Brad:
Biological/biochemical views of mental illness as a "disease" are certainly
popular, at the moment, and one of the contested paradigms in psychiatry. The
opposing paradigm, at the risk of simplicity, tends to construct mental illness
in terms of correctable psycho-social disorders. I, personally tend to favour
the latter, as it provides scope for looking at the mediation of society in the
individual's psychology and the potential for transformation of the individual's
agency. The kind of epistemology favoured by the treating physician/therapist,
in understanding the mental illness [whether it be an anxieity disorder,
clinical depression, PTSD, etc..] no doubt influences the treatment method.
A concern I have about the biological model, and its link to genetics, and the
use of pills, is that it becomes a convenient argument for policing the mentally
ill through repressive legislation, such as Ontario's Bill 68, which forces the
mentally ill to take their medication, or face involuntary incarceration, as a
social response, rather than providing adequate support services and funding to
address the human needs of the mentally ill to integrate with their community,
and experience compassion and acceptance. It becomes too easy to assess
behaviour on the basis of whether pills are being taken, or not, rather than in
terms of isolation, limited life opportunities, and marginalization. Medication
refusal can often be a symbolic gesture with multiple meanings - wanting to be
"normal" or a form of denial of the illness, depending upon the individual
biography, as one possibility.
Regards,
Bob Bowd
"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote:
> Timework Web wrote:
> [snip]
> > Back in the 1950s Gregory Bateson and his colleagues developed a theory of
> > schizophrenia based on family dynamics and a communicational "double
> > bind". On the basis of this work, Bateson predicted that there might be a
> > genetically transmitted chemical imbalance, which was later confirmed by
> > medical research. As a consequence of the confirmation of the chemical
> > imbalance, "meds" have become the primary way of treating
> > schizophrenia. Ironically, attention to family dynamics and communication
> > has waned. We have this tendency to reduce complex social and
> > psychological issues to a simplistic either/or dichotomy. EITHER there's a
> > physiological problem OR a social dysfunction. There's no room in such a
> > view for interaction between the physiological and the social.
> [snip]
>
> Gregory Bateson, like the architect Philip Johnson, was not
> always consistent with himself. He tried lots of ideas.
>
> In addition to his "double bind" theory, Bateson wrote
> a far less well-known but very important book on psychiatry,
> with Jurgen Ruesch:
>
> _Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry_
>
> (W.W. Norton, 1951). I have said before: psychiatry has yet to
> "catch up with" this fine book.
>
> Surely there is a "biological factor" in schizophrenia and
> other "mental illnesses", for there are some persons who, no matter
> what horrors befall them short of major brain damage, turn out
> to be great successes in life. Maybe they are the Andrew
> Carnegies (Horatio Algers?) of the second dismal "science"
> (psychology).
>
> The 10 words-or-less "net" of the Ruesch and Bateson book,
> extrapolated to the workplace, would have every group of
> persons who work together produce, along with whatever
> the nominal [first-order] product of their activity, also
> self-reflection on their work process itself as *a* key
> component of that process (a co-product of all
> work is the conditions of working life for the producers).
>
> "Yours in discourse..."
>
> +\brad mccormick
>
> --
> Let your light so shine before men,
> that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
> Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
