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Andy,
You may not want to hear from me at all, but I am personally
sympathetic to the view that the study of the specific
content of paranoid delusions is not very helpful. I think
30 or 40 years ago, psychiatrists did a lot more
psychotherapy. Concerned themselves more with the specific
thoughts of their patients. Some psycho-analysts still do, I
guess, for anyone who can pay them. I had a psychiatrist in
about 1968 who tried to do dream interpretation. It seemed
of no value to me. My personal view is that it is a bit like
the hallucinations a patient might get while in a high fever
from some infectuous disease. Almost no one would suggest
studying the content of those hallucinations as a means of
helping the patient. The patient is helped by treating the
infection & reducing the fever. It's unfortunate, of course, that much less is still known about schiz than about fever,
but my view is that the same principle holds.
A malfunctioning brain can produce strange thoughts, but the
strange thoughts are the effect & not the cause of the
malfunction.
I think the specific content of delusions & hallucinations
is of little interest except to the patient caught up in
them. I suppose it is possible to create a work of art based
on delusions or hallucinations (or of normal dreams) but
that is different from treatment.
My view is that the feelings that schizophrenics often get
that they have some special contact with the spirit world or
with God with some other magical source of knowledge or of
power is just a part of the delusional process. But as
above, I would not deny that some can make use of that
material in artistic creation. Maybe you can.
Sorry to be a wet blanket. Just think of these as my
delusional views.
Walt
[email protected] wrote:
>
> Five years ago I was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, sectioned, and
> treated with anti-psychotics. Once I'd been discharged I came off the
> meds, deciding to deal with whatever was going on without modern
> medicine and its horrible side effects. I was convinced that my
> delusions were not so easily explained away and, though they changed,
> they didn't dissapear. This year I was diagnosed with Multiple
> Sclerosis which it appears I've had for ten years at least. This thing
> that interestes me is that, despite having a different disease, I
> experienced classic deluded thoughts of a schizophrenic, to such a
> degree that I was sectioned.
>
> I am a television documentary producer in England and want to
> understand what may have happened to me, and may be happening to others
> and maybe make a documentary about it. I wonder if (in strictest
> confidence) anybody would like to post or email me your experiences
> with schizophrenia. I'm interested in people who, like myself, are
> unhappy with the way psychiatrists refuse to examine the specifics of
> the "delusions" and "halucinations" they are presented by patients. Is
> it enough just to say that it's a chemical imballance? Is there
> anything spiritual or prophetic that we might be missing by ignoring
> the substance of people's "symptoms"?
>
> I am, despite working for TV, a genuine searcher for truth and will
> exploit my own experiences before I do someone elses.
>
> Thanks in advance for your replies.
>
> my email is [email protected]
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
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