A URL research trick

In the previous post I came across two articles by the same author. Here's one of the URLs.

http://www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/Psychosis.htm

I came across the article while searching for something else and as usual took a little time out to read something that was interesting. It was well worth it as well. These branches out into other information can be lead to new ideas and concepts.

I like what the authors written so I could Google his name however a simple technique using the web address could lead to a gold mine of the authors work. By deleting the file name I can get to the directory of files (this only works on some web pages). In this case it becomes

http://www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/

And there I uncover

A STRATEGY FOR LOSERS

HELPING THE LAST TO COME FIRST IN THE ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY

This only works on older sites with static pages however there are many such URL tricks that can be used to find information beyond the power of a search engine. There's nothing illegal about this and hackers would use far more sophisticated techniques if they wanted to get hold of information. This is purely something that's an advantage for researchers who have a small knowledge of IT.

It works because many websites are really just like looking at text files in directories on a computer hard drive. All that has happened is by deleting the file name the web server has returned the index.html page and if that's not there then most web servers either give a directory listing of the files or don't allow access to any of the files within the directory.

We can go to another directory by deleting another bit of the web address so it becomes

http://www.bgmi.us/web/

And there's a standard page listing the files and directories because no one has written an index.html file. It's possible to click into directories where the user has set read access. In this case there seems to be some sort of encyclopedia.

http://www.bgmi.us/web/cyclopedia/

There's a very long list of the web files there. There's no index.html (or index.htm) but there's a few files that look like index files.

There are lots more tricks like this that experienced online researchers can use to find nuggets of information that wouldn't be found using standard search engine-only techniques.

Eureka? A solution to the problem of language in mental health

There is an ultimate division that will never be healed if any language is used to differentiate different human beings as long as mental health exists.

There are the mentally ill and there are the normal but a movement has pushed for the term mentally ill to become euphimised to mental health problem, difficulty, experience and other less bad terms. This will continue till there is no more mental health stigma.

What if the movement tried an alternative, just for a bit of fun. Why not rename normal? In an earlier blog post I changed the word to "automoton" referring to a mindless machine with properties akin to a robot rather than a human.

This levels the playing field. When presented with a choice between "mentally ill" and "mindless automoton" many wouldn't know which to choose because they have equally (and meaningless in my eyes) negative connotations.

It's sort of turning the problem on it's head and applying a little lateral thinking...sadly the latter is rarely seen in automotons but with help and therapy and medication (delta-9-THC or C2H5OH may be effective) many automotons can be assisted to become normal....I mean mentally ill.

There is a pleasant feeling of smugness associated with this thought. I think the meal I just ate helped and a little smoke with the dust from an old skunk baggie.

2 articles I like on Breakdowns and Upbringing and Psychosis

Understanding Madness as Life Management Breakdown by Brian Davey

http://www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/Breakdowns.htm

I like this so much I'd like to cut and paste the whole (short) article here. It's one of about interpretations of breakdowns.

The second one is from the Lecture to World Congress of Social Psychiatry, Hamburg, June 1994 by the same author.

Upbringing and Psychosis

http://www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/Psychosis.htm

Here's one snip I like. The author puts his personal experience in brackets. I like the rest of both of these articles and I think many people who are going through a hard time might have something to learn from either of these pieces.

"

(One of my greatest frustrations eventually lay in trying to communicate my developing theory of madness - since this was mostly ignored by local medical psychiatrists. One of them said 'We don't have to listen to him, he's only a patient'. Others listened but it has made little difference to their practice. I knew I was on to something important and was desperate for the breakthrough when I hoped they would realise the value of what I was saying. The fact that they ignored what I had to say aroused powerful feelings that became too frustrating. The anger spilled over into all my relationships and periods in which I would withdraw from everyone. In isolation nearly all thinking is fantasy as there is no feedback to reality-check in conditions of intense aroused emotion. Later I saw I was rather 'father/teacher fixated' as I was appealing to local psychiatrists to support my attack on their work. I wanted them to accept me even as I attacked them - acting out repressed feelings as rebellious son/pupil. This was a reproduction of, and a failure to go beyond, chronically unsatisfactory childhood relationships. It was Professor Romme, who did see the value of my work, who advised me, very wisely, to address my ideas to those who would listen, not to those who would not).

"

Sadly I disagree with Prof Romme about presenting work to those who won't listen but then I'm a miserable loser who's pretty unhappy because of his own misadventures and Prof Romme...well...he's a professor. His work has been instrumental in getting other people to listen to the voices of patients, people who otherwise wouldn't bother to even look a severely mentally ill person in the eye nor consider their experiences to have any meaning.

A good overview of the UK Hearing Voices movement from across the pond

Can You Live With the Voices in Your Head?

By DANIEL B. SMITH

Published: March 25, 2007

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/magazine/25voices.t.html?pagewanted=1

It's a longish article but a good overview. There's a hope in there. Prof. Richard Bentall recieved funding to see if cognitive techniques could be used in prepsychotic states to prevent the syndrome turning into a full blown disorder. The results of that research should be published soon I guess.

It's wonderful to see the Americans describe the HVN as antipsychiatric. I don't really see them as that. Many of them don't take medication. The (sexy) Jacqui Dillon hasn't taken medication for over 30 years.

World Hearing Voices Day

Did you know something about Louise Pembroke?

Louise is so famous that if you type her name into Google it comes up with an autosuggestion for "Louise Pembroke self harm." I know her as a contributor to the legendary Openmind magazine.

I'm reading through an interesting article on hearing voices and the hearing voices network published in the New York Times a few years ago. She's mentioned in there as the person who prompted the start of World Hearing Voices Day which will be on the 14th of September this year.

Hurrah!

A solution to the renaming of schizophrenia: Latinise it

I've been handwriting a bit of an essay about the use of language. Resorting back to handwritten notes is something that's been forced by the smashing of my laptop but it's a useful return to a pleasure forgotten.

There's a conclusion. Perhaps the old psychiatrists got it right. Latinise the language.

Schizophrenia has been relabelled "integration disorder" (or Togo Shitcho Sho) in Japan for salient reasons however it carries a meaning that people who don't read psychiatric research will take as the sole definition of schizophrenia.

So way back in 1896 when Emil Kraepelin named the schizophrenias in his classification system he chose the latin "dementia praecox". The terms means little to anyone. They'd have to Google it at the very least to find out what it meant. Wiki would tell them it meant premature dementia which isn't quite true but they'd hopefully read the rest of the page.

I understand the reasons why there's a modern movement to rename Bleuler's term schizogruppen that was used in a paper in 1908 and Gruppe der Schizophrenien in a book in 1911 for how he conceptualised the schizophrenias. The concept has little to do with the public interpretations of split or shattered mind but relates to the division of faculties of the mind (rather than the mind itself).

None of the terms relate to the diagnostic criteria itself.

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Standardized_criteria (referencing the modern American manual).

"

Characteristic symptoms: Two or more of the following, each present for much of the time during a one-month period (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).

- Delusions

- Hallucinations

- Disorganized speech, which is a manifestation of formal thought disorder

- Grossly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior

- Negative symptoms: Blunted affect (lack or decline in emotional response), alogia (lack or decline in speech), or avolition (lack or decline in motivation)

If the delusions are judged to be bizarre, or hallucinations consist of hearing one voice participating in a running commentary of the patient's actions or of hearing two or more voices conversing with each other, only that symptom is required above. The speech disorganization criterion is only met if it is severe enough to substantially impair communication.

- Social/occupational dysfunction: For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, one or more major areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, are markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset.

- Duration: Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least six months. This six-month period must include at least one month of symptoms (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).

"

So according to an online Latin translation site the Japanese term could be

"integration incompositus" which means nothing to the lay person.

To the academic there's a more interesting debate that seems to have been ignored in the relabelling debate. There's a response from a medical student on the student British Medical Journal site that goes on about a point I agree with:

"

Unfortunately, changing the name of the condition (or even abolishing the concept) will not affect the root cause of the stigma—the public's ignorance and fear of people with mental illness. Renaming may even have the unintended effect that the person, rather than the illness, is blamed for the symptoms.

"

It's a bit of a ramble. I guess someone like Professor Mary Boyle makes the point more lucidly in Schizophrenia: A scientific delusion? I'm embarassed to say I haven't read it but there's a Google Book preview if you follow the link.

What is the right thing to say?

I am desperate to know the right to thing to say to these words.

"i wonder why no matter what i do, i don't get any better."

I ended up giving the individual a lengthy response that they'd probably already heard with little or no empathy. The lack of empathy is part of my state at the moment. I'm very sad inside. But even if my heart wasn't stone cold I still wouldn't know what to say.

This is a friend of mine and I'd like to have been able to apply Schneidman's techniques to apply what I knew of their life history to see where they were and what was up. They won't talk to me nor will they answer my questions.

I want to be able to give them five words that will salve their psychache. Instead they got one of my length essays that cover every possibility which I know was the last thing they wanted but I just didn't know what to do.

I explained a little about my life and how I went through hell and came back, but they know that I went through hell again and haven't returned yet.

I have fought and fought to keep my head above water and now I'm drowning. It is at this time that it is hardest to help another.

Do I say, "It gets better and worse" or "this is life little youngster." "You know not hell yet" is perhaps a closer truth but none are what a suffering person wants to hear.

My relationships in helping people depend on my honesty and I can't tell this person honestly that "It gets better so chill" but the bleakness of truth at the wrong time can break a person.

"seek wisdom from the veterans" is true, perhaps. "Listen to your loved one" is true, perhaps. Yet this individual is smart enough to know that. It's why I didn't say, "buck up and keep trying."

But I think that's all I have left for me. That's all I can say to myself I mean. I'd not say it to someone else when they needed help but I think that's come from my upbringing. It's how I treat myself. Like shit.