Awareness Exercise for Psychiatrists

By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic

Is it generally true that in relationships between two people, or in relationships as a member of a group, that whomever is “upset” is the crazy one and that conversely, whomever is NOT upset is the sane one?

Is that ever found to be just the opposite?

Have you ever met any smiling, personable, friendly sociopaths? Do you think all that smiling and friendliness might be a part of their 'game' which is used for manipulation and gaining control over people and situations?

Are psychiatrists manipulative at all?

Is it understood to be 'different' when it's one of you?

Do you think it is ever possible that a psychiatrist, any psychiatrist, could be a sociopath and even fool the experts he works with?

Can you really take ANY detail of life, like say.. being 'upset' or claiming one 'has been harmed by others' or thinking 'someone who is not communicating directly but is trying to really help' and convert that into a universal abstraction, in absolute terms as pathology which can be applied to everyone, everywhere, under any, and all ,circumstances?

I see that as pretty much a quantum leap from one side to the other in either direction, which does not 'translate' directly, so I wonder how you convince yourselves that this is 'expertise' on human beings, as the 'subjects' (yourselves excluded of course) which makes any kind of real sense.

Did the thought just pop into your heads: “She is having trouble making sense of things and that's because SHE has a brain disease that causes that.”

Do you notice how the beliefs that you have been trained to have feed that sense of expertise by being understood to have universal application when in fact, they do not?

Do you ever notice a dismissive attitude in your training that may be used as a self protective device?

 Do you notice that the, system also protects itself from being questioned or faulted and actively works, usually behind the scenes, rather than openly,  to suppress any dissenting opinion??

Have you ever noticed that all dysfunctional systems; from families, to workplaces, to school groups, to gangs, to dictatorships employ the same sort of tactics?

Do you think there is anything wrong with that?

Do you think I am just seeing things that aren't there or are you failing to see what is there?

Well I will leave you to debate all that amongst yourselves. Don't want to overload you with all of my 'symptoms' at once.

One last thing...do you really believe in the right to free speech or is that only if those doing the speaking agree with you? I think having the legal right to call anyone 'crazy' who disagrees with you must be quite the tempting power for some of you and maybe even quite the heady rush huh? I think that is probably what is going on with many of those writing up those universal abstractions for the DSM too.

Power tends to corrupt as they say....although I personally don't believe that can be applied as a universal abstraction in absolute terms. But then, I'm no expert.