User talk:FiachraByrne/Archive 3

Thanks

Thank you for adding sources to the "Religion" section of the Sigmund Freud article. Jonathanwallace (talk) 16:52, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to help Jonathan. It's fully supported by secondary literature now. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scarpy has taken to vandalizing my userpage.

I have made a report at AN/I in case you would like to provide an opinion.— James Cantor (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to see that it was resolved amicably. I think it's a genuine pity that he has decided to no longer edit that article, however.FiachraByrne (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do appreciate your condolences. If you're feeling moved by the experience, anything you can do to encourage the currently involved parties improve the language that reads like thinly veiled insults I would appreciate. James didn't deserved to be addressed with such language, and neither does SCA, SAA or SLAA. -- Scarpy (talk) 20:32, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I understand that the formulations chosen might be insulting as they undercut the status of sexual compulsion as a recognised entity I don't think that, in truth, it is intended in that way. I think that, perhaps, a statement that in the lede that sexual compulsion is not a recognised psychiatric disorder nor understood by the SCA as such my resolve some of the difficulties? FiachraByrne (talk) 02:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not about the official "recognizedness" of sexual compulsion, sexual addiction, sex and love addiction or sexaholism. I personally don't care about it, and while I can't speak for groups with those words in their names, I don't see any evidence that there's any significant number of people in them who care about official psychiatric recognition of the first half of their name.

I researched these groups very thoroughly for my contributions to those articles. I can tell you I have not seen them ever, at all, even hint that they named themselves in a particular way because they wanted to encourage psychiatric organizations to establish a diagnostic taxonomy related to or including their fellowship's name. All of these organizations were founded in the late 70s and early 80s, I can guarantee you none of them anticipated a debate regarding "hypersexuality" that would occur 30 years later that they wanted to influence.

I'm sure they had the similar problems researchers have now where they struggled with what to name their groups and used the best language they could come up with. It's a difficult set of behaviors to put words too (probably one of the reasons why SLAA is also known as the Augustine Fellowship). There is no reason to use such condescending language to describe SCA, SAA, SLAA, and SA because of a decision they made, in a non-professional capacity, 30 years ago. With the way these groups operate it was probably a decision made by half a dozen people on their fifth pot of coffee, in cramped room in a community center, hospital, or church basement after several months of arguing amongst themselves and attempting to practice Robert's Rules of Order.

It's also completely likely that some of these groups might had wanted to use different language to name themselves, but it was already taken by a group that started independently (AA keeps track of this when people ask for copyright permission to adapt the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions for a new organization). SCA, SAA, SLAA, and SA are just four notable groups of many similar non-notable ones (in the Wikipedia sense) that started and never took off (when the Wayback Machine isn't broken, there is a more elaborate list here). SCA, SAA, SLAA and SA are very different culturally, but you can derive very little information about their cultural differences from their names--in that sense they're almost inconsequential.

I know you think they named themselves in such a way to invite psychiatric interpretation, and I know you think groups actively lobby in some form for psychiatric recognition or legitimization of their terminology--they don't. They think of these issues they deal with primarily as spiritual illnesses, not psychiatric ones. I will grant you in the one example you provided of this previously, that AA's influence had some impact on the formation of a disease theory of alcoholism that carried in to the mental health field, but like Ernest Kurtz would often explain, generally when AAs say "disease" it's not meant in the medical sense, it's used conceptually or like a metaphor (relevant discussion).

Twelve-steps are like that, the descriptions/definitions of problems that bring people to them are not scientific and are not intended to be scientific. I have never seen a group make such a claim before, and in fact they usual go out of the way to clarify that they're not making a scientific claim. Even in the one case I can think of, Neurotics Anonymous, where a twelve-step named itself after a word that was developed in earlier among "mental health professionals," they don't relate a psychiatric definition to it: "... the word 'neurotic' is used without a scientific connotation. For our purpose, a neurotic is defined as just any person who accepts that he or she has emotional problems."

I don't know what it's going to take to convince you that they are not trying to rewrite or undermine psychiatry. But I would encourage you to let psychiatry be psychiatry and let twelve-step be twelve-step. They can both be valuable. An actual NPOV article would not take the side of either, or slight one in favor of the other, it would just explain the differences. It's easy to do, there's plenty of reliable sources to use to draw the information from, and there's no reason for it to be controversial.

Instead, there's this attitude that twelve-steps either trying to fool people in to believing a psychiatric diagnosis exists for something when one doesn't, or that twelve-steps are so ignorant of psychiatry that they don't know a concept they've developed isn't actually a diagnosis. There no real coupling to speak of between twelve-steps and their various understandings of the human condition and psychiatry's.

Intellectuals should use their skills to engage with the general public and help meet their obvious and growing needs. Now it feels like it's becoming trendy to destroy any person or organization that has a little as a semantic difference between their story and yours.

The world has suffered enough from the consequences of that disgusting kind of captiousness and dogmatism. Lets do our part to break this trend here. Today. This minute. This second!

Wikipedian FiachraByrne, if you seek peace, if you seek neutrality for Wikipedia and for western academia, if you seek encephalization, go to these articles on sex-related twelve-step groups. FiachraByrne, edit those articles. FiachraByrne tear down this wall!

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Wikipedian!'... All free people, wherever they may live, are citizens of Wikipedia, and, therefore, as a free person, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Wikipedian!'

We choose to edit Wikipedia, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

... anyway, after several hours of writing this I don't feel as passionate as I did when I started. Sorry for the harsh language in parts. You seem like a nice enough person. I'm sure you do a ton of good work. I don't know if you'll find those last paragraphs as amusing as I did.

Do you have opinions on Willie O'Dea? -- Scarpy (talk) 08:18, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suddenly I am imbued with a messianic mission to democratize wiki-knowledge for the masses.

My perspective is closer to your own than you might realize. I have an academic interest in psychiatry but, mostly, as a historical phenomenon. My background is in the humanities. As a therapeutic/coercive enterprise and in terms of the diagnostic categories it produces I would tend to view psychiatry with a large degree of ambivalence. I couldn't care less if 12 steppers were trying to undermine psychiatry - that might even be a useful project in some respects - not that I believe that that is their real intention. One could also argue that psychiatry's adoption of a disease model is, absent verifiable biological markers of insanity, akin to a metaphorical usage as well. The difference, at least from the point of view of wikipedia, lies in psychiatry's ability to produce knowlege about a given condition howsoever they define it (generally by committee). My greater interest, in any case, is in the way that those deemed mad, families, and non-medical social actors construct madness.

The intentionality of SCA and other 12 steppers in adopting the language that they do is not really of relevance to these articles. Or rather, it would only be relevant if their intention in using such terms was made clear (i.e. that such use is distinct from that adopted/transformed by psychiatric and clincial psychological lexicons of behavioural pathology. The fact remains that the use of certain phrases and models can suggest to a reader that they are operating within a medical/clinical psychological frame of reference and that, therefore, sexual compulsion is a "recognised" psychiatric/psychological condition. If they are not using the term compulsion in this way than it would seem to me to be beneficial from their own point of view as well as that of any reader of the article to clarify this point.

However, the solution to the issue is already provided above. Follow the example of neurotics anonymous and simply state in the article that the use of the word "sexual compulsion" is without scientific connotation. If the SCA say this in an unambiguous terms themselves and this can be referenced in the article, so much the better. One would have to then define what is meant for SCA by sexual compulsion, which shouldn't be that problematic and you have provided examples on the talk page of that article.

Willie O'Dea is a GREAT MAN and IRISH PATRIOT. FiachraByrne (talk) 13:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting how psychiatry is viewed among some self-help/mutual-aid/mutual-help groups. GROW, for example, in at least one of their publications had some not-so-nice things to say about mental health professionals (page 86):

"As for the phenomenon of counterproductive methods, the keynote here is a systematic misdirection of effort through a viewing and treatment of the needy and the suffering predominantly as objects. If there is one outstanding characteristic of today's mental health systems, surely it is the wholesale replacement of personal caring and community sharing by the impersonal administration of tablets. So much for treatment and rehabilitation: As for prevention, isn't the task here chiefly that of rebuilding personal life, relationships and community as against their current general collapse? And isn't the simplest account of the losing game we have in this area the fact that a large majority of people are systematically looking in the wrong direction and treating themselves as objects by the extent to which they are turning in their need to the use of drugs?"

They adopted a set of guidelines for members when dealing with psychiatrists (reformatted for space, page 87):

"GROW's Changing Attitude to an Increasingly Disturbed Medical Profession: Obviously, a lot of discretion is needed on the part of an organization like GROW, which is careful about respect for competent authority and upholds the necessary role of doctors in real diagnosis and treatment situations. To preserve the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship GROW has, in fact, made the following four stipulations in its group members' manual: (1) Members are expected to deal directly and on their own responsibility with their doctors, and must never be given cause to fear interference on the part of GROW or its representatives. (2) Members who are still under treatment are urged to obey carefully their doctor's instructions. (3) In keeping with their own rights and dignity, and the voluntary nature of the therapeutic relationship, members are reminded that they are always free to make representations to their doctors concerning the integrity of their beliefs and values and the proper use of their personal resources; and furthermore, where there is reasonable doubt, that they are free to seek another medical opinion on their treatment. (4) Matters pertaining to diagnosis and treatment, and technical language from psychiatry, are banned from GROW group discussions."

In the same book, the following section, section is an essay (but not a counter-point) from a sympathetic psychiatrist in Auckland, Dr. Frazer McDonald, titled "Healing The Whole Person: A Psychiatrists View."

Personally, I'm somewhat sympathetic with the likes of Michel Foucault and Thomas Szasz. Psychiatry, and especially CBT-based therapies, can quickly degenerate in to a kind of thought-policing and victim-blaming. Are a patients beliefs really "dysfunctional" or representative of a "disease?" Or are they just an expected response to their circumstances? Maybe it's more important to acknowledge those circumstances and deal with them on that level than it is to try and cognitively reframe a situation that is difficult to genuinely cognitively reframe? And what's the goal here anyway? Something like returning to a job that to no small degree may have caused a patients problems? Is that really so important that it's worth the side-effects of medication and some and the Orwellian evidenced-based delusion training? Isn't it also playing in to hand of the managerial class to produce cooperative employees for them? One's who are likely to think if their job is giving them the blues to approach it like it's a consequence of their "schema" rather than not being treated with common dignity and respect?

I know in some cases the mental health field, or at least members of it, may also look at support groups like these as subversive. "You're not abandoning your understanding of your problems in favor of adopting current paradigm we've created? How dare you?!? We own your language! We tell you what words and thoughts are healthy! You've had CBT, you should know that!"

At any rate, yeah, I agree with you about the SCA, SAA, SLAA and SA articles. I think everyone involved agrees it's important to make those distinctions but maybe just not how to do it yet. I have some sources, ideas, and a three day weekend coming up. I'll revisit the articles then.

I've been curious about Willie O'Dea, and some other things, since discovering the Rubberbandits and the Republic of Telly. I think I've figured out "yoke." Yoke can mean anything, but of the anythings it can mean it's often a euphemism for an unspecified kind of recreational drug? I'm slowly getting the context of the Willie O'Dea humor. He sounds like a more violent version of Bill Clinton--a well-meaning affable guy from humble origins, but with some unfortunate defects of character that have a way of coming up while he's on record and not being particularly sagacious and tactful. -- Scarpy (talk) 18:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you.

I'm intrigued by your comparison of Willie O'Dea with Bill Clinton. In terms of their personality styles I couldn't think of two people more dissimilar!! Anyhow, O'Dea's party and, outside of East Limerick, O'Dea himself, are not very popular in Ireland at the moment given their role in bankrupting the nation, percevied corruption (not O'Dea personally), general incompetence, complacency, venality and stupidity. They're a bunch of muppets and gombeen men. That Rubber Bandits song about Willie O'Dea is hilarious ("I swear on my 'tache, that's good hash"). In fairness, O'Dea was a pretty good sport about it. O'Dea himself was never taken too seriously in government, despite his vote gathering and poll topping talents, and never got a top ministerial post. Generally he was sent out as a political attack dog but he's been in the process of reinventing himself since he had to resign.

A yoke, used in the singular means "thing" (as in, "Would you look at that yoke over there?"); Yokes plural refers to ecstasy - or at least it used to, at this point I could be wrong about that. Also, in Limerick they'll have their own lingo.

There seems a lot of variety in terms of how support groups view psychiatry and psychiatric medication. Until fairly recently, most of the user groups in Ireland were fairly closely aligned to psychiatric perspectives and placed a strong emphasis on the validity of psychiatric diagnostic concepts and the necessity of taking psychiatric medication as directed. Psychiatrists had often played a central role in setting up these groups. The general mantra of such groups centres around challenging "stigma" without ever address the role of psychiatry in generating such stigma. Unlike somewhere like Toronto, you didn't get users establishing their own autonomous voice in a collective sense. It's kind of extraordinary given the massive level of psychiatric hospitalisation here historically.

While there are many negative implications arising from the bio-medical model, most of the problems I see with psychiatry do not stem, ultimately, from the preponderance of a particular psychiatric model. During the period of some of the greatest abuses in psychiatry the prevailing intellectual framework was not predominantly a biological one. The problems, I think, are largely political and require a democratization of the discipline and the insertion of the mad as agents into the process by which knowledge is generated. Unresolved contradictions lie at the heart of the psychiatric enterprise: coercion and therapeutics; social integration and exclusion.

Szazs I find a bit simplistic. Instead of interpreting madness in terms of pathology he interprets it in terms of morality. I think some of the states taken under the umbrella term of madness can pose more serious problems than that model might allow for. Foucault, despite empirical errors and concentration on discourse instead of practices, was very insightful. FiachraByrne (talk) 04:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By and large, psychiatrists don't want to deal with those deemed mad in any context that is other than clinical.

I largely agree with you on both Szazs and Foucault. I will say, though I can't think of a psychiatric model that has been developed with the intent of minimizing its abusive and stigmatizing potential. Maybe that was or is being discussed seriously with the DSM-5, but if that's so I haven't heard about it. There's a suicideologist, David Webb, I heard interviewed several months ago who I thought had some interesting ideas along these lines.

May finally be back to doing serious editing again soon. Will see. -- Scarpy (talk) 21:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Medicalization

If you haven't run across it yet, you might be interested in the article Medicalization. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most over-used term ... Thank you very much. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Your signature

Hello. I am delighted with the presence of the new stub. I look forward to expanding it. Thank you for the suggestion and encouragement. By the way, I notice that your signature is not clickable. Are you typing it in manually? In case you didn't know, you can just add four tildes like this: ~~~~ at the end of your message, and it will automatically make your signature.

Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Long overdue reply

Hello, FiachraByrne. You have new messages at James Cantor's talk page.
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A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	For very sensible, polite discussion (and some excellent research skills) in an RfC at Chepni. Noleander (talk) 17:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh thank you!!

Yes. That was very impressive. Clear and sound. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Anthony.FiachraByrne (talk) 04:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Thank you for your comments at WP:RSN, I have responded with a further question if I may impose a little more. Thank you once again. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]