heya. there is a guy... i think i've mentioned him to you before. elvin semrad. this is a half remembered quote from somewhere (forget where)

`the great psychoanalyst elvin semrad could make any patient sane. how did he do it? through radical empathy, making every effort to think, feel, and be like the patient he succeeded in gaining entry into their delusional world and eventually... drawing them back out'.

bentall (psychologist) wrote a book 'madness explained' and sass (rutgers, psychiatry) has a line... it is a line that is hard to find, but there is a line...

empathy. people don't understand because their empathy is limited. here are some examples that bentall talks about:

'doctor x has turned me into a portfolio'.

thought to be an 'un-understandable delusion'. if you looked into her case file doctor x was indeed writing up her case for conferences / journals etc... and probably... using her to push his line rather than empathetically trying to understand things from her point of view.

'there are bees buzzing inside my skull'.

autopsy revealed a tumor pressing on the primary auditory cortex. it isn't out of the question that this resulted in the patient experiencing a buzzing sound...

and so it goes on... clinicians are more interested in making a point (typically to contrast 'really severely sick before treatment' to 'much better and understandable even after i treated') than they are in humanly interacting and attempting to understand. indeed, current theory is that attempting to understand is pointless if not dangerous. the utterances are 'meaningless' and the content of the 'delusion' does not matter. just medicate and all will be well... only... its not...

****ing *** wipes. i don't think people are as malevolent as they seem to be... ignorance... think ignorance has a lot to ask for. sometimes... i look at the world... the ignorant state of the ****ing people with the ****ing power... and i feel... so pained. so pained at the human race.