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In his treatise, titled "The Presence of Spirits in Madness," Van Dusen provided a window into the inner experience of his patients' "hallucinations." Note that these were not criminally insane people who had perpetrated violent acts, but rather were simply "mentally ill" individuals who had been committed to the institution. So their condition was not as serious or dangerous as that of the criminal perpetrators referenced earlier.
"Out of my professional role as a clinical psychologist in a state mental hospital and my own personal interest, I set out to describe as faithfully as possible mental patients' experiences of hallucinations," he wrote:
The average layman's picture of the mentally ill as raving lunatics is far from reality. Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well.
After dealing with hundreds of such patients, I discovered about four years ago that it was possible to speak to their hallucinations. To do so I looked for patients who could distinguish between their own thoughts and the things they heard and saw in the world of hallucinations. The patient was told that I simply wanted to get as accurate a description of their experiences as possible. I held out no hope for recovery or special reward. It soon became apparent that many were embarrassed by what they saw and heard and hence they concealed it from others.
Also they knew their experiences were not shared by others, and some were even concerned that their reputations would suffer if they revealed the obscene nature of their voices. It took some care to make the patients comfortable enough to reveal their experience honestly. A further complication was that the voices were sometimes frightened of me and themselves needed reassurance. I struck up a relationship with both the patient and the persons he saw and heard. I would question these other persons directly, and instructed the patient to give a word-for-word account of what the voices answered or what was seen. In this way I could hold long dialogues with a patient's hallucinations and record both my questions and their answers.
One consistent finding was that patients felt they had contact with another world or order of beings. Most thought these other persons were living persons. All objected to the term hallucination. Each coined his own term such as The Other Order, the Eavesdroppers, etc.
For most individuals the hallucinations came on suddenly. One woman was working in a garden when an unseen man addressed her. Another man described sudden loud noises and voices he heard while riding in a bus. Most were frightened, and adjusted with difficulty to this new experience. All patients describe voices as having the quality of a real voice, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, than normal voices. The experience they describe is quite unlike thoughts or fantasies. When things are seen they appear fully real. … Most patients soon realize that they are having experiences that others do not share, and for this reason learn to keep quiet about them. Many suffer insults, threats and attacks for years from voices with no one around them aware of it. Women have reported hearing such vile things they felt it would reflect on them should they even be mentioned.
… Lower order voices are as though one is dealing with drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it. They will suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them. They find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably. For instance, one man heard voices teasing him for three years over a ten-cent debt he had already paid. They call the patient every conceivable name, suggest every lewd act, steal memories or ideas right out of consciousness, threaten death, and work on the patient's credibility in every way. For instance they will brag that they will produce some disaster on the morrow and then claim honor for one in the daily paper. They suggest foolish acts (such as: Raise your right hand in the air and stay that way) and tease if he does it and threaten him if he doesn't. The lower order can work for a long time to possess some part of the patient's body. Several worked on the ear and the patient seemed to grow deafer. One voice worked two years to capture a patient's eye which visibly went out of alignment. Many patients have heard loud and clear voices plotting their death for weeks on end, an apparently nerve-wracking experience. One patient saw a noose around his neck which tied to "I don't know what" while voices plotted his death by hanging. They threaten pain and can cause felt pain as a way of enforcing their power. The most devastating experience of all is to be shouted at constantly by dozens of voices. When this occurred the patient had to be sedated.
All of the lower order are irreligious or anti-religious. Some actively interfered with the patients' religious practices. Most considered them to be ordinary living people, though once they appeared as conventional devils and referred to themselves as demons. In a few instances they referred to themselves as from hell. Occasionally they would speak through the patient so that the patient's voice and speech would be directly those of the voices. Sometimes they acted through the patient.
Do these people commit crimes BECAUSE they are on these medications, or are they on these medications because they are already nutz?
The Pharmaceutical companies and physcians who give these drugs to people should be locked up. Psychologist would rather give you a pill than talk to you.
“Why so many Americans today are ‘mentally ill’”
???
How could it be otherwise?
Later Read
There are people for whom these types of drugs do wonderful things. But there are others for whom the drugs were prescribed, and when things went wrong, no one noticed, or they failed to inform the doctor, or the doctor was stupid (or uncaring) enough to just prescribe more drugs.
I know this is not the main point of the article, but why do people allow 12 year olds unfettered access to guns? This makes no sense even with a perfectly sane child, much less a child the grandparents already knew had problems.
The sanity of the grandparents (and parents and relatives in other similar stories) is called into question.
Because they are Moonbat Democrats.
All these pills related to lack of serotonin.
Natural means out there to boost its production.
Heck, there are plenty of people who still have their Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers on their cars.
But seriously, what Pope was it that said something about one of the greatest ills to befall mankind in the 20th century was the lack of a “sense of sin”?
I believe it is the meds.
Read this
http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/casualties.htm
http://www.erichufschmid.net/Columbine/Columbine-Bollyn.html
They give out these drugs like candy and it is a shame.
They have an increase now in suicides of the elderly, seems they were depressed and docs gave them anti-depressants.
These drug companies are getting away with 2 much. They have people kill themselves in clinical studies.
These drugs do not work for everyone.
Everytime we hear of a mass murder, we hear, what is wrong. Well, check the drugs they were taking.
This is an excellent article.
I have studied these drugs for almost 4 years.
Have written Congress, but so many of these companies lobby Congress.
They give these pills for almost anything, hot flashes, quitting smoking, depression,sleep problems, you name it and it is wrong, oh so very wrong.
Merck made 4 billion last year on Effexor alone. This is only one drug.
We have to wake up Congress , but you know what they already know.
Paul Westerberg - Psychopharmacology
Feelin’ better than yesterday, and worse than tomorrow
It’s depressing for me to say I been dressing like Greta Garbo
Oh psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on me?
They been searching for a cat who matches that perscription
Sign up for a chat, they said we’ll cure your addiction
Well psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on
me?
Yeah psycho...
I need something to calm me down
I need something to keep me focused
Narcaleptic, paranoid, and borderline hopeless
ADD, PCP, F-U-*-*-E-D that’s me.
I’m feelin’ better than yesterday, and I’m havin’ none of that
They say all the world’s a stage, it’s more like a medicine
cabinet.
Psychopharamcology works wonders, wonder will it work
Psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work
Psychopharmacology works wonders, wonder will it work on me?
(Psycho)
On me...
Remnants of Bicameralism.
Good post!
Heck, there’s money to be made. That’s all that counts.
da Debbil made me do it!
It seems to me that it’s possible that a person treated with medications could become violent whereas if he were not taking the medications he would simply suffer.
To stay in business or to attract government funding you must demonstrate not only a problem, but a growing crisis. That's why the homeless coalition in Chicago is in such a snit over a headcount that could identify only 24 homeless in the entire city.
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