Beyond The Psychiatric Box

Madness Radio

2009-11-23T16:15:00.001-05:00

Madness Radio: Genetic Predispositions? Jay Joseph

First Aired 5-7-2008 Duration: 51:09

Clinical psychologist Jay Joseph details medical science's 30-year failed quest to find any link between genetics and diagnoses of mental disorders, and debunks widely held beliefs in the psychiatric profession, including the idea of 'genetic predispositions' for mental illness. Jay is the author of The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes and The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope.

http://www.jayjoseph.net/

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The Use Of Language In Defining Reality

2009-11-01T16:34:00.001-05:00

By Patricia Lefave

I believe that one of the most important things to understand about our problems with psychiatry and others is that Language is used to define control and manipulate by those DOING the defining. Let's use a common example that most of us hear repeated over and over ad nauseam to those of us defined as 'sick.' This is one of my favourite meaningless abstractions used to attempt to shut me up.

"We can't blame others."

It is never 'which others' under what specific circumstances with what evidence of what...It is always used as a generalization connected to nothing at all and delivered in absolute terms. The only time that changes is when the
person being 'corrected' changes to become the 'other'. Then it becomes a whole OTHER abstract truth. These things used to stop communications are the same kind of abstraction used to 'diagnose' me. No concrete specific evidence is wanted or 'allowed." The language used to manipulate me though does NOT apply when it is the other way around. It only applies when I am the one doing the 'blaming.' There are many 'other' people who blame me for both what happened to me as well as what has happened to 'others' as a result of it. But you see, in that case, 'blaming others' is all right.

I have found that throughout my experience with both dysfunctional people and psychiatry itself, this duality is ever present and almost always delivered as abstract ideas in absolute terms which does more to create a them and us mentality than anything else they could have come up with for just that purpose. The dual meaning is the one constant. Once psychiatrized, writing in a notebook cannot be seen as healthy expression regarding the release of emotion or an attempt to sort information. Instead it is pathologized as 'writing behaviours.' In this way 'language' is used to define us. So I believe that one of the things we must do is point this out publicly, over and over again until it sinks into the average mind.

You Don't Know What Words Mean

2009-10-18T16:42:00.001-04:00

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

That title is one of the concepts out of my nurse co-worker/protagonist's so called training.
Let me give you a concrete example of that so you can see, what I am talking about when I try to explain.

What do you think this means?

"Bill Gains Strength"

Do you think you know? Are you sure? Does it seem 'obvious' to you?
Ok, well let's look closer. Who or what is 'Bill'?
Is this a man?
Is it a dog?
Is it the bill of a bird of some kind?
Does it mean the dollar bill in the U.S.?
Is it the bill for a meal you just ate?
Is it a bill for some other kind of services rendered?
Is it a political bill someone is trying to push through parliament?

What kind of strength is it, or 'he,' gaining?
Is the gaining of strength a good thing or a bad thing?
Is it irrelevant?
Is Bill working out at the gym and gaining big muscles?
Is a dog named Bill recovering from his trip to the vet?
Is the parrot's broken bill healing or is it just getting bigger as the parrot matures?
Is it the American dollar getting stronger on the international markets?
Did you put that meal for which you were just billed, on your credit card?
Are there more members of parliament willing to support the desired legislation?

So which is it?
Do you not know? Is that because you are stupid and/or crazy? Or is it because you do not have enough concrete information to be able to know? In one way though, you have too much information don't you? Let me help you; not by calling you crazy and drugging you, but by giving you the missing information you need to make sense of the information you already have, which will also involve eliminating all the extra information which does not really apply to THIS case, though it may apply to some other case, which is using the same WORDS but meaning something else.
Here it is:
The statement: "Bill Gains Strength", is from the weather network. That is the missing information in THIS case.
Bill is the name of the current hurricane and it is gaining strength as it moves up the coast to Florida. It is a simple truth isn't it? Of course you could have found out by just asking me but if you were trying to keep yourself convinced you were 'hiding' and also had an understanding superior to mine in this matter, you would not want to do that as that would ruin all your 'fun.' (not to mention your own delusions of grandeur)
Now try to imagine what that kind of non communication could do to a person who was targeted for 'confusion' by someone with a 'hidden agenda' of domination.

Psychosis can be triggered by just this kind of disconnect from concrete reality.
When you cannot pin it down, especially when you are on the receiving end of a bombardment of multiple versions of reality by those around you coupled with a non stop contradiction, it can become impossible to stay connected. The next thing that happens is your brain tries to help by going on a mad search for meaning that will allow you to make some kind of sense of your external experience.

That does not mean there is something 'wrong' with your brain. It is doing what it is built to do which is functioning like a computer sorting information. BUT when there is too MUCH information and/or some vital information missing, it cannot function as intended as the search for meaning does not result in resolution. THAT has to come from an external source like supplying 'a key' for the completion of the sorting action.

When I was in psychosis I 'saw' Solomon's 'key.' That was the symbolic imagery. That 'key' was the story of the false parent whose 'solution' was the acceptance of dividing the 'baby' in half to be 'fair' to all and not 'blame' anyone. Solomon knew that only a false parent would sanction the killing of her own offspring as a 'solution' to. a dispute between two sides.

That psychotic symbolism had great significance for me. To most psychiatrists of course, it is meaningless.

They are wrong about that.

There I go with my 'fault finding' again. According to some of the psychiatric hospital staff, on their next round of debate with me as their long standing topic, this indicates I likely need another stay in the loony bin. Should I be expecting the ACT team to knock on my door with a police officer as part of the new pre-emptive strike being delivered by those who deny that they know anything at all about this? Many think it would be for the best if they got me the 'help' I obviously need. At least, that is what they say when they talk about me like I am not there.

Brief Message off the TV

2009-10-18T16:38:00.001-04:00

Just for Psychiatrists

This is from the episode in which the problems of a patient are identified by Jack as generated by the patient’s memories of a previous life. Jack and the attending psychiatrist discuss their beliefs, or lack of them, in regards to life regression and reincarnation.

Jack asks the other directly; "So you are actually a believer then?"

The Attending: "I would never say any such thing as it would do my career no good at all. It would finish it for me.''

Same episode another patient is getting messages from his grandfather off the radio. His psychiatrist accepts it as reality based, in some way, rather than dismissing it or ridiculing it and the patient improves and starts to get calm with it. Soon, he says, that his grandfather has left a message for his psychiatrist too and this is the message:

"Stay tuned; big changes are coming"

A lot of us have gotten the same message. I sure wish more psychiatrists would get the message....don't you? Try just thinking about it WITHOUT pathologizing it.

From the Fox Series, Mental
Also available in Canada on Global

from Robert Whitaker

2009-10-18T16:20:00.003-04:00

Madness Radio: Sane Medication Policy Robert Whitaker
By MadnessRadio - Posted on 28 March 2009

First Aired: Madness Radio 2009-03-30
Show: Sane Medication Policy Robert Whitaker

Length: 51:25 minutes (47.12 MB)

Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

Has society's embrace of psychiatric medications led to recovery -- or chronic disability? What would honest medical policy and treatment standards be if they were free of pharmaceutical company corruption? Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, discusses medications as a failed paradigm of care, and imagines what a sane alternative would look like.

www.madinamerica.com.

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Circle the Profession

2009-10-18T16:16:00.003-04:00

In Psychiatric Circles This is Also Known as the Double Bind
Catch-22 (logic)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Catch-22 is a term coined by Joseph Heller in his novel Catch-22, describing a set of rules, regulations or procedures, or situation which presents the illusion of choice while preventing any real choice. In probability theory, it refers to a situation in which multiple probabilistic events exist, and the desirable outcome results from the confluence of these events, but there is zero probability of this happening as they are mutually exclusive.

The archetypal Catch-22, as formulated by Heller, involves the case of John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier, who wishes to be grounded from combat flight duty. To be grounded, he must be officially evaluated by the squadron's flight surgeon and found unfit to fly. Any pilot willing to fly such dangerous missions would be found unfit, as one would have to be mad to want to take on such missions. But to get this diagnosis he must ask for it, which would prove he is actually sane because he wants to avoid dangerous missions.

The "Catch 22" is that "anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy".[1] Hence, pilots who request an evaluation are sane and must therefore fly in combat, but those who don't request an evaluation don't receive one and as a result can never be found insane, meaning they must also fly in combat. Catch-22, then, ensures that no pilot can ever be grounded for being insane - even if they are.

A logical formulation of this situation is:

1. (Premise: If a person is excused from flying (E), that must be because they are both insane (I), and request an evaluation (R));

2. (Premise: If a person is insane (I), they should not realize that they are, and would have no reason to request an evaluation)

3. (2, Definition of implication: since an insane person would not request an evaluation, it follows that all persons must either not be insane, or not request an evaluation)

4. (3, De Morgan: since all persons must either not be insane, or not request an evaluation, it follows that no person can be both insane and request an evaluation)

5. (4, 1, Modus Tollens: since a person may be excused from flying only if they are both insane and request an evaluation, but no person can be both insane and request an evaluation, it follows that no person can be excused from flying)

The novel contains several examples of the Catch-22 regulation and other similar situations. One example occurs when Luciana is distraught because no man will marry her because she is not a virgin. Yossarian offers to marry her, but she claims he is crazy for wanting to marry a non-virgin like herself and says she can't marry a crazy man.

Major Major creates a Catch-22 when he instructs his sergeant that no one may come in and see him, unless he is not in. If he is in, people must be told to wait — until he has left via the window.
Besides being an unsolvable logical dilemma, Heller's text contains two more distinct clauses of Catch-22. In the first chapter, officers who censor the privates' letters must sign their own name according to Catch-22, and in the final chapters it is restated simply as “anything can be done to you that you can not prevent”. The latter clause, in some instances, provides a solution to Catch-22 which is captured by the old German expression, die Flucht nach vorne antreten (“to take flight [flee] forward”): In the case of Orr, a friend of Yossarian (Heller’s main character), the solution was to desert and flee to Sweden, a solution that Yossarian ultimately adopts himself.

Yes there is little you can do when trapped in the double bind other than distance yourself physically from the rule makers. Or... perhaps expose .all of the irrationality of it all to the public so that everyone can get a really good sense of what it is like to be on the receiving end of this. PL

Lost in Psychiatric Ambiguity

2009-10-18T16:13:00.000-04:00

By Patricia Lefave

Focus: Psychiatrists say that if you were REALLY crazy you wouldn't know it.

Question for psychiatrists: Is psychiatry crazy? What is your answer?
Yes or no?

This is the kind of conceptual experience we who are labelled have with psychiatry. That is because the DSM, their "Bible," is the same kind of vague ambiguous abstraction written in absolute terms, disconnected from all concrete evidence or specific detail, that is also used in cults, and all other dysfunctional groups.That makes it political, NOT medical.

When you are on the receiving end of this non stop tautology, it can actually get absurdly funny; at least for a time. It stops being 'funny' when as the psychiatrized one, you come to realize there is NO way out of this conceptual trap, since no fault can be found in either the system or those who create, enable and support the system in the name of 'help.' The system validates itself by invalidating all objections to it and then INCLUDING those objections inside the system's identification of symptoms of 'mental illness.' That makes it an infinite loop that can't be seen unless you either see the whole pattern, or get OUTSIDE the loop itself to see it from that perspective. It is a way of controlling those who find fault in the system by claiming they are 'crazy' for seeing it, and then including what is seen, in a book they write themselves, so they can show the objector it is written in a book, which 'proves' the system is right!
In this way, the 'splitting' of reality is maintained, just as it is in any other dysfunctional group. "Fault finding," the ambiguous concept spoken about in absolute terms, disconnected from concrete specific detail, is a 'symptom' of yours when you find the fault in psychiatry or the psychiatrist who is supporting psychiatry. ( as it is when opposing the controllers in other groups) It is NOT however, a symptom of either psychiatry or the psychiatrist's, when the fault' is found to be in you. When it is them doing it, it magically becomes a righteous concept not a 'fault.'
One of the proposed 'mental illnesses' for the next round of the DSM, currently being compiled in 'secret' by the CIA-like profession, is "Bitterness Disorder." I do hope the psychiatrist enthusiastically promoting this idea does not become bitter if it does not get included. If he does, there will be no one to get him the treatment for it he obviously needs and deserves.
He probably would not see the humour in this. Perhaps that is because he is suffering from Obfuscation Syndrome. I hope that some dedicated psychiatrist can get an intervention underway ASAP.

On Stigma

2009-09-27T15:57:00.001-04:00

By Patricia Lefave

One of my readers was telling me that he had been contacted by a professional to participate in a conference about the 'stigma' of mental illness. My reader then discovered that the professional was not really interested in hearing what was being said, just as inside the bio psychiatric system he had not seen any interest in his point of view after the first few minutes when a diagnosis was reached. In part, my answer to his experience included this and I though I would post it here as i have heard it so frequently.

What 'stigma' means to 'them' and what it means to us is not the same thing. "They" want to get rid of the ''stigma" of 'mental illness' by training the public to become even MORE deaf to what we 'claim' happened to us involving other people, by strenuously promoting the idea that our CLAIMS are just a manifestation of a bio chemical illness 'just like diabetes.' See the difference? We on BOTH sides of the meaning admit to the ongoing existence of a 'stigma,' but the understanding of the actual cause of that is completely different. So, while we are using the same WORD, we do not mean the same thing, and 'OUR' side of our own experience is not invited to 'debate' it with the 'experts.' This extreme imbalance (ironically) of POWER and control is what is keeping this going. It creates a tautological argument that has been 'won' by the 'experts' BEFORE our experience of it has even begun. It is also doing a damned fine job of enabling and supporting abusers who want to believe THEY represent all this is 'normal' in the world and they are therefore 'justified' in their abuse of others since we 'others' are 'abnormal.' This is especially true if the abuse is psycho-spiritual/verbal in nature as we can parade out 'bruises' or 'injury' in a concrete way. It is all about the psycho-politics.

Madness Radio Free Intar Download

2009-09-27T15:44:00.002-04:00

International Network Towards Alternatives and Recovery - INTAR

First Aired 3-21-2007 Duration: 59:30 INTAR - the International Network Towards Alternatives and Recovery - had a 2005 gathering of people from around the world working on ways to help people with schizophrenia, bipolar and other diagnoses without the medical model. This hour-long show interviews 13 participants.

www.intar.org

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Encore : Messages Off the T.V.

2009-09-27T15:50:00.001-04:00

Just for Psychiatrists

This is from the episode in which the problems of a patient are identified by Jack as generated by the patient’s memories of a previous life. Jack and the attending psychiatrist discuss their beliefs, or lack of them, in regards to life regression and reincarnation. Jack asks the other directly; "So you are actually a believer then?"
The Attending: "I would never say any such thing as it would do my career no good at all. It would finish it for me.''

Same episode another patient is getting messages from his grandfather off the radio. His psychiatrist accepts it as reality based, in some way, rather than dismissing it or ridiculing it and the patient improves and starts to get calm with it. Soon, he says, that his grandfather has left a message for his psychiatrist too and this is the message:

"Stay tuned; big changes are coming"

A lot of us have gotten the same message. I sure wish more psychiatrists would get the message....don't you? Try just thinking about it WITHOUT pathologizing it.

From the Fox Series, Mental
Also available in Canada on Global

Psychiatric Riddle

2009-09-27T15:47:00.001-04:00

Question:

How do you know the difference between being dedicated and obsessing?

Answer: The Psychiatrists are dedicated
The psychiatrized are obsessing.

See how easy that was?

Abuse as Tautology

2009-09-27T15:41:00.001-04:00

By Patricia Lefave

If I were to state a basic theory for the acting out of a sick society I think it would go something like this:

This group behaviour targeting individuals and the acting out of a group contempt and various abuses on them is perceived as acceptable by the group members as long as they can keep themselves convinced that the individuals to whom they do it are such inferior humans, that they can't see, hear or truly understand what the group members do, which in itself, justifies the group members 'reason' for doing it.

If the mental illness system ever really wants to aim for mental 'health,' 'It' is going to have to face this reality and deal with it by getting the focus OFF of the target's reactions to it, and onto the existence of, and the predictably destructive consequences brought about by this dysfunctional GROUP delusion.
The rage and hatred coming out of these people and then enacted upon people they don't even know, is not born of 'reason' but of suppressed emotion. Those dysfunctional, group-approved, plastic smiles are COSTING them something, and they are not going to let go of the acting out on surrogates, upon whom they unleash all that 'concealed' rage and contempt, without putting up a fight to defend their actions. They NEED this action to keep functioning in the expected, and approved, dysfunctional ways.

If, as professionals, you see it, and then turn away from it, you are then complicit in offering up 'sacrifices' to the gods of domination and dysfunction.

What you do when blind to it is one thing. What you continue to do AFTER you know better is quite another.

Final Analysis:

2009-09-09T14:37:00.004-04:00

The following was Originally Posted in Feb 2006

The Making and Unmaking of A Psychoanalyst

By Jeffrey Mousaieff Masson

With Commentary afterwards by
Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

"And whom Masson, do you think they will believe? You, not even a medical doctor, or me....." 1."

He was threatening me as if we were locked in some political battle. He knew very well that I was telling the truth, yet he was willing to admit to me that he would lie. To save his skin?" 2.

"...A fantasy kept coming at me: one day, at an appointed hour, all the psychiatrists would suddenly look up as if awakening from a bad dream, would take off the white coats that many wore, perhaps to make them feel more like medical doctors, would unlock the wards, embrace their patients and walk away from the hospital, never to return, muttering to themselves that the whole idea had been absurd to begin with. " 3.

"I was fascinated by the fact that in less than one hour a person's life was summed up....What a wild interpretation, I thought......Adversarial comments were not welcome. All objections were merely due to ignorance, or a lack of insight, or finally, to resistance. Legitimate disagreement was impossible. If somebody didn't see it, you made inquiries into their pathology......4.

"For this woman who was being discussed now, her analyst was more than a judge, he was God Almighty. ..Her truth has been locked in, sealed tight, unalterable forever." 5.

Masson's Training Analyst:
" In the world I play the game and so does everybody who does not want to lose." 6.

"There is no such thing as a benign dictator because the power base for such a dictatorship is created at the expense of the subject. To be meek, abject and obedient is to be robbed of some precious right to equality.....The only thing you can do with an illusion is to shatter it." 7.

"Her privacy was being invaded by this scientific meeting as surely as if we were a gang of voyeurs." 8.

....I think the diagnosis was applied to her because members of the institute learned that she had "rejected" a therapist thereby demonstrating her "inadequate personality." 9.

...."The DSM-IIIR states:
"For a patient to state that a therapist is boring, or uninteresting is a primary sign of what is now called "The Self-defeating Personality Disorder." 10.

"I couldn't help but feel there was something a little bit odd about a practice that seemed to feed off itself in this way." 11.

"What are the consequences of such immense silent suffering? What happens when they cannot tell because they would not be believed, or even if they were, they would be censored or censured? What does this do to some essential trust in the very solidity of the world? '' 12.

They are alone because they know something they cannot share, and they cannot share it through no fault of their own... It is easier to believe oneself crazy, or paranoid, or delusional, or bad than to believe that the whole world could turn a blind eye to one's real history. It is a situation alculated to drive anybody insane. It is possible to survive as the lone nut in a sane world, but not as the lone seer in an insane world." 13.

..."The directors were not asking why or whether there was any truth in my claims, but were simply concerned with appearances." 14.

Paranoid Patty's Commentary:

1. Other "Yous" : A child in relation to the parent? A tenant in relation to a landlord? An employee in relation to a boss? A residential patient, or a companion aid in relation to a practical nurse? A Suspect in relation to a police officer? This is most often about relationships to people in positions of power, and that power need not be significant. It can be quite petty.

2. I "think" many people involved in my own case have lied, and lied frequently. That may indicate a lack of trust or it may indicate the presence of awareness and a willingness to accept reality in a way that many "normal" people will not.

3. I share this fantasy in a very similar way.

4. For the system is always right and never wrong.

5. And these days it may only take 10 to fifteen minutes with one of these experts to receive the label which will sum up your life FOR and keep you locked into this group subjective projection forever. Especially now that the system involves entire communities in it's hunt for the genetic defectives. This is going on on a global scale.

6. The ever popular ''playing the game." It's winners or losers for those who must prove their superior understanding and/or worth to those who they know to be "beneath" them.

7. But in the system, one can only be the "good" schizo (or any derivative thereof) if one is a compliant patient.

8. Which is exactly what I have stated as happening to me. But you see, the system protects it's own delusions by denying my awareness of those who are promoting it. I only "think" I understand my own experience. I am to be "corrected" by all of those who are certain that they have the higher understanding. They cannot be the "people" I am talking about who are violating my privacy at every turn since they have convinced themselves I know nothing about them and what they do. Therefore the "people" about whom I complain mustbe imaginary people which only proves how right they are to "help" me with my unfortunate "paranoid delusions."

9. A very adequate defense of the therapist. Especially when it is the therapist who decides who, has what, "disorder."

10. After all what could be MORE ''self-defeating" than to dare to challenge the diagnostics of the one holding all the power over you? Why it could be seen as downright reckless couldn't it?

11. Or it could be seen as a very smooth running, efficient machine if power and control was at the top of it's agenda.

12. It shatters it. It takes away all hope.

13. If we are lucky and pay attention, as we are doing now, we will begin to notice that it IS possible to survive as a member of a GROUP of seers. We are no longer alone when we know we share the same experience with others like us, all over the world.

14. How well I can relate to this one. It is my own experience exactly. Do these concepts sound familiar to many of you who have been labelled? Do you notice that the 'game'' being played and the truth being denied, is the same for those who question, or reject the training in the mental health field as it is for those of us who reject the diagnostics as "patients"?

Most of the people in the mental illness industry who see this and who believe, or believed, they were, or are, in the mental health profession, quit, get forced, pressured, or manipulated out, settle into a numbed acceptance of their role, are threatened with, or actually receive, psychiatric labels themselves for their dissenting opinions; in exactly the same way it is done to many of "us." We "nuts" often "think" we see a conceptual pattern in this which transcends the concrete details. Our belief that we do, is most often defined by those who don't, as a "symptom."

It is our sad collective truth that those who understand best, what is really happening in our lives and their own are also those who are most likely to be silenced and rejected by a system that operates on duplicity as a norm, from behind a cloak of secrecy. All dysfunctional groups operate this way; families, workplaces, gangs, cults or governments. The concepts behind the various concrete structures are identical and so are all the political intrigues, manipulative ploys and head games, disinformation (formerly known as lies) missing, suppressed or altered information, covert operations and abuse of power.
There is a constant excusing of the duplicitous and a well supported blaming of those who dare to state their awareness of that duplicity. Duplicity is defended and the recognition of it condemned. This restructuring of "reality," this metaphysical "magic" used to create an alternate "reality" of appearances without substance, a facade of nice manners and politically correct speech, is about as "helpful" as telling a starving woman that no one will give her any food because she won't stop that awful complaining about not having any food. Since she won't,she is therefore responsible for her own demise and if she doesn't speak up, and ask for help than she deserves what she gets for her failure to speak up.

The dysfunctional system, defended and promoted as "normal" feeds itself with it's own denial of the blatantly obvious. Many people consider psychiatry to be a cult in itself. As with any cult members, you cannot talk to them using the same words and phrases they have been taught to hear in terms of an alternate reality. All they can hear is what they have been told the should hear, so doing so will only confirm and reinforce the practitioner's beliefs. Not only will they not hear what you say as "real" they will become more certain of their diagnoses and treatment, fully convinced they are your "saviours."

Like Masson, I too wait for "the beast with many heads" to wake up. As has been accurately assessed of me by a psychologist supporter, I keep "poking and prodding" It. I will continue to do that, along with many others who are doing the same until it does-even if the wake-up only occurs post mortem.

The truth is out there. All of you who know it, keep telling it to everyone you know and do so as publicly as possible.
Though it is easy to suppress the truth of one who is in isolation, it is impossible to suppress the voices of millions all over the world. Before much longer, I predict the attempt to do so will be seen as the ludicrous nonsense it has always been; a convoluted system born out of an insane need to deny an ugly reality by giving it a pretty, plastic face.The spirit of deceit and disdain which is being supported andenabled everywhere, is the cause of all the chaos and confusion in the world. If it is not seen and exposed soon, the failure to do so will bring the whole planet to collapse.

If humanity really want "survival" the domination freaks are going to have to be disempowered. They can't be located "here" or over "there" since they are everywhere and present in every system. They can't be stopped now by locating them in physical space or by a concrete identity. It is much too late for that. Nor can they be stopped with reason, silence, or becoming just like them.This will only be stopped by exposing the "game" itself. Those who truly understand the "game" and recognize that it is a self-defeating as well as "other" defeating "game," destroying everyone who is caught inside it, will stop playing it.

What we have in common with the domination types is the desire for personal survival. If they recognize that what they are doing is actually bringing about their own defeat, they will stop doing it, even if it is for purely selfish reasons. It is going to be necessary to shock them out of that trance they are in which they deny. The only way to do that is by pointing out the perfectly obvious, over and over again, until it penetrates their self deluded groupthink type minds.

The denial of reality is built right into the mental "illness" system. Until or unless, those supporting and enabling it face reality and stop doing that, many of the most mentally healthy in our societies, those most awake, will continue to be defined as the mentally ill. The whole system, based upon a false premise, is backwards. Being caught within it is truly like a surreal trip through the looking glass into Wonderland.

OnCP

Black and White Thinking

2009-08-24T14:42:00.000-04:00

By PL

Would you like an example of that?
Let's use one of the common judgements I have already used just to keep it simple.

The instruction, "we can't blame others."

This is delivered as an abstract truth in absolute terms. That is what black and white thinking is all about. So tell me, you who are running the system and who say this sort of thing every day;
If black and white thinking and being manipulative (operating with hidden agendas and using coercion) are signs of Borderline Personality Disorder, are YOU all BPD?
If not, why not? Are there two standards of operation on this?
If so, should Borderliners, like you, be placed in charge of judging and evaluating others?
If so, explain why.
If not, why are you placed in charge?

The Use Of Language In Defining Reality

2009-08-11T16:20:00.001-04:00

By Patricia Lefave

I believe that one of the most important things to understand about our problems with psychiatry and others is that language is used to define control and manipulate by those DOING the defining. Let's use a common example that most of us hear repeated over and over ad nauseum to those defined as 'sick.' This is one of my favourite meaningless abstractions used to attempt to shut me up.

"We can't blame others."

It is never 'which others' under what specific circumstances with what evidence of what...It is always used as a generalization connected to nothing at all and delivered in absolute terms. The only time that changes is when the person being 'corrected' changes also. Then it becomes a whole OTHER abstract truth.

These things used to stop communications are the same kind of abstraction used to 'diagnose' me. No concrete specific evidence is wanted or 'allowed." The language used to manipulate me though does NOT apply when it is the other way around. It only applies when I am the one doing the 'blaming.'

There are many people who blame me for both what happened to me as well as what has happened to 'others' as a result of it. But you see, in that case, 'blaming others' is then suddenly all right.
I have found that throughout my experience with both dysfunctional people and psychiatry itself , this duality is ever presen,t almost always delivered as abstract ideas, in absolute terms , which does more to create a 'them and us' mentality than anything else they could have come up with for just that purpose.

The dual meaning is a constant. Once psychiatrized, writing in a notebook cannot be seen as healthy expression regarding the release of emotion. Instead it is pathologized as 'writing behaviours.' In this way 'language' is used to define us. So I believe that one of the things we must do is point this out publicly, over and over again, until it sinks into the average mind.

Language and Meaning

2009-08-11T15:32:00.002-04:00

Here is an example of Language used to promote a desired meaning.

This actually happened to me recently (2009) and involves one of the locals who has been observing and assessing me for the past sixteen years.
Once, years ago, I was assessed by a university student as ‘crazy’ because I stopped on the street and looked at my foot. I know that because he stopped on the street across from me and ‘explained’ me to his girlfriend.

Today, I was at the mall, where I saw Professor ‘P.’ who hangs out there often on Sundays in the food court gossiping with the locals. He also likes to get th local bus driver opinion of me and has been 'observed' by me doing it in the past while 2.5 feet away from me. Of course, he and the bus driver lowered their eyes and talked out of the sides of their mouths at the time, rendering them invisible and inaudible as I now understand them to be. At the time, I thought they INTENDED me to see and hear them but were 'pretending' to be stupid.

On this day now of which I am speaking in the present, he stopped walking, pulled up his pant leg, and looked at his foot. So I thought, “He obviously has the same ‘brain disease’ that I do. After all if looking at one’s foot makes you crazy then he must be crazy. If it does not make one crazy then why is it used to assess me that way?
(This is ‘splitting’)
He also kept getting up and walking around.
(Aimlessly?)
Was he ‘disoriented’ then? Or was it just... ‘Agitation’?
Was he nervous? Does he “HAVE” Social Anxiety Disorder?
So how many symptoms is that so far? Possibly four there.
Plus he was alone as he usually is just like me so that must be his ‘isolating’...that’s five symptoms.

One more and we can get a really good diagnosis and hopefully an “intervention.”

Sitting Ducks...

2009-08-04T14:54:00.002-04:00

At A Permanent Community "Roast"

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

This "roast" is no honour, no joke, and definitely no "fun."
It is more like being the silenced guest at a party of never ending insults and threats,; feeling like a cooked goose being carved up and there is no way to duck out of this "party." Worse than that, the party itself is proclaimed to be your "delusion" and therefore non existent.

Pretty hard to duck out of something you are told you are not even "in." I call those of us who get psychiatrized, "sitting ducks" because the official invalidation of us as "normal" human beings, like everyone else, is similar to declaring ''open season'' on us, for those in our communities who abuse others for no other reason than the opportunity to do so has been handed to them. Since it is plain to these types that the truth we tell about our experiences is not believed anyway, we have no support and there is then nothing to stop them from acting out their aggressive impulses.

These are those who will be the first in line at the electronics store, holding the rock they will smash through the window as soon as the lights go out. They rarely have any label, though they are generally kept in check by spotlights, video cams, and a police presence. Self control for it's own sake is not even in their frame of reference. Nevertheless, they are considered to be more "normal" than us, and entitled to a hearing for their crimes before any incarceration can legally occur.

How many of these mindless wonders, harassing and threatening you every day do you think it would take to alter your personal experience of daily life? One? Three? Thirty five? How about if they were backed up by a smirking circle of watchers, enjoying the "entertainment" value of it? What if beyond that there was an outer circle of observers, some of whom frowned as they watched, or muttered amongst themselves, that it was "just awful what that group of people is doing" to that victim. Still though, they did nothing to stop it, let it keep right on happening, and later denied all knowledge of it.

If you were the sitting duck at these community roasts, that went on month after month, year after year, or decade after decade, do you think you might feel frightened, angry, frustrated or resentful? Well if you are, it will only be seen as a negative "symptom" bubbling up from within your defective brain.

Know why?
Because the behaviour of the whole group and the entire event will be denied, and when it is denied, your thinking, feelings and talking about it will be seen as existing only within the apparent vacuum of your own brain "disorder." It is YOUR perception and reactions which will them be proclaimed by those who assess you as being the source, or the cause, of the problem: not "other people." For "really" nothing happened.

Welcome to the permanent psychological/physical trap and the world of the Labelled people. This is now your life. We who are not "allowed" to speak, whine, bitch or complain about what is done to us since "really," nothing happened and we are only saying it did, usually do so JUST to "seek attention or "fame."

You are now officially an object of assessment, controlled by a group of people who suffer from a profound and seemingly impenetrable naivete. You have a few choices about how you will live now:

1. It may become your new life's work to try to penetrate that resistance they have to your truth, in order to secure your freedom and be exonerated for your thought crimes.
2. You can give up trying after some time spent at it, and just wait for your life to be over. It may be a comfort to know you aren't going to live forever.
3. The treatment may well help you to get out of the trap a little faster.
4. You may be one of those who can't take the metaphysical/pharmaceutical straight jacket anymore, really lose it, and take yourself and/or perhaps some of your tormentors out of the picture altogether.
5. You may continue to fight the system as the dissident lunatic.

These are pretty much the choices that come with the labels though: Talk to the wall (or the hand) endure the treatment, take yourself out, or fight the system and all it's gung ho supporters.
It is not a "disease" that is causing the suicides. It is the non stop "dis-ease" from being told you ARE a 'disease" for having the perception and feelings you do, about your own life. It is about knowing your own truth and also knowing that it will never be heard by those who have forced you into a surreal, alternate universe which they have constructed for you, and which they insist you embrace as your new "reality." If you accept this willingly, you are a "good" patient, and if you don't accept, you may well become the feared and dreaded ''resistant, non compliant'' and potentially dangerous lunatic that must be constantly watched and assessed by the same community that drove you "mad" in the first place.

Signs and symbols of your "madness" will be seen everywhere, by virtually everyone, and will be passed along to all the other hysterics to alert them to the possibility of your sudden potential for going on a wild eyed rampage against the "innocent" and mystified, all of it in relation to nothing at all, other than your dangerously defective genetic pre-disposition to going stark raving mad at the drop of a hat. This is first made manifest by believing you have been watched, abused, and treated like a thing by others, instead of like a person. These ideas (especially those of 'reference' ) are more of your "symptoms" you see.

Once you have been completely invalidated as a human being and reality has been defined FOR you by a combination of "authority " and group consensus, you ARE an invalid. You have been made in-valid and you are now in need of a disability pension. You see, when you won't accept your new in-valid status, it is common to keep you from working at your soon-to-be-a-thing-of-the-past job, as a coercive tactic. If you take the drugs for your ''brain disease,'' that renders you incapable of holding a job, they will then "allow" you to return to the job they forced you out of in order to "help" you accept yourself as an invalid. ( of course they don't actually SAY that.) Unfortunately , since your employer has already been told by them that you are "totally disabled" and a dangerous incurable lunatic, you are no longer actually wanted at your job anyway....so you are going to need that disability pension just to feed yourself. You must not point out this obvious circular trap to your doctor of course. You don't want to appear to be ungrateful for all his or her "help." Instead, you must get used to the notion of praising the Emperor's new clothes.

After all you can't work anymore in your crippled mental state now can you? Well, OK maybe you will eventually find a little work, a bit of menial labour perhaps, which will please society as it proves you can be a little bit useful if you are drugged appropriately. That is if a kindly risk taking employer can be assured that you will be permanently tranquilized and under control. Since there are only a certain number of "conditions" and "diseases" for which you qualify to receive the disability pension you now need to survive, you must accept that the drugging for your condition can now go with that as soon as you accept the label you need to get any money. Neat little system isn't it?

But realistically, how can anyone really trust you again now that THEY know you are incapable of perceiving reality correctly and don't even have "normal" emotional reactions to anything? (You poor, poor, defective thing you) They will have to assume you are dangerous in order to protect themselves from possible negative outcomes. Besides, since you got your official label they have heard all kinds of stories about you which justify their fears. Why they've heard that you "think" that people are talking about you. They have discussed that perception problem of your quite a bit amongst themselves. They have heard you sometimes look confused or that you find others confusing.'That is a ''symptom' of yours you know. Those talking about how you ''think'' people are talking about you, aren't confused at all. They are normal and therefore see nothing for you to be confused about. Since you obviously DO, when really there is nothing to be confused about, that proves it is a ''symptom'' among many others, which "proves" the diagnosis of you is correct.

You are apparently also quite stupid and barely conscious, so it's OK to discuss you in the third person like you're not there. People don't have to worry about being rude to you since you don't know they are being rude anyway. You're too stupid to know that. Anyone who suggests you might hear them being rude is usually corrected by one of the smarter ones in the group saying something like,
''Oh, you don't have to worry about her hearing us since she is not going to have any idea what we are talking about anyway. ''

You may look at these normal people, four feet away and feel a stunned disbelief which will show quite clearly on your face. Don't be surprised if the other makes vocal note of that also.
''See how stunned she looks? Hasn't got a clue about anything.''

You may not be able to stop thinking about that brand new ''symptom'' of which you have been told you suffer: ''projection.'' You may even be tempted to laugh out loud while thinking about it. I recommend you suppress that. Laughing ''for no reason'' that the others involved can see is also a ''symptom.''

You won't be able to point out your observations to these ''blameless'' others though and you will probably have already been told by those who control you that it is inappropriate behaviour on your part to confront you abuser(s) since ''really'' there are no abusers. You only ''think'' you are being abused by others because you are crazy and that's what crazy people think.

So, enjoy your ''roast'', duck. You aren't really the guest of honour as you believe. You are the main course, your goose is cooked and this is no ''joke.''
And Psychiatry?
Hey, even though it is a very stressful job and, unlike other disciplines, they don't get much gratitude from their non co-operative ''clients,'' most of them are genuinely happy they could be there to ''help'' you. Genuinely, sincerely, happy. They cannot understand that if they are happy to help you,despite how crazy and difficult you are, why are you not happy to be helped? Except of course, that your unhappiness is a ''symptom''. (sigh)

It only takes the absence of a little bit of information to completely change the meaning of your life. In all dysfunctional groups, no matter how attractive the facade may be, the goal is NOT resolution though that is what it may be claimed to be. The goal is to avoid resolution, and that avoidance is worked at, and worked at strenuously.

In such situations the creation of an alternate ''reality'' to ensure resolution does NOT come, is an absolute necessity. We who see this most clearly do not fall through the looking glass. We are pushed. That broken fun house mirror just cracks us up and that is no ''joke.'' As it turns out though, once we are through the looking glass which has ''cracked us up,'' we turn and look back through a window into a false reality on what is now the other ''side'' to us. That clear view through a window we did not know was there, allows us to clearly see the distortions of society we once thought were the standard for ''normal.''

Insanity is the paradoxical creation of a society that doesn't want to face the truth about itself as a whole, or acknowledge it's own errors, let alone move to correct them. Instead, it wants to invalidate those who see ''too'' clearly what has been there all along.

Insanity itself is the fabrication which is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who have fabricated it via group subjective projection remain in deep, deep denial about it, despite the evidence of their own distorted thinking and behaviour. For as long as that is the case, we who dare to see what is right in front of us, which those supposedly ''normal'' others do NOT see, will continue to talk to the walls.

Smile

2009-07-29T12:18:00.002-04:00

This one is for no reason other than it makes me smile...

Dysfunctional Relay Race

2009-07-22T12:26:00.001-04:00

First Posted Jan. 2006

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

The abused, who is well trained to be a ''good'' person, to ''forgive'' his unrepentant abuser, while still being abused, now seeks to find some sort of irrational emotional release and new balance by locating a space to act out those suppressed, and often denied, emotional responses to the abuse.

He therefore abuses someone else in exactly the same way he was abused, and requires of her the same lack of response that was required of him. Of course, he does not call his abuse of his victim ''abuse'' any more than he was ''allowed'' to call it ''abuse'' when he was abused. Instead, he requires the one he abuses to live by the same convoluted ''high'' standard by which he lives.

The abused must ''forgive'' him for his abusive acting out, even though there is no abuse, as far as he is concerned, to ''forgive,'' just as he himself ''forgave'' the one who abused him. (even though it was not abuse then either) If his abused does NOT forgive him, the fault will be found to be a character deficit in HER. (since there is no abuse anyway)

Clearly then, it is better to forgive the abuser in the hope the abuse (which doesn't really exist) will stop, once it has been forgiven beforehand, even though there is ''really'' nothing to forgive. This is how the abused one is expected to fool herself into believing the power to make sure the abuse never starts is in HER and has nothing to do with the abuser's responsibility for the abuse. It is a sort of insane hope between two co-dependents who have flipped reality on it's head. It works too as long as the abuse victim falls for the con.

While waiting for the contrition from the abuser, which of course will never come, since there is nothing to be contrite about in the abuser's opinion, the emotional pressure builds, and builds, in the currently abused. If this cycle is not broken this time, the abused will start to notice someone else with the same character flaw, the inability to ''forgive others,'' and quite possibly begin to act out her own abuse on someone who really ''deserves'' it for refusing to admit to his own obvious flaws. ....

to be continued, until never finished.

Post Mobbing Effects

2009-07-20T16:20:00.004-04:00

Excerpt: How Serious are Psychological Problems after Mobbing?

The above-mentioned study of raped women shows very high values on the two IES scales (see also Dahl, 1989). We recommend as a hypothesis that high IES values are present if the traumatic event is followed by a series of further violations of the subjects´ rights and insults to their identities from different societal sources (Leymann, 1989).

Mobbing and expulsion from the labor market are in themselves victimizations of trauma-inducing strength. Our present hypothesis is that PTSD develops more severely if the traumatic situations last a long time and are followed by rights violations such as those conflicted by the judicial system or within the health care community, continue over a long period. Leymann (1989) carried out a major review of the literature concerning catastrophe psychiatry and victimology based on about 25,000 pages of scientific text. The objective was to make an inventory of the disappointments, insults and renewed traumas that follow an initial "causal trauma" - a trauma which thereafter leads to what is called "traumatizing consequential events", due to society's structure and the way it functions. Many of these traumata are provoked by the way administrative instances deal with or abstain from dealing with the situation.

The mobbed employee who has become our patient suffers from a traumatic environment: psychiatric, social insurance office, personnel department, managers, co-workers, labor unions, doctors in general practice, company health care, etc., can, if events progress unfavorably, produce worse and worse traumata.

Thus, our patients, like raped women, find themselves under a continuing threat. As long as the perpetrator is free, the woman can be attacked again. As long as the mobbed individual does not receive effective support, he or she can be torn to pieces again at any time.
Thus, these individuals find themselves in a prolonged stress- and in a prolonged trauma-creating situation. Instead of a short, acute (and normal!) PTSD reaction that can subside after several days or weeks, theirs is constantly renewed: new traumata and new sources of anxiety arise in a constant stream during which time the individual experiences rights violations that further undermine his or her self-confidence and psychological health.

How Serious are Psychological Problems after Mobbing? © Heinz Leymann - file 32100e

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.

Cashew Commentary: I am telling you that this is a very good description of what happens to people you label as inherently defective. It goes with this dehumanising process. The problems the patient ends up with may well be much larger than the ones that got him or her into the system in the first place. Many people who are on the receiving end of this get labelled 'schizophrenic' or 'bi-polar' or 'delusional' because the recounting of what ACTUALLY happens to us is heard as SYMPTOMS 'proving' it was all in our minds. That is because psychiatry sees the experience of the identified patient as the CAUSE when in fact, it is the EFFECT.

The Late Professor Heinz Leymann Sweden

2009-07-20T16:14:00.003-04:00

Why we all need to STOP focusing on the ‘identified patient’ (usually “covertly”) and Look at the WHOLE GROUP- PL

Personality as a diagnostic feature
© Heinz Leymann - file 32170e

The Mobbing Encyclopaedia

One quite often hears the theory that a harassed person´s "pre-morbid personality" should be blamed as the social factor that triggers for mobbing situations. This notion is also very widely spread amongst professionals. But until today, empirical research on adult mobbing, which began in 1982, has not been able to relate the cause of a mobbing process to the victim's personality. Not even similar research concerning child mobbing in schools (e. g. Olweus, 1993) has shown any such connection.
... We have seen individuals with both symptoms, mainly individuals who, after several years of trying to protect themselves, are still suffering from lengthy and daily victimization at work....
Cashew Commentary: You know how this sounds to me? Like the aggressor who states, “I would not be doing this to you if you weren’t making me do it.” Gee ...poor sick ‘us’....FOCUS on the symptoms of the ‘sick’ GROUP with the same gusto that you now use with that ‘clinical gaze’ focused on the targeted victim.

A Couple of Quickies...

2009-07-04T16:34:00.002-04:00

In Scandinavian research, ... mobbing is seen as an extreme social phenomenon, triggered by extreme social stressors, causing a range of negative effects, such as biological and psychic stress reactions.
Heinz Leymann
The Mobbing Encylopaedia

This guy has got most of it. PL

Also See

CHECKLIST OF MOBBING INDICATORS
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/checklist.htm
Kenneth Westhues, 2006

As workplace mobbing becomes more widely known and deplored, it is to be expected that many workers in academe, as in other fields, will claim to be mobbed as a way of warding off criticism and strengthening their positions in office politics. Indeed, many workers will genuinely feel that they are being mobbed and will attribute lack of sympathy from others as proof that the others are part of the mob. It is therefore essential that any claimed or apparent case of mobbing be subjected to hard-nosed scrutiny in light of empirical indicators, measurable criteria by which to conclude that yes, this is a case of mobbing, or no, it is not.
Below is a checklist of 16 indicators or measures that I have used in my research, and offered on workshop handouts entitled, "WAMI, The Waterloo Anti-Mobbing Instruments (PDF)." In the introduction to my 2006 book, The Prevention and Remedy of Mobbing in Higher Education, I apply these 16 indicators systematically to two different mobbing cases, to illustrate variations on common themes. There is nothing sacred about the list.

In my book, The Envy of Excellence, the 16 indicators are boiled down to ten. Perhaps the most important indicator is shown here as No. 12, the enlargement of some real or imagined misdeed or fault in order to smear the target's whole identity, so that he or she is seen as personally abhorrent — a totally alien other, a dangerous, repugnant entity that turns the stomachs of good and decent people.
1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”
3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is.”
5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson.”
6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.
7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for”or defend the target.
11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.
12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

Making A Difference

2009-07-03T17:01:00.001-04:00

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

First Posted January 2006

To understand the subtle difference between someone who recognizes herself as the subject of a vicious rumour mill and someone who is hallucinating conversations born out of an unconscious need to seek fame, you need only read the label.

All lunatics are clearly labeled in order to prevent public confusion related to the similarity of perceptions and reactions between the sane and the insane.

And speaking of the subtle differences...did you hear the news? According to CTV, it is believed that terrorist Websites are sending operatives messages which are very difficult to prove are intended to be heard as covert instructions for aggressive acts because they are presented in a form of language which could best be described as ambiguous. It could be "interpreted" more than one way.

Does that sound familiar to anyone? .

Psychiatric Survivours Speak Out

2009-07-03T16:01:00.002-04:00

Tell The "Help" How It Really is For T.H.E.M.

You won't hear any "happy consumer" voices promoting the system nor uttering statements like: "It's for their own good" here. ( A grandiose statement if ever there was one) These people tend to speak for themselves. (when they are "allowed" to speak that is) This is the side of "reality" most of those promoting the system would rather you didn't hear and which it works very hard to suppress.

The degree of passion varies with the individual, many of whom are still loaded with drugs which suppress their emotions, whether they like it or not, by force.
Still, showing strength and courage under enormous pressure and often constant invalidation, these are the Voices of the Psychiatrized.

. Magick98765
By Christopher Heimarck

Collaborative Possibilities
By Brian Milliken

The Church of Schizophrenia
A Little Semi/Serious "Fun"
By My Friend Walter

Wilderness Hermit Charlie's World
By Wilderness Charlie

Poor Leonard's Almanack
By Leonard Roy Frank

Spiritual Emergency

Esquizofrenia,Pensando
By Dayan Paiva, Brazil

An Empathic Mind

Been Broken
United Kingdom

Shift the Focus

2009-06-24T15:18:00.001-04:00

Why we all need to STOP focusing on the ‘identified patient’ (usually “covertly”) and Look at the WHOLE GROUP- PL

Personality as a diagnostic feature
© Heinz Leymann - file 32170e

One quite often hears the theory that a harassed person´s "pre-morbid personality" should be blamed as the social factor that triggers for mobbing situations. This notion is also very widely spread amongst professionals. But until today, empirical research on adult mobbing, which began in 1982, has not been able to relate the cause of a mobbing process to the victim's personality. Not even similar research concerning child mobbing in schools (e. g. Olweus, 1993) has shown any such connection.

... We have seen individuals with both symptoms, mainly individuals who, after several years of trying to protect themselves, are still suffering from lengthy and daily victimization at work....
Cashew Commentary: You know how this sounds to me? Like the aggressor who states, “I would not be doing this to you if you weren’t making me do it.” Gee ...poor sick ‘us’....FOCUS on the symptoms of the ‘sick’ GROUP with the same gusto that you now use with that ‘clinical gaze’ focused on the targeted victim.