THE TECHNO-QUACKS VERSUS THE NATURAL ARISTOCRACY

TAC, the Treatment Advocacy Center, has a simplistic view of mental illness. Its bible, Isaac and Armat's Madness in the Streets uses the term "mental illness" throughout as if it were synonymous with psychosis-- as if there is only one kind of mental illness, the most severe kind. This is false. Apparently E. Fuller Torrey, TAC's founder, formulated his views because the theory that schizophrenia was due to "bad parenting" made his mother feel guilty. It also seemed to him to defy evidence because his sister was diagnosed as schizophrenic and he was not. He did not feel that being hospitalized helped his sister, which caused him to conclude that schizophrenia was inherent and although it could be controlled it could not be cured. This was the beginning of the "throw-away people" approach that TAC takes today-- just drug and shock patients until they are vegetables and to hell with how they feel. But there are many factors he did not take into account. First of all, his sister's condition was bound to deteriorate in the hospital because hospitals then as now use exactly the same kinds of somatic treatments he favors for use on an outpatient basis. There is no difference between the way his sister was treated in the hospital and how someone would be treated on TAC's recommendation except that the psychiatric assault would extend into the home, thus raising serious civil liberties issues, and probably involve the continued influence of the person who caused the illness to begin with. Which of course brings us to the vacuity of Torrey's motive in opposing the psychogenic model of schizophrenia: did it ever occur to him that his mother might have been a bad parent to his sister but not to him? That she dumped her in the hospital because she loved her less than she did him? Finally, did it ever occur to him that his own experience actually supports the psychogenic theory of mental illness better than the somatic, one, for if Torrey and his sister had the same parents, why did she inherit a tendency toward schizophrenia while he did not? (see Wikipedia article on Torrey)

Whatever the personal motives which influenced Torrey to develop his theories, they are wrong. There are many kinds of mental illness, a substantial portion of which do not involve psychosis. What is psychosis? It is a mental state in which a person has delusions and hallucinations so that he believes things which are demonstrably false. An example of a psychotic episode was illustrated in a documentary I once saw concerning a teenage girl who was subjected to what seemed to me rather cruel experiments in brain electrode implants. The incident which put her in the hands of the people conducting these experiments could be described as a psychotic break. She was subject to such breaks, during which time she would become hysterical and run off, sometimes to places where her parents could not find her. Because he feared that she might find herself in a dangerous neighborhood at such a time, her father had given her a knife with which to defend herself. On the critical occasion, she was in a movie theatre with her father. She went into the restroom, and was standing in front of the mirror combing her hair when a woman came in and began to touch up her appearance in the same manner. As the woman stood next to her. As the woman stood next to her, it seemed to the girl, looking at herself in the mirror, that her own body was shrinking, and that the woman was the cause of it. So she turned and stabbed the woman with the knife her father had given her. It was the girl's own father who saved the woman by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the girl later, upon learning what she had done, was horrified. Most people who have psychotic breaks are not dangerous and they should not be feared but rther pitied, because their inability to control their own minds puts them into the hands of a heartless psychiatric profession, as one can see by the brain electrode implant experiments to which this girl was subjected.

The most severe categories of mental illness, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are characterized by psychotic episodes. However, there are millions of people who are mentally ill but who have never experienced a psychotic episode in their lives (how do we know that they are not just denying it because they are "too sick" to know that they are sick? Because many in fact know that they are mentally ill and have made attempts to get help). These people have what psychiatrists term a "personality disorder". Since the disorder itself involves merely nonconformity--"an enduring pattern of experience and behavior which differs markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it"-- the illness itself could not be innate. Rather it is most likely caused by the interaction between the inidividual's unusual behavior patterns and a world which rejects him or her without reason. If one is rejected by one's parents, if one experiences teasing and bullying by one's peers, one tends to develop psychological problems, believing that one is somehow inferior when in fact one may be equal or even superior to those around one. One category of personality disorder is particularly important, because it is considered to be part of the "schizophrenia spectrum"-- those illnesses which are related to schizophrenia. It is called "schizoid personality" or simply "schizotypy". Since its symptoms-- above all a fondness for solitude-- are superficially similar, it is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, but there is in fact all the difference in the world, because schizotypes do not have psychotic episodes. Indeed, they are special.

Recently there has been a good deal of research on the link between mental illness and creativity. One article, "Biological Basis for Creativity Linked to Mental Illness," appeared in Science Daily on October 1, 2003. It describes experiments in which psychologists found that creative individuals had a lower level of "latent inhibition", defined as a person's unconscious ability to ignore stimuli which are irrelevant to their needs, than normal individuals. "This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment." Previously, such low levels of latent inhibition had been associated with psychosis. But the scientists who directed thi study believe that it might also contribute to original thinking (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031001061055.htm). A second article published in Science Daily on September 7, 2005, is even more intriguing. It is entitled "Odd Behavior and Creativity May Go Hand in Hand," and involves a comparison between normal individuals, schizophrenics and schizotypes. I suspect that it was a little unfair to the schizophrenics, because such individuals are not always psychotic-- had they been tested when they were not having a psychotic episode they may have scored similarly to the schizotypes. Be that as it may, the study researchers showed subjects a variety of common household objects and asked them to make up new functions for them. "The results showed that the schizotypes were better able to creatively suggest new uses for the objects," while the schizophrenics and the normal controls performed similarly to one another. Brain scans made during the tests showed that although all groups used both hemispheres of their brains, "the activation of the right hemisphere in the schizotypes was dramatically greater than that of the schizophrenic and average subjects." As a result, researchers concluded that a number of famous creative luminaries, including Vincent Van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickenson and Isaac Newton, had schizotypal personalities. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907101907.htm)

It seems that schizotypes come closest to that "natural aristocracy" which Thomas Jefferson believed exists and is essential to the maintainance of high civilization. Their personality characteristics, although innate, are not especially connected with any particular gender, race, ethnicity, or class affiliation. In an earlier age, they were celebrated. Today they face the destruction of their uniqueness by organizations such as TAC. Perhaps one of the first victims was Ernest Hemingway. In 1960, Hemingway became severely depressed, apparently because he felt he could no longer write. As a result he was placed in a mental hospital, where he was kept like a prisoner, with bars on the windows and limited contact with the outside world. It is unclear whether or not he was actually psychotic-- after all, the "delusion" which bothered his friends and family the most-- that the FBI was after him-- had a basis in reality, as they were indeed keeping tabs on him as a result of his activities on behalf of the Spanish Republican cause and his initial support for Castro's revolution (see Wikipedia article on Hemingway). Why he told his biographer, Hotchner, that they were after him because of his relationship with his young secretary and income tax irregularities I do not know, except that Hotchner was one of those who connived in placing him in a mental hospital and hence was not to be trusted. It is well known that Hemingway was given ECT against his will. As he told Hotchner when they were out for a walk where the doctors could not overhear, "Well, what is this sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure, but we lost the patient. It's a bum turn, Hotch, terrible." (A.E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, p. 280). ECT not only did not help Hemingway, it made him worse.

When Hemingway's wife complained that he was not receiving psychotherapy, Hotchner had a talk with his doctor, a techno-quack whom he called "Dr. Renown" but whom we now know was Howard Rome, later president of the American Psychiatric Association. Rome explained that Hemingway's "delusions" had surrounded themselves with an impregnable shell, and the fact that this "delusion-shell" was inpenetrable necessitated the use of electrical treatments. He added quite oddly that "Ernest's fears of impoverishment and of being in jeopardy physically and legally are probably related to his feelings of impoverishment as a writer, with attendant jeopardy to his identity and stature. His symptoms are a defense against recognizing this. They are so dominant that he cannot be reached by psychotherapy until they are neutralized by ECT." (Hotchner, pp. 292-3). But Rome was wrong. Hemingway recognized full well that he was having difficulty writing, and seemed to feel that he was "washed up" as a writer (pp. 285-6) A genuine psychotherapist would have tried to persuade him that this could just be "writer's block" and temporary, thus restoring his confidence in himself. One cannot help but ask, if Rome himself really believed that Hemingway was finished as a writer and could not bear to face the fact, why he did not leave the old man with his delusions? Was it not cruel to make him face such a fact, if fact it was? One can only hypothesize that having been given power over a man who was greatly his superior in intellect and creativity, Rome was jealous and wished to destroy someone with whom he knew he could never compete. And he succeeded. Hemingway committed suicide while he was being treated by Rome.

I think that this reveals the motive behind the movement for forced treatment, from E. Fuller Torrey on down. The mis-diagnosis of schizotypes as schizophrenics, which has been going on at least since Hemingway's final days, is a war of the inferior elements in society against their moral and intellectual superiors-- indeed, against civilization itself. One can imagine what unilateral ECT, which is so favored today (see my blogs on "ECT and Totalitarianism") would do to someone who relies so greatly upon the non-dominant hemisphere of their brains. Luckily, some of us have been spared it-- so far. As for neuroleptic drugs, I know from personal experience that a single dose can bring on tardive akathisia (the inability to sit or lie still, accompanied by feelings of terror and doom) which is so severe as to drive one to a nervous breakdown. Neuroleptics have effects which are every bit as horrifying as those of drugs which have been banned, such as LSD, and they became more dangerous from 1964 to 1979 so there is no reason to believe that they are less so today. I know, again from personal experience, that neuroleptics can drive a happy person who is coping adequately with his or her problems to panic and severe depression. If there were no way to avoid taking them, they would certanly drive the person to suicide. And yet Torrey's mouthpieces Isaac and Armat say that "schizophrenics" (who may not be that at all-- note that there is no entry in their index for schizoid personality, schizotype or schizotypy) should have precisely these extremely dangerous treatments forced upon them (see Madness in the Streets, "ECT: The Second Domino," and "Psychoactive Drugs: the Final Domino", pp. 194-245). To be sure, those individuals who are genuinely psychotic and a danger to themselves or others should be constrained in some way, although certainly ECT and neuroleptics would do them no good. But there are other drugs which have a sedating effect without the horrifying side-effects of the treatments TAC recommends, and they should be used only to calm the psychotic person until he or she can receive genuine psychotherapy. As for schizotypes, there is nothing that they need from anyone so much as civilization needs them.