Bamboozled, hornswoggled and hoodwinked?

Good point Fool but then maybe we need to inquire into how the available 'therapy' hours are being distributed. Could it be that some people are 'hogging' at the expense of others? Just asking. It seems to me there are a lot of 'lifers' who have been going to a weekly one on one therapy session for years and years.

This may only be true in the private sector with the exact opposite being true in the public systems. I know in Canada insurance will only pay for a limited number of sessions before it becomes self paid. At least I think that is how it works here.

The only talk therapy that I have received was from the local mental health centre and it seemed that once the crisis had passed, the hook up with a pdoc for a dx was made, scripts written (not taken by case - fear based) I was shuffled out the door. It really felt like the script was the goal as though it was the only therapeutic response that mattered. I needed convincing, to run out of other optoins. It took me almost 5 years before a doctor rotated into the clinic that I could trust to work with me as a partner before I had the courage to walk down that road. I continue to have very mixed feelings about the meds but I am grateful to have a GP that understands my concerns.

The quote comes from an article written by Jay Einhorn, Ph.D., entitled, Truth and Turf in the Psychotherapy Wars: Two Hands Clapping?

Dr. Einhorn provides a synopsis of the kerfuffle created by another article as reported by Newsweek here: http://www.newsweek.com/2009/10/01/i...-evidence.html

When confronted with evidence that treatments they offer are not supported by science, clinicians argue that they know better than some study what works. In surveys, they admit they value personal experience over research evidence, and a 2006 Presidential Task Force of the American Psychological Association—the 150,000-strong group dominated by clinicians—gave equal weight to the personal experiences of the clinician and to scientific evidence, a stance they defend as a way to avoid "cookbook medicine." A 2008 survey of 591 psychologists in private practice found that they rely more on their own and colleagues' experience than on science when deciding how to treat a patient. (This is less true of psychiatrists, since these M.D.s receive extensive scientific training.) If they keep on this path as insurers demand evidence-based medicine, warns Mischel, psychology will "discredit and marginalize itself."

An editorial in the October 15, 2009 issue of Nature also took psychology to task: There is a moral imperative to turn psychology into a robust and valued science. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/461847a.html

The monograph the criticisms are based on is here: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/...i/pspi_9-2.pdf

Dr. Einhorn says of the monograph:

Its authors, implicitly defining randomized clinical trials (RCT) as science in psychology, explicitly define evidenced-based treatments as those which have been validated by RCT studies, and consign all other methods of therapy to the garbage pail of superstition and uninformed personal preference.

The American Psychological Association not surprisingly did not agree. Mary Beth Cresci, Ph.D., offered a rebuttal entitled, Psychology in the News: The Sport of Couch Bashing. Dr. Cresci implies the authors of the criticisms were hoodwinked (oh no!) by the writers of the monograph:

It is a shame that writers like Begley and Abbott have chosen to malign our profession based on information provided by a group who wish to justify APS’s efforts to establish an accrediting body in opposition to APA’s system. Begley has done a great injustice to psychology by publicizing these unfounded claims and fostering a negative impression in the minds of the public about the effectiveness of clinical psychology treatment. She and Abbott have both bought into the argument that psychology is not scientifically based. These articles can only undermine the confidence of the individual who might be seeking help for mental health problems. Many psychologists, including Katherine Nordal, Executive Director of the APA Practice Organization, have responded to the false statements in Begley’s article (Newsweek, October 19, 2009, Letter to the Editor). http://www.division39.org/pdfs/PPFall2009.pdf

In her rebuttal, Dr. Cresci refers to the work of Jonathan Shedler in support of her postion:

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is effective for a wide range of mental health symptoms, including depression, anxiety, panic and stress-related physical ailments, and the benefits of the therapy grow after treatment has ended, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on the psychological roots of emotional suffering. Its hallmarks are self-reflection and self-examination, and the use of the relationship between therapist and patient as a window into problematic relationship patterns in the patient’s life. Its goal is not only to alleviate the most obvious symptoms but to help people lead healthier lives. http://www.apa.org/news/press/releas...c-therapy.aspx See also: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/rel...-2-shedler.pdf and http://www.psychsystems.net/shedler.html

Dr. Einhorn tells us, "But the argument about which evidence is real evidence obscures the larger issues." He goes on to inform us why and concludes:

Meanwhile, I’m reminded of the reflection of the poet and teacher Jalaluddin Rumi, that things that appear to be opposed may really be working together; as when the “opposition” of two hands produces a handclap. Perhaps the opposition of the psychodynamic and radical empiricist traditions will produce an effect that will lead many therapists (and maybe even reporters, if they take the trouble to study up on it) to a more inclusive and commonsense mainstream understanding of what therapy is and how it works. Shedler moves in this direction when he acknowledges the overlap between cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic therapy while respecting their differences. Maybe, even, the opposition between truth-seeking and turf-gathering, even when done by the same people, can help the rest of us, through observation, to learn to sort out the one from the other; leading to a more inclusive perspective that we can ground our work in, train students in, and communicate to the public. Wouldn’t that be a step forward for psychotherapy! http://psychatlarge.blogspot.com/201...rapy-wars.html

[quote=Fool Zero;1646613]Wouldn't that also reflect limited therapy resources, so that the evaluation process has to work something like triage?

The sad thing is, while the number of therapists is being cut, the number of administrative bosses is increasing, as is their pay in many districts, in many cases doubling. This is called "Reorganizing" and is being done to be more effecient, as therapy, as we all know, takes a lot of time and involves one on one work. Politicians like fast, easy solutions and people who don't challenge them, and therapists are as easy to herd as cats, and unfortunately as easy to organize as the same beasties. We are a relatively cheap field in medicine, but since we don't dramatically save lives in the minds of the said politicians, we are expected to save even more money than the somatic fields of health care. much fun!

Unfortunately i have had a lot of patients complain that they have had therapists say "I can cure this in five sessions," and after five sessions they are declared cured and sent out whether they feel their issues have been addressed or not, and while it doesn't always involved CBT styled interventions (or cognitive, as it sounds like yours was) often it has been as if the therapist has somehow thought that the script and technique was a substitute for the relationship and the trust.
I'm pretty new to the field, but I know that some people come with huge wounds in their abilities to trust. If they can't trust, then any attempt to point out mistakes in thinking is goin to sound like an attack, for example, and you five sessions are going to be five wasted hours. Better take a few more hours and make sure that the patient understands that you aren't out to make them feel stupid. You have to think and feel with your heart and mind, not just your theory.
I had a patient when i was an intern who came to me that I was later told by a "colleague" was "untreatable". More like the colleague didn't want to adjust her treatment to fit the client. I can understand that such people can cause a lot of damage, sanityseeker. I'm sorry dear. You didn't deserve that.

To abide by the Community Guidelines I will forgo relating what I think of politicos. I do wonder, however, about the influence of Big Pharma in the "Reorganizing" you speak of, lonegael.

In the article that follows, Romulo Lander discusses concepts of "mental health" and "normality." Here is a taste:

Psychoanalysis promotes mental health through ‘unconscious work’, which gives people the opportunity to know themselves and accept themselves as they are. This ‘work’ is achieved by a person becoming more conscious, more aware, alongside an inner emotional experience that one could call ‘becoming responsible’. All this leads the individual to modify the harshness of his or her own infantile superego, and it is this that gives him or her the strength to bear painful feelings and face the problems of everyday life. One could say that this is what psychoanalysis offers. http://www.ipa.org.uk/eng/news---eve...d-two-replies/

Gustav Schulman replies to Lander. He sites Hari thusly:

Our minds cannot be understood or read as single entities because of their relatedness with the surroundings. We would need to be able to read the social interactions to read the mind. http://www.ipa.org.uk/eng/news---eve...on-normality-/

Do you look more inward or outward when gauging your mental health?

Mostly at the interface between inward and outward, I'd say.

By the way, Byz, thank you for posting those links to Shedler's stuff. I haven't gotten very far into either of the two papers (PDFs) I bookmarked but I like the sound of both of them.

The 'therapy' I received was basically crisis intervention. I went until he was convinced that I was no longer at risk of suicide. It helped to actually talk to someone about how I was feeling. I came to trust him surprisingly quickly for me. I prefer to handle things on my own so the fact that I went to the clinic indicates just how bad off I was at the time. I actually thought I was going to an anxiety screening only to find it cancelled. The strain involved sent me into an anxiety meltdown and one of the p-nurses ran after me on my way to my truck to talk me back into his office. I agreed to go back the next day only because he was worried enough about my state that he was going to hospitalize me if I didn't agree. He let me go on the promise I would come back because he knew I had no one else to care for my son.

As it turned out I really benefited from unloading with him. As I stablized more and more each day I enquired about CBT. He kind of laughed saying I could probably teach him more techniques then he knew given my own counselling and teaching background. I thought that odd but was happy he agreed to work through some stuff with me anyways.

I had months earlier in another desperate moment asked my GP to refer me to a pdoc. I was given an appointment the usual 6 months away. As it happened the pdoc came to town twice a month to the mental health clinic. The p-nurse booked me in to see him the next week. It angered me that my GP's office didn't know this. As I mentioned the pdoc did dx me and did script me with 4 different meds (without much discussion about them I might add).

Seeing my resistance and hearing my excuses (financial among them), the p-nurse gave me some samples and gave me some forms that would qualify me for free meds. I agreed to one of them and took the samples and then filled the script the pdoc had given me but when it came time for a refill my GP would not do it. He said I needed the pdoc to do that since he was the original prescriber. Back we go to the 6 month wait. Seemed access to the pdoc when he comes to the clinic is a one time only offer. Boy was I angry. I didn't want the meds. They talk me into the meds and then I can't get a refill. I called the clinic to see if Frank could help me only to find he was now on a leave of absence. His replacement told me I would just have to wait and when I asked if she would do some CBT work with me she seemed less then enthused. I did one set of worksheets with her that were so unrelated to my issues and her analysis of my responses so off track that I never went back. I threw my arms in the air, coped with the effexor withdrawl and subsequent mood flip, cancelled my appointment with the pdoc and went back to being med free and coping on my own.

Sorry for the long winded story but that experience still ticks me off. I really kicked myself because this was hardly the first time the system had screwed me. All I could think of was the definition of insanity.... doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I truly must have been insane to ask for help knowing how it would end up.

I did ask for help again from a new GP after almost a year of seeing him for my thyroid treatment. Things were not improving for me and in some ways getting worse. I sensed he would be trustworthy to talk with so I asked him about meds. He was great. He didn't just shuffle pills at me but explained my options. I didn't agree to med therapy right away. I needed time to think about all that he had told me. A couple weeks later after I had done some more research and talked to some folks here I made an appointment to get started on the meds. They told me he had left the clinic. Of cours I went mum with the new doc. It took another year to build up enough trust to bring up the subject of my mental health with him. My family had been pressuring me hard and this doc actually had some experience with bi polar patients so I agreed to step into med land again.

I am due for blood work to check my thryroid so I called to get a lab order only to find out that yet again my doctor has been replaced. If history is any indicator I will likely not be asking for a script from a total stranger when my meds run out. Here I go again. Yea... trust is a big one. It takes time and often there just isn't enough time or consistency of service to overcome trust issues.

It does warm my heart lonegael that there are people like you helping people like us out there. Sadly, just not in my back yard. Keep up the great work. And don't worry about me. I have handle a lot worse then the hassles presented by the medical system. It is what it is.

I think people can do this 'work' with or without the aid of a therapist. I think with or with out a mental illness this journey is taken by everyone one way or another. I think that in my case at least, desperation has forced me to do the work just to survive. I don't think one has much choice no matter how well supported or how isolated one is in the journey but to develop the strength to bear the pain and face problems. Its that or die. The pain and problems are present everyday to some degreee and one becomes so desperate for relief from above normal levels of pain that they find ways to deal with it.

I give thanks to the internet for giving me access to information and to tools a therapist might otherwise be able to provide me. I also am grateful for my own past learning and spiritual understandings. Without those I would have cracked up for sure by now.

Gustav Schulman makes no mention of the spiritual as a domain of reality. He named the physcial, psychological and emotional but did not acknowledge the spiritual. Perhaps Landers 'unconscious work' in some ways speaks to our spritual understanding and how that understanding empowers us to cope with the pain and problems we face in life.

When Shulman speaks of integration of the various subprocesses of the brain as an indicator of wellness..... based on learned social skills and the ability to make moral judgement.... he still fails to mention the spiritual domain's role in teaching and forming those skills and abilities.

I think this is a weakness in both of their analyses of how we come to develop and maintain mental wellness.

That being said, in answer to your question Byz, 'Do you look more inward or outward when gaging your mental health?'.... I would say both and add a third one.... I look upward to Spirit. What I 'feel' I can not grasp or cope with that has manifest itself in the physcial, emotional or psychological domain I seek understanding, clarity and comfort from Spirit.

I remind myself that I am a spiritual being having a human experience. As such my physical, emotional or psychological pain is a teaching tool to raise my spiritual understanding. My 'earthly' experience is designed to raise my spiritual consciousness.

This belief provides me with the strength and acceptance I need to not only cope with suffering but as much as I am able, to embrace suffering. Then and only then do I find myself open to finding out what the suffering has to teach me. How it relates to how I am co-existing. How it relates to how I am preceiving things around me. If I let it, it will teach me what I need to understand to better integrate my perceptions of reality to those of my surroundings so I am less in conflict, less in pain and more in harmony with my world and with all that inhabits my world.

The travails you speak of when seeking help I expect will resonate with many, sanityseeker. For me, I think the issue was more ego than trust. Growing up isolated in my own little world because there was no one else to talk to forced me to use my wits to survive, as limited as they were. My perception of my self-worth was dependent on how well I felt. If I was not doing well, it was because I had not thought enough, worked hard enough or willed enough. The thought of being unable to take care of myself was unacceptable to me. To have thought otherwise would have destroyed my already fragile ego.

When I succumbed to my illness, I was devastated - even though I understood I needed help. Having to accept the fact I could not get better on my own was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I viewed this inability as a character flaw, a weakness, a lack of will, and the wrath of God for being a bad boy.

Once I did seek treatment, I went all in. For years, I was convinced I would get better if I found the right therapist and the right medication. When I did not, I yelled at God and cursed my weakness. At other times, I was convinced I would never get better because of the sins of my youth.

What demons an unwell mind may conjure. Wow!

Now that I am better I prefer a different tune:

In my case, I surmise I may have left the womb already a veteran of trauma because of my father's violence. I mention this not as a matter of one-upmanship but to perhaps capture just how skewed my perception of the world was from a very early age. The cycle of abuse was a constant throughout my time at home and for years after.

My desperation did force me to make decisions that allowed me to survive into my adulthood. Even so, it took therapy to give me the tools to close the door that lead to the demons in my dungeon.

Nonetheless, I know I have been blessed. I have gotten better. As lonegael has pointed out, there are some who are incapable, at least initially, of being an active participant in their treatment.

You make some good points about the value of spirituality, sanityseeker. Your articulation is way ahead of mine. You have created a philosophy that works for you. I think of the lyrics from Amazing Grace, "I once was lost but now am found," and conclude there is more to find.

For me, "normal," "reality," and "truth" are concepts that guide me on my quest for wellness. Each of us must choose what those concepts mean. I prefer to think in terms of what I need in my life for it to be meaningful.

Thanks again to all who have contributed to stretching my brain.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...83066/illusion
http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/34046?page=3
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/ma...38&pf=3&page=1
http://www.promoteacceptance.samhsa....0/default.aspx
http://www.uic.edu/depts/wellctr/dimen.shtml

I love the contrast of the songs. I will admit I didn't listen to all of the first one (though I am familiar with it) but I did listened more then once to the second one. I am actually listening to it while I reply.

My brother often says that we had the perfect childhood and for the most part I agree with him. At least until I was 12 and my mother was confined to a wheel chair after a horrible farm accident when she was run over by a tractor. It totally turned our perfect lives upside down. We totally fragmented. We each coped in isolation. By the time I was 15 my brother had left for university, my father moved out to take up with another woman (now his wife), within a year my sister moved in with him and my mother was still in and out of hospital with me providing her care when she was home. There were many traumatic times during those 3 years before people moved out and left me and mum home. The years to follow didn't get any better as her addiction to meds became more and more distructive and my sense of hopelessness that I couldn't break her sadness took a bigger and bigger toll on me.

Even though I had family I could go to I kept most things to myself. Their support sounded more like criticism to me. Their promises to relieve me, to visit mum more proved empty more often then not. I was very isolated and very recentful of everyone else. I hated the doctors for hooking my mum on drugs and then institutionalizing her and giving her shock treatment to get off them only to put her back on them and starting the cycle again. I hated my dad for abandoning me and my mum. Hated my brother, my sister for abandoning me. Hated that my mother still loved them. I was angry at everyone including myself because I failed to make my mother happy.

I can relate to what you say about self worth. I was driven to perform to get attention for my talents. In part to mask how much of a failure I felt inside. Like you if I was feeling depressed or unwell in anyway I would journal and journal and journal trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, what I needed to do differently, try harder, do more. It wasn't until I was in my 40's after a lifetime of drama and a final crushing blow at a time when physically I was at my weakest ever that I began to consider a psychiatric explanation. I can't honestly say that I have yet fully accepted the explanation. I question it all the time. I hate the labels I think. I hate that I am suppose to take at credential value someone's label for what ails me. It is a control thing I think. I still need to be able to fix myself, to be responsible for myself, to not need anyone else. I expect to be abandoned so I must be able to stand alone or surely I will die.

Counselling advice I will take. I like to work with others so that I can learn and grow and understand more and I like to gain insights about myself and human behaviour but I get really nervous and anxious beyond that. If I could afford a therapist I would probably enjoy and benefit from the work we could do together but its not in my negative zero budget nor is it very accessable.

I don't think I have really accepted that I can't get well on my own. My family provides some support but for the most I give them the picture they want because otherwise I feel guilty. I may have foregiven them for the past but I still hold back from counting on them for anything. As I have mentioned before I do have elders and spiritual teachers I can turn to but my visits are fewer and farther between as the years go by and some have passed away.

I think in many ways our life experience determines how we cope and who we invite to help us through the journey. Helpers will be put in our path as we need them in a way by which we can receive them. I have not been without helpers. I have been blessed to be loved and cared for by some very special people. I have not gone without help but I have received help in less conventional or typical ways maybe.

I think you make an important point here. Since major trauma didn't enter my life until I was 12 I had a good foundation from which to reference going forward. I had a strong identity and personal power. I even had positional power in my family and amongst my friends. I had a lot going for me in term of knowing instinctively how to survive.

There is a lot of research about the effects of trauma on unborn children. The happiness or sadness of the pregnant woman is communicated to and taken on by the fetus. It sets those children of abused women up for a rough go at life. It would stand to reason that if you didn't get the tools from your parents that you would at some point need to get them from some other source. Therapy certainly would be the best alternative to some of the other sources lost and abused children end up turning towards. You were blessed to have had those therapists cross your path so that you can see that you have gotten better.

This is so true and for those people we can only hope they find the support to bring them up to where they can feel some ownership and confidence to take it forward in their lives. This is where the critical breakdowns in the system have the greatest impact. There is no room for error when one is dependant on accuracy and correctness to prevail.

I like that..... a peaceful way to be open to seeing and understanding more. Gives meaning to life.

I like that too.... as complex as one could take defining those concepts you have managed to keep it simple and relavent to you. Embracing that which is meaningful in your life. Suggests a freedom from the need to please others.... to live according to someone else's standards or expections. Society's standards or expectations. Self determined freedom to know yourself and please yourself. In this everyone gains.

I look forward to reading the links I have missed and the new ones you added but for now I will need to give my eyes a rest. I have been up all night reading and writing and my eyes are about done with for now.

Take care. Its been enlightening to talk about this stuff. I have learned alot about you and myself in this process. I have so much yet to learn and so far yet to grow and I am good with all of that because it is all part of the journey.

When I was feeling least integrated, I had little or no awareness of any such thing as the "spiritual domain." Whenever I'd look in that direction I'd encounter the religious domain instead -- which to me was one more set of rules that I was mostly failing to follow, and that had brought me little satisfaction when I had tried to follow them.

I'm inclined to think now that the spiritual domain is something that only emerges when we've gotten a certain way along in sorting out and integrating our other domains. My father used to advise me that if I'd just go through the motions of being religious -- say my prayers, go to church, do lip service to the applicable commandments, identify with the religious community, seek out believers as friends and lovers in preference to nonbelievers -- things would get better for me. Even though I had only a very dim sense of the spiritual at the time, those practices felt to me like the very antithesis of whatever it was I wanted for myself.

If I'd told myself at that time that I was questing after spiritual satisfaction, I would have had to figure out how to tell that from what others were calling naive idealism and/or a symptom of psychosis.

Thank you Fool Zero for sharing your comments. Without violated PC guidelines prohibiting any discussion about religion, let me respond with this thought.... If rather then viewing spiritually from a purely religious perspective you were to view 'spirit' as your heart song; the place where pure self love and inner peace lives in you; the place where your hearts desires, your hopes and dreams, your vision for your life resides, would that make any difference to your perceptions of spiritual?

We hear a lot about the relationship between self esteem and wellness. People with mental illness often suffer low self esteem no matter how accomplished they are. We can go through life doing things to try to prove our worth, our value, our goodness. We can accumulate wealth, we can accumulate stuff, but if we don't have self love no accomplishment and no amount of money in the world will convince us we are worthy of love based on those things alone.

Worthiness comes from within. From loving yourself unconditionally. From loving yourself just because love is the essence of life. We can have loving parents, a loving mate, loving children, loving friends etc but their love can't make us love ourselves. We have to sense it, connect with it from within.

If not accomplishments, wealth, the love of others, or any other external source we could name, then from where do we find self love? And why do we universally crave it? Why when we don't know it we can't seem to know the fullness of joy and happiness? Why when we don't feel it do we suffer for the lack of it? We will suffer physically, emotionally and intellectually if our self esteem is in the gutter. We feel an emptiness if we do not have self love.

So for me it is important to balance the wellness model with attention to spirit because for me it is spirituality that best encompasses love of self and we are not wholy well without self love.

Shulman may well argue that one of the other domains addresses the issue of self love but for me it wasn't clear enough. It doesn't give self love and our heart's desires enough weight. For me the source of self love, the home of our desires from life is spirit. A nature within us separate from our physical, intellectual and emotional makeup. Nevertheless it is, in my belief system, a critical aspect of our whole being that needs to be integrated with the others in order to achieve wellness.

I have babbled enough so I will stop myself from getting too carried away. Thanks for provoking me to clarify... or perhaps just muddy it up some more. lol.

Nowadays that looks like the only way to view it but... it was not always thus.

I'm pretty sure that if I'd found myself adopting a viewpoint like that at the age of, say, twenty, besides questioning it just out of habit...

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Where did this come from? Is it some
kind of delusion? Will I still feel the
same way next week? What if I don't?
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

... I wouldn't have been ready to sustain it. It simply wasn't anything I was prepared to deal with at the time.

Ten or fifteen years later, when I shared with someone who I thought knew me pretty well what I was experiencing, she told me that no, I was mistaken. Obviously I wasn't ready to experience that, so I only thought I was experiencing it. By then, I was prepared to ask (myself and her) how she knew that. Ten or fifteen years earlier I would just have assumed that everyone but me did in fact know it.
No complaints from me, so far. That did remind me of a teacher who, early in the course, told us he hoped our discussion would shed some light on the subject -- or if darkness, then at least interesting darkness.

Does Eckhart Tolle speak to you?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religio...lle15_CV_N.htm
http://www.google.com/search?q=Eckha...ed=0CHoQqwQwCw

So what do you need in your life for it to be meaningful Byz? Others?

I very much enjoyed the article in psych today. The britannica peice was a little too heady for me so I only scanned it. But the psych today artilce was most interesting and full of 'truths' for me.

Coming back to your post caused me thing 'what is truth?' While there is factual truth that can't be disputed... 'It's raining outside my house.' No on looking out my window at the same time as me is likely to dispute the truthfullness of the statement. Thus making truth in that context undisputable.

There is also assumed truth which is a truth that has become a social norm within an historical, cultural, religious, etc. framework.... 'He is the truth the light and the way'. Some may declare it to be undisputably factual while other will declare, just as emphatically that there is no hard and undisputable evidence to support the claim. Thus making truth arguable.

There is also what might be referred to as 'personal truth'..... 'doctors can't be trusted', 'my husband is a bully', 'that is an ugly looking dog'. While it may be true for me it may not be true for you. While it may be true in part, it may not be true in whole. My personal truth is really my opinion, my position, my perception.... based on my experiences, my preferences, my research, etc. that influence me to interprete the truth one way or another. My personal truth may, and likely will, change over the course of my lifetime. Thus making truth dynamic or active.

Are there any other versions of the truth?

As you say Byz, each of us chooses what the concept means and how the meaning we attach to it impacts how we live our lives and why we do, feel or think what we do. How we make decisions, who we associate with, what we do with our lives, what we believe about anything and everything. Truth satisfies a need to know or believe something in order to feel satisfied, safe, comforted, 'normal', peaceful, etc.

If we don't have a sense of what is true what would happen to us? Would we fall apart for lack of boundaries, definitions, norms or would we be more tolerant, creative, adventuresome, innocent, free? I sometimes wonder if I don't hold on to personal truths like a toodler hangs onto thier 'blanky or susu'. Is it mearly a means to establish greater conformity (the comfort of 'normalcy')? Am I just convincing myself in order to get some kind of personal payback or does it serve a higher value or purpose? Or is the personal payback reason enough? And is that just another need.... for the payback to be enough?

Just thinking outloud but it would be interesting to hear other thoughts on the subject. From either your light or your darkness.... to pull from Fool Zero's comments that suggests to me that no thoughts are without their value. No position absolute.

For me it's long been important to divide up personal truth according to how I know it -- especially, according to what viewpoint I'm adopting toward it. To borrow your example, 'doctors can't be trusted': I can view that as a statement, not necessarily true, about doctors; argue with someone else who says they can, too be trusted; or worry that other people are doing just fine trusting their doctors and maybe my problem is that I'm not very good at telling who can and can't be trusted. For me there's not much truth in that flavor of "personal truth".

Alternatively, I can simply notice that I don't trust this one particular doctor. I greatly prefer that flavor of personal truth because there's no way to argue about it. You say I do, too trust that doctor? But how could you possibly know whether I do or not. You say you trust that same doctor -- fine, that's what's true for you, and I can get it. You add that I should trust that doctor too -- and with that, you've stepped into the other flavor of personal truth, the one with not much truth in it. What does "should" mean, anyway?

Staying with my own experience that I don't trust that doc, I could go on to notice that I didn't trust my last three docs either and that it all seems to lead back to that one doc I had when I was 5, who'd tell me some cock and bull story about what he was going to draw on my back, then slip me the needle without finishing the story or the drawing. That's my idea of personal truth, the true kind.

Added note.... I would expect that our concepts of 'normal' and 'reality' would have the same kinds of layers as 'truth' but their is something else those words trigger for me.

After reading the article in psychology today and viewing the links Byz left for us about the keys to wellness this thought nagged on me....

How hypocritical is the existing mental health care approach?

I know that I am hypersensitive to med therapy. I have very strong opinions that some might say border on paranoia about medication for mental illness. I accept that assessment of my views, and further I accept that my clinging to my views reduces my openness to, comfort with, presently, having them altered. I accept there are situation where medication maybe the best course of action. I accept that we each must determine for ourselves if and when med therapy is right for us. I accept that there is no hard evidence to difinitively shut down the discussion one way or another for me. There is no hard evidence to comfort me about my position or confirm the correctness of my decisions.

On a side note.... I find it interesting how I rationalize taking meds even though I cling to an anti-med position. I say to myself 'I take the meds to get my family off my back and basically I welcome death so if meds are bad for me, do your damage sooner rather than later please'. Then my spiritual beliefs and understanding chime in and challenge me to remember the purpose of my existance and to some degree chastize me for spitting in the face of life's gifts. I am not learning from the experience because I let fears (particularly trust) block me from knowing. I am still searching for a common ground that I can live with and from which I can unlock the fears so that I can move forward to honourably, assertively, comfortably, confidently be the best me I can.

Anyways.... back to the question of hypocracy.... I question this because on one hand we know that the side effects of p-meds can and do shorten people's lifespan. Can and do result in physical problems. On the other hand we know that a healthy lifestyle is key to good mental health.

Where the hypocacy comes into play for me is how secondary or even tirchiary wellness in terms of lifestyle choices is in the 'standard' medical - psychiatric response to symptoms of mental illness. Even in the psych today article, the personal stories indicated the course of treatment to be dx, medication, psych-therapy, exercise.

No doubt there are cases where people need to be stabilized with meds before other treatment can be effective. But are not those the exception rather than the rule? If they are the exception rather then the rule then why is the rule to dx and medicate first?

This is the hypocracy that causes me to question the ethicacy of med treatment. Is med treatment necessary, is it done prematurely, is it more then a band-aide? It causes me to be suspicious because I have determined, at least at this point in time, from observation, reviewing literature, and from personal experience that the system has opted or been forced into taking the quickest and most efficient course of action when treating people with mental illness. I have determined that people with mental illness are 'less thans' in our society; that expediency counts more then people; that the system and the actors in it can't be trusted, not because of bad intentions but because the sytem is broken. I determine that the system is a dangerous place especially for someone like me who, for various reasons cannot or maybe just will not assert herself for fear of being chastized or put to the side and ignored.

Very good point. Over generalizing a 'truth' can absolutely degenerate the truth. Being honest with myself, I must admit that my overgeneralization about doctors has been challenged on more then one occassion. I have had doctors I grew to trust. It would always come as a surprise because I had taken this absolute position.

A colleague once said to me about trust... "I trust everyone until they prove to be untrustworthy."

I would likely be much better off if I were to assume that position with doctors in the future. It doesn't matter how many times doctors have let me down it only matters if the doctor I am currently being asked to trust has let me down or not.

Thanks for triggering the insight. I feel foolish for being so dense about it, yet on the other hand it speaks to how emotion influences cognitive processes to form opinions. How someone will go to any lengths to cling to a belief because they think it makes them safe.

Perhaps demonstrating the dynamic, growth and development of personal truth, while I might challenge the absoluteness of my position I will do so gradually by stating that some doctors can't be trusted so I will take my time to see if my trust in 'this doctor' is warranted. lol

"Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
- Don Juan" ~George Gordon Byron

Hello, sanityseeker and Fool Zero. I was in the midst of confusing myself (as follows) before I read your posts. My short answer is I have a difficult time thinking well of those who prize turf and greed over people.

My attempt to add meaning to my life is made more challenging by the semantics used to describe various concepts such as “truth,” “reality” or “values.” I expect I make this process more difficult by wanting to ensure my understanding of a concept is the correct one. It is an ego thing. Definitions of concept vary in degree of difficulty:

Concept may be defined as: Any abstract notion or idea by virtue of which we apply general terms to things. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/c7.htm#cpt

A concept (abstract term: conception) is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology such as a single meaning of a term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept

Concept, in the Analytic school of philosophy, the subject matter of philosophy, which philosophers of the Analytic school hold to be concerned with the salient features of the language in which people speak of concepts at issue. Concepts are thus logical, not mental, entities. A typical instance of the use of concept is in The Concept of Mind (1949) by Gilbert Ryle, an Oxford Analyst, which implies that the purpose of the author is not to investigate matters of fact empirically (i.e., by the methods of psychology) about the mind itself but to investigate its “logical geography.” Similarly, investigation of the logical features of discourse about pleasure or duty or remembering is concerned with the concepts of pleasure or duty or memory. To be able to use these linguistic expressions is to apply, or possess, the concepts. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...130938/concept

Concepts, pretheoretically, are the constituents of thoughts. But the pre-theoretic notion only goes so far as an entry point into philosophical theories of concepts. This is partly because concept has become a term of art among philosophers and partly because of the diversity of projects and concerns that tend to get lumped under this one heading. Adding to the confusion is the fact that disputes about concepts often reflect deeply opposing approaches to the study of the mind, language, and even to philosophy itself. Bearing all of this in mind, this entry is organized around five significant issues that are focal points for many theories of concepts. Not every theory of concepts takes a stand on each of the five, but viewed collectively these issues show why the theory of concepts has been such a rich and lively topic in recent years. The five issues are: (1) the ontology of concepts, (2) the structure of concepts, (3) empiricism and nativism about concepts, (4) concepts and natural language, and (5) concepts and conceptual analysis. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/#OntCon

The logical acts of the understanding by which concepts are generated as to their form are:

1. comparison, i.e., the likening of mental images to one another in relation to the unity of consciousness;
2. reflection, i.e., the going back over different mental images, how they can be comprehended in one consciousness; and finally
3. abstraction or the segregation of everything else by which the mental images differ ... In order to make our mental images into concepts, one must thus be able to compare, reflect, and abstract, for these three logical operations of the understanding are essential and general conditions of generating any concept whatever. For example, I see a fir, a willow, and a linden. In firstly comparing these objects, I notice that they are different from one another in respect of trunk, branches, leaves, and the like; further, however, I reflect only on what they have in common, the trunk, the branches, the leaves themselves, and abstract from their size, shape, and so forth; thus I gain a concept of a tree. – Logic, §6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept\

So, are concepts subjective or objective?

Schools of philosophy and psychology have long debated the value of thoughts and ideas by the nature of approach to their investigation. It would seem that the validity of concepts, ideas and information is often judged by our notion of which of these classifications it is deemed to fit—Subjective or Objective. To attempt any understanding of these attitudes or arguments, it is first necessary to find a suitable definition of these terms. Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary provides some interesting insights into the vast diversity of what our language has come to signify by these terms.

Subjective: relating to or determined by the mind as the subject of experience; characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind; phenomenal; arising out of or identified by means of one’s awareness.

Objective: existing independent of mind; belonging to the sensible world and being observable or verifiable especially by scientific methods; expressing or involving the use of facts; derived from sense perception.

If you find it difficult to define exactly where sensory observation ends and individual awareness of that observation begins, you understand the problems of addressing this area of controversy. Even those who chose to selectively define the underlying terms must depend on another’s perception of that definition to have a meaningful discourse. The very nature of the argument is one of definitions.

One of the differentiating factors of objective evaluation seems to be its basis in scientific method. Although relatively recent in its definition, the methods used to investigate and evaluate "scientific" data have been agreed on as a means of determining what is real from what is just thought to be—the objective as contrasted to the subjective. Scientific method relies heavily on observation (sensory input), reproducibility (observing the same output from the same input repeatedly) and consensus (agreement by others on what is a correct observation). Even within the scientific method, there is heavy reliance on interpretation of sensory data, a function of the mind, to prove that a phenomenon (subjective) actually exists (objective) separately from the individual’s perception of it. It would appear that at its most essential level, all objective facts are recognized through repeated subjective experience by enough concurring individuals for them to be accepted as facts. There are many examples throughout history of accepted "facts" that changed dramatically when enough persons experienced a conflicting phenomenon or perceived the old phenomenon in a different context. Copernicus changed what we know of science forever with his introspective insights into celestial observations, which had been interpreted differently and accepted as facts and laws for many years.http://www.lightouch.com/subjobj.htm

This author employs the subjective/objective dichotomy to explore meaning and value:

Following Meaning

The exploration of relationships for their meaning is the exploration of the significance of these relationships for the individual, the exploration of the quality of life that they offer. Relationships pose problems. What happens to relationships when attachments to power and dependency are overcome? What forms does harmony take? Does harmony arise at all? By following the concept of meaning the explorer will find that his relationships change as his understanding of them changes.

Meaning arises from the individual’s relationships. The individual produces new meanings, but only from his contact with society. Meaning does not arise solely from the individual in his isolation. This is why the individual meditator, in his solitude, almost never produces new meanings; he is not relating to anyone. The isolated meditator can only function within the preset values, and the confines, of his spiritual tradition. Society cannot evolve just as a society; it needs the individual.

Some of the meanings that the individual creates are useful to society. These subjective meanings are taken up and transformed into objective, social values. Only when meanings are objectified into values can they enter the arena of discourse. Meanings can transform the individual, whilst values can transform relationships.

The ego is a relative entity. Relativity implies a relationship between two or more variables ; the two extreme poles of human variability are the subjective individual and objective society. Both the individual and society are equal in importance. Only by accepting that meaning is created first by the individual and then expressed in society can the proper appreciation of the individual develop. In this manner, personal meanings that can fulfill social needs are transformed into social values.

The ego is a relative entity. In my view relativity implies that meanings and values lie in the nature of the relationships which a person has. So in the use of truth to eliminate self-deception and confusion, truth becomes centred on meanings and values. Meanings are subjective, values are objective. Subjectivity always arises before objectivity. Hence meanings arise before values do. This view implies that human life is little more than the arena of meanings, values and relationships. The concept of ‘expansion of consciousness’ is shorthand for the principle that the person is continually elevating his meanings into values and transforming his relationships from the material to the mental, then to the spiritual.

Language contains traditional values – this is what is implied in the ideas of social conditioning and socialisation. However, these values are the objectification of the individual’s subjective meanings. In this manner, the individual is an important component of the language system. Language as a system of social facts is built upon the creative individual. http://www.modern-thinker.co.uk/5%20...nd%20Value.htm

It would seem an individual's subjective meaning (concepts?) leads to objective values which may become societal norms?