[Vision2020] The Politics of Experience (definition ofschizophrenia)

[Pat Kraut]

I thought the name Laing was familiar to me and when I did a search it brought up all the stuff about this author. He is very far out there. One of the problems with mental illness writers is that some them are so ill themselves that it really muddies the waters. I'd like to ask if you are a part of the Scientology/L Ron Hubbard group who also teach all this nonsense. I suggest before any of you read this guys stuff you do some research also on who he is, what he believes and the type of stuff he is invovled with. 
I am reading a book: The Politics of Deviance, Anne Hendershott.  This author makes some very good points about some shifts in sociologists beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil. The problem with all this 'is there or isn't there true mental illness' is that people wind up living in very dangerous conditions. If Laing and the Scientologist had their way my mother would still be living in a house in Spokane with no functioning furnance. Her children wanted to fix it but she explained to the salesman that 'she wasn't allowed to have a furnace because of a class she failed while attending EWU'. You should have seen the look on his face! When I told him that we would let him know he couldn't get out of there fast enough. There is diviant behavior. There is good and evil. There are people who are not just 'thinking out of the box', they are ill. The brains of mentally ill people show up different on scans. Their chemistry is different in blood tests. The only 'controversial issue' is the stupid stuff that some people read and take as fact.
The simle truth is that if you are hearing voices in you head there is a problem.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tbertruss at aol.com 
  To: pkraut at moscow.com ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 8:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Politics of Experience (definition ofschizophrenia)



  Pat et. al.

  I offered a reference for reading on the subject of mental illness, and various controversial issues involved on this subject, written by a psychiatrist, R. D Laing, who had a lot of experience dealing with the mentally ill.  You might read the book before dismissing what I said.  

  Info on "The Politics of Experience" here:

  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/039471475X/103-2193648-8375043?v=glance

  Consider the following point, that can be read at the link above, from a reviewer of "The Politics of Experience:"

  "To be well-adjusted to our modern dysfunctional society is not healthy for the individual or society. Who is more dangerous? Laing asks: the psychotic who mistakenly believes he carries a hydrogen bomb in his stomach or the perfectly adjusted B-52 bomber pilot who will drop very real hydrogen bombs when ordered to do so?"
  -----------------------------

  Ted Moffett

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