, giving.' In other words, you’ll get an answer describing a conventional definition of femininity.
    "This proves that the real purpose of defeating 'toxic masculinity' is to destroy masculinity itself. No alternative to masculinity as we know it is ever offered...
    "Like the traditionalists, today’s post-modern feminists assume that men are thinkers and doers, while women are feelers and givers. Unlike the traditionalists, the post-modern feminists claim: Feeling and giving are superior to thinking and doing.
    "The psychological and intellectual dishonesty here is fascinating...
    "So before you bow your heads in political correctness, feeling you must join in the condemnation against 'toxic masculinity' and all things male as our cultural icons now demand, make sure you realize what you’re doing. You’re endorsing a world that will never exist, and shouldn’t exist: A universe where reason, strength, and confidence are gone and where obedience, passivity and emotionalistic 'snowflakery' rule...
    "The real toxic people are the ones pushing the idea of 'toxic masculinity.' You listen to them at your peril."
          ~ Dr Michael Hurd, from his post '“Toxic masculinity”? Not buying it.'
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"You can’t find meaning in life simply through loving another. The best lovers are those who love life first. They fall in love with people not to attain meaning, but to celebrate and enhance the meaning that’s already there." #QotD

"You can’t find meaning in life simply through loving another... The best lovers are those who love life first. They fall in love with people not to attain meaning, but to celebrate and enhance the meaning that’s already there."
          ~ Dr Michael Hurd, from his post 'True Love: Why Do Most of Us Still Not Get It?'
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Quote of the Day: What free speech isn't ...

"Let’s be clear about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not refer to the unlimited right to say what you want; it refers to the unlimited right to say what you want on your own time or property. There’s a difference."
~ Michael Hurd, from his post 'Let’s Really Understand What Freedom of Speech Means'

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Quote of the Day: ‘Nobody is Coming to Rescue You, America’

 

“I want a candidate who blames the people. Because the people,
by and large, are to blame for this mess. I want a candidate who
says, “This is your fault, America. You want politicians to have
power over private wealth that the Constitution does not give them,
and that they never should have been given. You keep giving it to
them year after year, regardless of party. So long as you do this,
you have no business complaining about the Establishment and
all the corruption going on in Washington.’
“That would be real change. Not what we’ll be offered in 2016.
Because the people do not yet want it.”
~ Michael Hurd, from his post ‘Nobody is Coming to Rescue You, America’

 

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“The self-esteem equation”

Michael Hurd writes:

Most people assume self-esteem is a good thing. However, most people do not know what “self-esteem” actually is.
    Most probably assume that self-esteem refers to feeling good about yourself. That’s not wrong. But exactly how does one arrive at feeling good about oneself?
    No answer is ever given. Teachers, counsellors, and many parents of young children often assume, “If you just tell the child good things about him- or herself, the child will feel good.”
    But such an approach is wrong. It’s indiscriminate. It teaches young children that they’re good — actually, great — no matter what.
    It’s basically a lie. Or at least a half-truth. Parents and teachers won’t criticize, not even constructively. This is just as bad as always putting down a child, never building the child up or telling him what he does well.
    The child comes into young adulthood with a sense that everyone should be telling him or her how great he or she is. After all, that’s what all those teachers did. That’s what parents often did. “So why isn’t the rest of the world greeting me that way?”

Read on here: The Self-Esteem Equation

Quote of the Day: 'On this premise, it’s wrong to even consider something like a gender change...'

"According to most conventional or traditional approaches to morality, you must accept yourself as God or Nature made you. On this premise, it’s wrong to even consider something like a gender change, even if it were even easier to attain than it currently is.    "I reject this premise, as must anyone who benefits from tampering with nature as we know it. Human beings alter their bodies and their environments in ways to achieve better results for themselves all the time. That’s the whole point of both science and capitalism: to enable personal growth and human advancement, for the sake of human beings and the things that they value. We utilise fossil fuels, despite the disadvantages, because on the whole it makes life immensely safer, longer and more comfortable than the alternative of going without fossil fuels. We fly on airplanes despite the risks because, on the whole, it makes life far more efficient, enjoyable and comfortable than would otherwise be the case. More personally, some of us engage in plastic surgery (rationally and responsibly), wear make-up, get hair transplants and do other things to alter our body and/or bodily processes in order to attain more personal happiness. If you do such things out of anxiety or mindless compulsion, they won’t bring you happiness, and the same applies to something more dramatic such as gender change. But I see no reason to rule out gender change on principle, any more than to rule out any of these other things, which I have seen, many times, can and do contribute to a person’s sense of well-being and happiness."- Dr Michael Hurd, from his article 'Is Bruce / Caitlyn Jenner Happy?'

Why is the best time to learn a language when you're young?

… the answer is neuroplasticity.

And it’s the reason no-one can ride this bicycle.

[Hat tip Michael Hurd]

"He had been going down a bad path and then he found Islam" [update 2]

Cartoonists are still in the front line in the War Begun By Islam.

As you’ve probably heard, two Muslim shooters trying to murder people at a Draw Mohammed competition in Garland, Texas, were shot dead by a police officer before they began.

If only it had happened that way at the Charlie Hebdo offices.

The difference between Paris and Texas? Guns. “People are alive today because Garland not only allows guns, but was prepared.”   The would-be murders had assault rifles. The officer used his duty pistol. He was wounded, but okay.

They were not.

Apparently the shooting has begun another “debate” about free speech – a debate among the only people in the US who apparently don’t understand free speech. Academics. Media. Government. Muslims.

As one person said on Twitter:

What made them violently bonkers? Contemplate this quote from one shooter’s lawyer: “He had been going down a bad path and then he found Islam.” Let that sink in.

So if you’re wondering what drawing won the competition – a drawing good enough to kill for, it was this, by cartoonist  Bosch Fawstin—which will now get way, way, way more circulation than it ever would have before.

Cartoon by Bosch Fawstin.

Here he is receiving his cheque:

[Hat tips and credits CounterMoonbat, David Burge, CBSDFW, Laura A Lorenzo, Jackie, A Libertarian Rebel, Ali A. Rizvi, J.T., Ross McLean, Will Cain, Mehdi Hasan]

---

RELATED READING:

• “Freedom of speech; separation of church and state. These are principles to cherish, not to denigrate. The true ‘haters’ out there are the ones who shout the label of ‘hater’ at anyone who dares to take a moment to stand up for them.”
  Hatred of Mohammad … Or Love of Liberty? – Michael Hurd,  CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

UPDATE 2:  “"

'Once Free Speech Goes, It's Over': 'Draw Muhammad' Contest Winner Sounds Off
Bosch Fawstin said that the contest was important to him because it's about freedom of speech, which he asserted is "under siege."
    "I understand the threat that we face and that's why I do what I do," Fawstin said. "I do it because we're being threatened. This has to be fought head-on."
    "As artists, as writers, as thinkers, as Americans, as people who love freedom, and the entire West, we need to hit back. Not with violence, with the truth, with our art, with our writing," Fawstin said. "Once free speech goes, it's over."
    Watch the interview below...

What ‘The West’ refers to …

From Dr Michael Hurd’s article ‘What the Terrorist War Against “the West” Really Means’:

The “West” does not refer primarily to a geographic region, and it’s obviously not limited to the United States. The “West” refers to a set of ideas embodied in countries like the United States and France, almost always subconsciously in the minds of most people. It refers to a set of attitudes, beliefs and convictions that most people don’t even realize they possess, at least until something like this happens. It’s rooted in the pro-reason (and implicitly pro-freedom) ideas of Aristotle, objective reality, rational science, and all the ideas and principles which tend to dominate in periods of enlightenment and inventiveness (ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolutions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries); and are nowhere to be found in periods dominated by raw faith, allegiance to church over freedom and concern with the afterlife over the present and real life (the Dark Ages, and the period of religious totalitarianism now taking hold in much of the Middle East and attempting to spread beyond.)
    So what does it mean to have a “pro-Western” attitude? Examples are as follows…

Loyal, but why?

If the saccharine-sound of Dave Dobbyn singing Loyal makes your teeth grind, there might be more to your loathing than just the awful nasal whine. It might be that loyalty, in the way he whines about it, is not the value it could be, or – given how popular the sappy song is – people think it is, or would like it to be.

Loyalty is a sub-species of integrity – a reflection of consistency between your principles and your actions. Psychologist Michael Hurd reckons however that, very often, we choose sports teams, friends, even lovers on the basis only of vague or unidentified feelings.  Feelings we never examine any further.  That’s fine when it comes to sports teams (unless you find yourself supporting Collingwood, or England), but not for higher values.

“When it comes time to be loyal — or disloyal — to friends or associates, we’re unclear on what we’re actually being loyal to. As a result we’re left with nothing else but feelings.
    If someone annoys you for a trivial reason, you’ll reject or back away from them without really knowing why, and you might later come to regret it. If someone betrays you for a very big reason, you’re lost without a set of conscious convictions to guide you

Your “loyalty” is based on little more than habit, which offers no guidance on what to do next. Just nagging doubt. On the other hand…

If you live your life consciously, by a set of conscious convictions and principles, then you deliberately select your friends and loved ones accordingly. If you value integrity and honesty, for example, then you not only seek to practice it, but to  find people who do the same. Ditto for any other virtue you consciously hold near and dear to your heart and mind: intelligence, intellectual honesty, productivity, and rationality.
    If you value your ideals consciously, and you seek to uphold them in daily life, then your friends and spouse will be very important to you. They’re important to you because they embody and actualize — in your eyes, and hopefully in reality — your most cherished values. Loyalty in that context is “easy,” in that betraying people who embody what’s important to you would go against everything  you think and most deeply feel.

This is obviously part of a bigger point about holding, developing, and testing your convictions and principles consciously.

It’s generally considered more cool, normal or socially acceptable not to hold any conscious convictions — or, if you do hold them, not to hold them “too strongly.” Or, if you must hold deep, intense or conscious convictions, then at least don’t let anybody know it.
    Not only is this boring and shallow; it makes something most of us do consider virtuous — loyalty — impossible. I suspect this is one reason why so many get attached to their dogs (or cats). These animals possess a consistency and integrity (on a nonconceptual level) of which humans are more brilliantly capable, but rarely display.

Here’s Dave Dobbyn.

Hell no. Just joking.

“Me, me, me” [updated]

“It’s all about me” every speaker at the Mandela memorial might have said, turning their tributes to the man supposed to be their hero into making it all about themselves.

Selfies with each other.

Self-actualisation revelations.

And then there’s Barack Obama.

If people were to have to take a drink every time Barack Obama used “I”, or “me”, “my” , or “mine” in a statement, entire nations would be passed out for years at a time.

Has the word “me” been spoken so many times in one memorial? “The sign language interpreter at … Nelson Mandela's memorial has been called ‘inept.’ Here's what he should have done,” says commentator and illustrator Bosch Fawstin. He calls it ‘Sign of the Times Language’:

Pic by Bosch Fawstin

Here’s George Harrison:

UPDATE: This, right on  cue, from Dr Michael Hurd:

“It’s all about him.” “It’s all about her.”
    You hear people say it. Maybe you’ve said it yourself, about someone you know.
    “She thinks she’s the Queen.” Or, “He acts like the little prince.”
    The analogy of arrogant royalty implies a person who doesn’t feel accountable to anyone, or anything. It’s as if he or she is special—above, or outside of, reality.
    The key to understanding such a person is lack of accountability…

READ: "It's All About Me"...Know the Type? – Dr Michael Hurd, DAILY DOSE OF REASON

What’s a “narcissist,” doctor?

No, it’s not just my imagination. The word “narcissist” is being used more and more…

… even as fewer people seem to understand what the word means—often being confused in being used to describe someone with a healthy self-esteem. Psychologist Michael Hurd explains the distinction is based on difference between a focus solely on “the inner, subjective ‘me’” of the true narcissist, and the focus on the “objective ‘out there’ (aka, reality)” of someone with a healthy self-esteem.

In other words, it’s the difference between being a “doer” and being a second-hander:

Two researchers recently concluded that narcissism involves a conviction of superiority over others, while genuine self-esteem has more to do with a positive self-image without reference to others. They hit on an important truth: There’s a difference between using others as your standard, and using a rational, objective definition (such as competence and performance) as a standard.
    Neurotic people look at what others are doing and try to beat them, and the mental health profession labels them “narcissists.” Healthy people determine what constitutes competence or excellence in a certain context and then they aim for it. They spend little time looking at what others are doing. Narcissists often come across as confident, but if you scratch beneath the psychological surface you’ll find nothing more than a compulsive concern for besting others. Genuinely confident individuals might enjoy beating others, but their primary goal is to live up to their own standard of excellence.
    For example, a study showed that college freshmen who based their self-regard primarily on academic victory over peers spent more time on their studies than other students but did not perform any better in their classes. Interestingly, those same students had more conflict with teachers and focused more on grades than on actual learning, suggesting that improving one’s mind and knowledge is superior to trying to get the best grade and beat everyone else out. And it supports what I’ve been telling people for years: If you simply concentrate on enjoying and excelling at your work, success will almost always follow.

[Hat tip Gus Van Horn]

How to succeed at self-sabotage…

It’s not easy to work against your own happiness. The trick, it seems, is to really relish being miserable.

Some people act as if they just want to be miserable, and they succeed remarkably at inviting misery into their lives, even though they get little apparent benefit from it, since being miserable doesn’t help them find lovers and friends, get better jobs, make more money, or go on more interesting vacations. Why do they do this? After perusing the output of some of the finest brains in the therapy profession, I’ve come to the conclusion that misery is an art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative effort required to cultivate it. In other words, when your living conditions are stable, peaceful, and prosperous—no civil wars raging in your streets, no mass hunger, no epidemic disease, no vexation from poverty—making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity. It can even give life a distinctive meaning.
    So if you aspire to make yourself miserable, what are the best, most proven techniques for doing it?

To learn how to hone your misery skills, read on for The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People.

Who know, you may have already become a master at many of them without even working at it!

[Hat tips: Dr Michael Hurd & Sean Fitzpatrick. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/aastock]

Quote of the Day: What are you so frightened of?

"This really shouldn’t be such a radical or unusual thing, but as I look around the world I find so many petrified—not of natural disasters or things that perhaps make sense—but terrified of the opinion of others. That’s what makes it so hard for the human race to achieve all that it might, and should, and perhaps yet will."

- Dr Michael Hurd's Daily Dose of Reason

 

Posted with Blogsy

Quote of the Day: On growing up

"Growing up occurs at the moment you stop caring about what others think."
- Dr Michael Hurd, in "Tell Me What I Want to Hear" at The Delaware Coast Press

[Hat tip Gus Van Horn]

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Challenge your feelings

"Many of my clients find relief from their problems when they
realise that we all have the right -- indeed, the duty -- to challenge
our feelings and make sure they correspond to the facts."
- Dr Michael Hurd, in "Are Feelings Hazardous to Your Health?"

Discuss.

[Hat tip GVH]

So, where do emotions come from? [updated]

A new study suggesting some people’s brains are “hard-wired” for panic and anxiety is the dead end of mainstream psychology’s dismissal of the mind, says psychologist Dr Michael Hurd.

[The] new University of Wisconsin-Madison imaging study shows the brains of people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have weaker connections between a brain structure that controls emotional response, and the amygdala, which plays a key role in the processing of emotions. The study suggests that the brain's "panic button" may stay “on” due to lack of regulation.
    Not so fast! This research asks you to uncritically accept and to take for granted that the physical makeup of the brain determines your emotions. Period. It just isn’t so.

If these researchers were trying to repair a room full of computers damaged by malware, they’d be the sort of numbnut who’d immediately destroy computers, printers, cameras, keyboards, and even mice, while ignoring the malware causing your problems.

As Hurd says,

Research like this University of Wisconsin study treats the hardware of the brain (i.e., your laptop) as the only relevant factor in emotion (output). It leaves out any notion of programming (i.e., Windows or any operating system) and reduces all mental functioning — thought, emotions, feelings — to sheer mechanics.

So what does determine your emotions then, if not your wiring?  Answer: It’s not your hardware, it’s your software: it’s in the choices we make, and our consequent evaluation of what the facts around us represent, for good and ill.

Emotions come about as a result of how our minds are programmed by ourselves or by others whom we allow (either consciously or by default) to program our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and viewpoints…
    Our emotions … are the result of a complex array of thoughts, beliefs, ideas and (critically understood or not) underlying premises… 
    We all make choices whether or not to think. And we often choose what (and what not) to think by subjecting ourselves to the will, beliefs, actions and attitudes of others. Either way, it’s a choice. The physical hardware of our brains – the amygdala and all the rest – is certainly not immaterial, but is not the fundamental cause of our emotions, thoughts, ideas and values.
    I miss the relevance of the mind in what used to be the field of psychology. Knowledge of the brain's functioning is no threat to psychology, but it can’t replace it, either.

Read on for more: Programming the Brain (DE Wave)

UPDATE: There’s an unacknowledged impact that philosophical theories, for good and ill, have on psychological theories—which I’ve touched on in the comments. Philosopher Diana Hsieh’s podcast ‘Philosophy Versus Psychology’ is worth a listen on this one.

America is dead. Long live America. [updated]

This year, finally, I’ve decided that the small face of liberty up there on this blog’s masthead really has to go.

July 4, 2013, American Independence Day, seems the appropriate day in which to begin the process—because the America  that Lady Liberty once represented is now dead, and the symbol that more properly represents her now is no longer an image of liberty. It is their Eagle of State.

There was a time when America’s Lady Liberty, a gift from France in the liberty-loving nineteenth century, represented a world in which the ideal of liberty was expounded, was expanding, and was taking over the world.  Her creator, sculptor Frederic Bartholdi called her "Liberty Enlightening the World."  That is the ideal that masthead of liberty is supposed to represent, and once did.

Nowhere represented that ideal more than America itself in her founding decades.

America was born in liberty. In resisting British tyranny, the American Founding Fathers harked back to European thinkers who had first and most thoroughly given voice to liberty—to Blackstone, to Montesquieu, to John Locke.

America was unique. Where other countries had been founded on accidents of geography or tribal history, America was the first country in all history to be founded on an idea: that all men are created equal and are endowed with rights; that among these rights are those to life, liberty and the pursuit of property and happiness; that the proper job of government is not to usurp these rights, but to protect them; that these truths are held to be, or should be, self-evident.

That was the country, in all its many imperfections, to which the Founding Fathers gave birth, and the Fourth of July celebration once commemorated. The celebration wasn’t just nationalistic jingoism—July 4 wasn’t just a day to celebrate American independence, but our own as well.

That is the spirit the masthead above is intended to represent.

That is not what the United Police States stands for today.

In the former Land of the Free, tyranny has been beating back liberty for nearly a century.  This year, 2013, it is finally obvious tyranny has won. Instead of Lady Liberty peeking over the parapet ready to conquer—like the new sunrise of freedom the masthead’s figure is intended to represent—she is now the setting sun of an ideal that flamed, and burned, and has been slowly snuffed out.

The idea of America lives on. But America as the representation of that ideal is now dead.

Happy July 4th.

ROLLING UPDATES: 

• “The stupidity and wilful ignorance of our present era cannot dull the force and wisdom of Jefferson's ideas,” says Dr Michael Hurd. “Nothing ever will.  ”Happy 4th of July: In celebration of what might have been, and what one day will be again.”
  All of the following quotes are those of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence….
• "If it is ever proper for men to kneel, we should kneel when we read the Declaration of Independence...  probably the greatest document in human history, both philosophically and literarily.”– Ayn Rand.

“I suffer from depression”

We’ve all heard folk declaring they “suffer from depression” in the same way we might say “ I suffer from asthma/allergies/the flu—in other words, as if it’s a sickness they’re unlucky enough to have caught, about which there’s nothing they can do but ride it out.

Psychologist Dr Michael Hurd questions this approach, arguing that the way to begin dealing properly with  the affliction is not to abdicate  responsibility for our emotions, but instead to take responsibility for them. Naturally, this view doesn’t receive much support from many “professionals”:

The world is full of people, particularly educated or sophisticated types, who like to feel more viable or important by encouraging passivity in you. The therapy field is full of this type, as are most of the educated, influential, powerful and "chattering" classes. Their membership in this elite does not automatically make them right. And their seeming concern -- if not fawning desire -- to ensure your best interests does not automatically mean that your interests will be met by listening to them.
    To me, it makes infinitely more sense to look at your habits of thinking as the causes of your problems, not only because it's true -- but it also implies the solution is in your hands.

The solution is in your hands once your realise that emotions are not causeless. Emotions in fact are the result of prior thinking, or refusal to think—“a reflection or extension of the way that we think. In other words, we are what we think. And what we think "prints out" in the form of emotions. This is not unfair or unkind blaming. It's simply a recognition of fact. It's also more hopeful than the passive approach.”

Depression, properly defined, is a state of "learned helplessness." This term arose out of the research of Martin Seligman and others. Ironically, the medicalization of emotions reinforces the very state of depression it's supposed to "treat." It tells you, "You're not responsible for your emotional state. Something else is. And once treated, while you sit and wait, you will be fine." To me, this seems like a cruel and twisted joke. You tell the person whose emotional state is dominated by "I can't do anything to change myself" by claiming, in effect, "You can't do anything to change yourself."

But you can. Don’t medicalise your emotions, as too many “professionals” encourage (and certainly don’t turn to bad religion as a solace), instead

try to fight what the established world -- even the established world of mental health and self-help, unfortunately -- tries to tell you. Get past these notions of "I suffer from" this or that "mental disorder." Instead, look objectively at what your mind is actually saying and doing. Look at what your attitude is, and whether your attitudes or beliefs are fact-based or not, or require changing. Find someone to help you? Surely, if it's needed. But find someone to help you at this task. Don't find someone to "help" you merely look at yourself as a weak, helpless creature subject to whatever disease of emotions you happened to inherit. That's not really the way it is.

Read "The Medicalization of Emotions Has a Price" at Dr Hurd’s Daily Dose of Reason.