JAMA Psychiatry: No Evidence that Psychiatric Treatments Produce “Successful Outcomes”

In a viewpoint article in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers reveal that psychiatry is unable to demonstrate improving patient outcomes over time.

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In a viewpoint piece published in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers write that there is no evidence that psychiatric interventions lead to “successful” outcomes. Successful outcomes, they write, include “the prevention of undesirable events, such as death and disability, and the achievement of desirable ones, such as remission.”

Psychiatry, unlike other medical specialties, has not developed efforts to investigate this question. They write:

“Despite advances in measurement-based psychiatric care, clinical [success rate] reporting systems do not exist for most psychiatric services. This applies to all psychiatric treatments, including pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and neuromodulation.”

The viewpoint was written by Kenneth Freedland and Charles Zorumski at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

One way to measure “successful outcomes” is to assess whether current treatments are more effective “for a variety of clinically important outcomes” than previous treatments. Other medical specialties can point to such progress.

Freedland and Zorumski write, “Cardiologists, oncologists, and other medical specialists can point to temporal trends in success rates for a variety of clinically important outcomes to confirm that current treatments are more effective than the ones that were available 20 or 30 years ago.”

Yet, they note, “Similar data are hard to find for psychiatric disorders.”

This is the very data that the public wants to know. They want to know that a medical treatment leads to “successful outcomes” and that outcomes have improved over time.

“Patients with serious illnesses care about their chances of having successful treatment outcomes. They also expect to receive more effective treatments than the ones that were available to their parents or grandparents, and they hope that even more effective treatments will be available for their children and grandchildren,” Freedland and Zorumski write.

If this assessment is applied to psychiatry, it raises this question: Are mental health outcomes today—in this era of Prozac, ECT, CBT, and so forth—better than they were in the era of, say, insulin coma therapy and lobotomy? Or even better than in the early 1800s, when Quakers introduced “moral therapy”?

According to Freedland and Zorumski, there is an absence of “successful outcomes” data that could answer that question.

The authors focus on the need for psychiatry to develop such measurements, focusing on the “success rate” of new psychiatric treatments compared to existing treatments.

They write:

“If psychiatric treatment success rate data systems were available, they would show us that it is difficult to improve clinical [success rates] by devising new interventions for patients who are potentially responsive to existing ones.”

The two authors don’t delve into the outcomes data that do exist, which tell of a public health failure in psychiatric care. Instead, all the data today tells of worsening mental health in the United States, particularly among the young. For instance, new data from the CDC found that 57% of teen girls feel “persistently sad and hopeless,” and 30% “seriously considered attempting suicide.”

And the data also shows that current interventions may contribute to that decline. For instance, researchers have warned that well-intentioned “mental health awareness” campaigns may be worsening outcomes. Antidepressants have been shown to increase the risk that depression will run a more chronic course, and they increase the risk of diabetes, hypertension, and other evidence of poor health.

In the long term, antipsychotics—on the whole—lead to worse outcomes for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, including worse work functioning, even when comparing people with similar baseline symptom severity.

While the authors have pointed out the absence of successful outcome data for psychiatric treatments, they then jump to this conclusion, which nevertheless presents psychiatric care in a positive light: If systemic measurements were created for assessing “successful outcomes,” they write, this could ensure that psychiatry “continues” to improve:

“The development of well-designed, sustainable success rate data systems would facilitate this kind of progress and help ensure that psychiatric treatment outcomes continue to improve in the decades ahead.”

That sentiment suggests that psychiatric treatments have been shown in the past to lead to successful outcomes; yet, as they write here, there is no data on whether medical treatments for psychiatric disorders, past or present, produce that bottom-line result. As such, this paper highlights the fact that there is no evidence that psychiatric interventions do more good than harm.

 

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Freedland, K. E. & Zorumski, C. F. (2023). Success rates in psychiatry. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online March 22, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.0056 (Link)

75 COMMENTS

  1. Identity is not a branch of medical empiricism. Psychiatrists are the last who know what the psyche is. And are the last people who CARE about the psyche. In communism they served Stalin, in Capitalism they serve Wall Street. Generally they are using theology to build a sense of shame about non ability to share the material thoughts with monotheisitic cult of ego. They are persecuting psychological man SINCE THE ENLIGHTENMENT ERA, because someone must be guilty for materialistic psychopathy of combination of medicine (Rockefeller) with Wall Strret. So they decided to persecute persecuted and blame them for the psychological non coveniences and non natural necessities, for fail of materialistic ideologies of the ego cult. This is definition of barbarism.

    “I” have psychosis or depression, “you” have psychosis and so on. We do not have antyhing Pathology is non personal. The main sin of psychiatry is conevnient simplyfying of psychological reality to personal issue or theological feeling of guilt. Monotheistic psychiatry is based on theological persecution of non natural nature of the psyche, and people want diagnosis. The want diagnosis based on theological condemnation, and at the same time they are leaving the church….This is monotheistic cult of ego without GOD and without the psychological reality. This is definition of marxistic insanity.

    I am a believer, but I can see the differences between psyche and the spirit. And in my opinion monotheists without psychological awarness, are insane. Conevnient is the fact that they want to see the devil not in the hell of Wall Street and false economy (materialism) based on fictional money – they want to see the devil in non natural issues like psychosis, depression.
    So they blame psyche for what it is to protect the devil. Non natural issues of the psyche are not the devil. The devil is Wall Street and “normal” goyims and their masters of evil.

    Psychosis is not the devil, the fact that people have one god – economy based on persecution of the psychological reality of humans. This is the devil. Persecuted are not the devil. Normal are. Thougless are. Wall Street is the devil. Your empty ego without psychological influences, is the devil.
    —————————————————————————————————-
    Psychiatry is using psychological man as a scape goat, on the altar of dirty communism, ugly capitalism and deadly inclusive capitalism of 2030 and 2040.

    They will destroy everyone using false empiricism in medical disguise until 2040/2050.

    ————————————–
    James Hillman “Re – visioning psychology”

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  2. This article is incredibly damning: The Emperor has no clothes.

    Indeed, I have always asked myself why, when other illnesses like cancer get a literal and figurative race for a cure, “mental illness” is usually considered incurable and there seemingly is no effort to find such a cure. And if there aren’t even measures or data with which to measure success, they never will. The cynic in me wonders whether this is due to incompetence…or by design.

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    • In fact, they will tell us over and over again that there IS no cure and taking their drugs will be our only hope of “managing the illness.” The choice of “Insulin for diabetes” was not one made by chance. That’s the reality they have always wanted to create, because it justifies endless drug prescriptions and the denial of other approaches meant to actually eliminate the problems they need to sell their products.

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      • Before you get to the diabetes drug you start with Prozac. Once that that causes enough mania to trigger a bipolar diagnosis you then add zyprexa. Only then, after sufficient weight gain, do you start the trendy diabetes drug for weight loss.

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      • Steve, you and a psychologist I met, point out a problem with how the medical community bills. The doctors want patients to pay them to “manage the illness,” instead of cure the patients.

        Well, who the heck wants to do that? Not I. And in most other fields, the company owners or managers pay their employees, for their appropriate and desired work.

        Doctors are billing the opposite way. Who wants to pay doctors to “manage the illness” – that they create, when it comes to the psychiatrists – instead of paying doctors to cure the patients?

        https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing-ebook/dp/B0036S4EGE

        https://emcrit.org/ibcc/anticholinergic/#anticholinergic_agents

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome

        A crazy psychologist, who I had the misfortune of interacting with, had delusions of grandeur that I would pay him to “manage” my artwork and money, as he hoped to steal everything from me, according to the rest of the thievery contract he gave me. No thanks!

        But such an insane request does point out a problem with how the entire medical community bills. And even sane psychologists know those “conservatorship” contracts are abusive.

        https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/01/guardianship-destroyed-family-draft/

        As is any contract where a person wants to take a percentage of gross profits … that’s a classic thievery contract.

        “… Only then, after sufficient weight gain, do you start the trendy diabetes drug for weight loss.”

        Oops! Psychiatry thought their psych drugs were “just like insulin for diabetes.” No, but the psych drugs can create diabetes, and the symptoms of their DSM disorders.

        Epic fail, psychiatric and psychological industries – whose “partnership,” at least sometimes, functions as a “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy,” against your clients.

        And any religions – many of whom are “partnered” with the “mental health professions” and social workers – need to garner insight into the fact that the DSM “bible” is NOT compatible with the Holy Bible.

        You can NOT believe in both “bibles.” One is a book of scientifically “invalid” stigmatizations; the other is a book of wisdom teachings, which teaches about the importance of treating others in a manner commensurate with how you would like to be treated.

        Polar opposite theologies, unless the “psych professions” want to be defamed with “invalid” and stigmatizing disorders, and neurotoxic poisoned (“tortured”) for life.

        http://www.narpa.org/reference/un-forced-psychiatric-treatment-is-torture

        Is that how you’d like to be treated, “psych professions,” pastors, et al? Of course not, so please stop doing that to others. Defaming and poisoning people, with a medically known toxidrome, are illegal behaviors. Bad protocols, psychiatry. So please cease and desist, psychological and psychiatric industries.

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        • Just for the record, I’ve never studied psychology in any depth. My specialty is actually education, in which I have an MS. I sort of snuck into the “mental health” field through the back door, which may be part of why I never really bought into the “DSM worldview” or the psychiatric dogma. I agree with you 100% that the DSM is a complete scientific fraud.

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      • Or it takes away extra time to live. The average “Seriously Mentally Ill” American still dies 20-25 years earlier than the average American. Psychiatry is the only “medical” specialty where treatment has been proven to SHORTEN the patients’ lives!

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        • I agree with you that the drugs appear to shorten lives. However, for most, that shortening will be in the twilight years which for many will be lost to dementia and Alzheimer’s and the many horrors of shriveling organs.

          I’ve just read that paragraph back and it makes an ambiguous and mildly disturbing point about ambiguous and mildly disturbing final chapter issues.

          If someone is regularly self-harming and overdosing their bodies aren’t going to hold out long. Slow poisoning has its consequences. Surely you can concede that there are subgroups whose lives can be lengthened by psychiatric input?

          Maybe some statistics are failing to include the poisoning effects and other horrors of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, chronic insomnia and so on?

          Do the 20-25 year life-shortening studies make actual realistic mention of the life-shortening potential of a “mentally ill” lifestyle?.

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          • Of course, no real analysis has been done on causes, because they’re afraid to find out the truth because they suspect it’s their wonderful drugs.

            Of course, life survival strategies and poverty and other stresses would contribute to this, but some of those strategies are actually a result of “treatment” in many cases. For instance, smoking is incredibly common in the “chronically mentally ill” and is often blamed for these dramatic statistics. But it is well known that cigarettes increase dopamine, and a discussion with the “patients” shows that many of them smoke to reduce the adverse effects of their “medications” that dramatically reduce their dopamine levels. And of course, being a “mental patient” almost ensures that poverty will result from long-term “treatment.” Drug abuse is also common among the “CMI” population, but I’d still maintain that this is another failure of the “mental heath” system, as an effective system would make people less likely rather than more likely to use street drugs.

            It’s all fine and good to blame the patients, but the hard reality is, more treatment leads to shorter lives, and there is no “explanation” that absolves the “doctors” from this horrible statistical result. No other “treatment” modality for any other disease state would allow this kind of statistic stand.

            There MIGHT be subgroups whose lives are extended by psychiatric intervention, but I have seen no study that has even looked at this question. If there were such findings, I’m pretty sure we’d see huge headlines saying “Psychiatric treatments increase longevity!” even if it applied to only 3% of the population!

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    • Unfortunately, I can’t read the original article without subscribing to the Journal. But this review seems incisive enough. I am not sure, though, that patients care about outcomes as much as those quotes from the article seem to suggest. Why would anyone still go to psychiatrists if they cared that much about outcomes? People are so wedded to the “take a pill” mindset that many if not most run with it without even thinking about it. Many also know of no other alternative. If a pill changes one set of chronic symptoms to a different set that seem more livable, then a lot of people will settle for it.

      I won’t go anywhere near those people because I know how wrong they are. But most people have no idea. Without more being educated the way I was, I don’t see this ever turning around, even as nonsensical as it obviously is.

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      • It shouldn’t be the patients’ job to act on outcomes, it should be the doctors’ jobs. It is clear they have totally abdicated that responsibility, and that they insist on using the same “treatments” despite actual WORSENING outcomes for the clients.

        Though as someone else pointed out, if the desired “outcome” is to make money for the practitioners, they’re doing a fine job of it.

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  3. I’ve seen results for orthomolecular treatment rates, but that’s little help for Big Time Psychiatry, which looks at nutrient based treatments as fraudulent from the getgo, as there aren’t cash benefits from pharmaceutical companies available, nor respect from colleagues.

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  4. There is a one in six chance depression with subside while taking an SSRI. There is one in seven chance the depression subsides without an SSRI. It is intellectually dishonest for clinicians to claim they can tell when a drug is relieving depression and when an unknown cause of the depression (ie illness, trauma, inflammation) is simply running its natural course.

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  5. The people at JAMA need to pull their heads out of their data-dependent asses and instead consider these novel ideas:

    1. Maybe emotional distress isn’t illness
    2. Maybe psychiatric drugs are a bad thing
    3. Maybe talk therapy isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

    Then finally ask each other this burning question:

    Why turn to the medical community for emotional distress in the first place?

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  6. Good article.
    Others like it create little interest in the general public. They seem to continue to think that if SO many people are ‘on’ these drugs, they must be good….and interpret sedation, simple & complex, as victory.
    Comfortably numb indeed.

    I don’t know how to pierce that deflector shield because “addiction” doesn’t affect their rationale…as many INSIST on ‘clean’ food and products for themselves, their families, their PETS.
    No sugar, sodium, PFAS, red dyes, etc….but changing your brain on a cellular level…No guarantees! Is all good.

    I wanna give up on them sometimes.

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    • Sedation is victory if you have three hungry kids, a roof to keep, clothes to buy, bills to pay, debts to juggle. Being sedated rather than in a state of intense traumatic disarray is a victory of sorts, a significant self-sacrifice, even if only for the children, and even despite it will all catch up with you one day… hopefully once the children have flown the nest?

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      • I don’t think increasing disability rates spell victory, especially when accompanied by a rise in psychiatric drug prescribing.

        The side effects of psychiatric drugs are destroying people’s ability to support themselves in increasingly large numbers.

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        • My youngest is hooked to the screen, which hypocrites like Brand exploit and profit from. Most of her friends are hooked too. She thinks I’m an oddball because I don’t have social media accounts. I felt physically sick recently when I had no choice but to open a Zoom account. I say to her: the world away from the screen has more to offer. She’ll then point me to youtube videos about tick diseases and netflix films about serial killers that lurk in the woods.

          She’ll soon join the others and be driving to the gym to ride the bike that goes nowhere with a big mirror in front of her.

          Brand should smash his cameras and go sit and talk in the park.

          {just to clarify I contribute to here via sophisticated distance mentalisation techniques taught to me years ago on an electro-zen retreat, thus requiring no actual direct interaction with a screen, in case you were wondering….)

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  7. Some people need to pull their heads out of their data-dependent asses and instead consider these novel ideas:

    1. Maybe emotional distress isn’t physical illness
    2. Maybe psychoactive drugs aren’t a good thing for most people
    3. Maybe talk therapy isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

    Then finally ask themselves this burning question:

    Is turning to a medicalized, data-dependent system for emotional distress good idea?

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  8. Was just talking to Bradford, and since I’m still logged in, I thought I should mention: MIA’s own Bruce Levine was just interviewed by James
    Corbett. You will have to log onto The Corbett Report—he got kicked off of YouTube years ago. I remember the exit party badge of honor. James is an Canadian ex pat living in Japan who has transcended the Right/Left Paradigm. Watch everything he’s ever done—he is astonishing. Also to watch:
    Truthstream Media by Melissa and Aaron Dykes—they have a very close relationship with Peter Breggin. He was featured in Minds of Men.

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          • I am curious about your name. Dr. Johnson fan? I took Neo-Classical and Romantism, undergrad, and we rushed through the Neo Classical to get to the Romantics. As times goes on, I sure do appreciate the wit of the Victorian Sages in this current Clown Show.

            James Corbett is an Anarchist, so, busted, yes…I suppose he hasn’t transcended the R/L paradigm. He explains his view with the same sophistication that Oldhead explains Marxism, though…so lemme think about it and I’ll get back to you.

            I cannot promise I won’t high jack this conversation and take it in another direction…I’m sure I will. What I liked about your comment is that it made me think.

            The idea of transcending the R/L paradigm is now a placeholder for me…I’m not learning anything new. James is a Canadian ex pat, so I’m sure there are subtle differences between Blue/Team Red/Team and the history of their populist movements in Canada, but I doubt they are significant..

            I think what’s more significant in Jame’s case is that he’s been living in Japan for many years, and I would bet that has shaped his exegesis of the political thinkers (and how poorly those ideas were applied hanging R/L…yes, I do mean to be wicked here), than influences from his home country.

            I’ve forgotten how many years I’ve been listening to him, but it’s been awhile. I am MUCH more interested in Deep State studies, and this is where I will high jack the conversation with no promises. There were entities, for instance, who invested in both sides of many, many wars…as to make sure they made money no matter what. So, they did not *transcend* the R/L paradigm, but rather subverted it. So they could make money from the suffering of millions.

            On the more productive end, there are independent podcasters who are arguably doing the same in order to provide information without getting distracted by political theory. Because the information is too important, too necessary to disseminate…to take the conversation in another direction.

            Another reason I made the original post was I was thrilled at the end of the interview when James said he was going to look up Mad in America. James has interviewed Bruce Levine many times, but I have found, for the most part, that even the independent podcasters are not aware of the debates happening here.

            Now onward: I will give an synopsis of James’s “History of the Federal Reserve,” so I can bring it back to Corporatism/Crony Capitalism…and then back to Psychiatry. I still haven’t read Szasz yet..and OH is going to kick my ass…

            still…I would read “Creature from Jekyll Island” before I did that.

            Here’s a question for you. You say, “no one transcends the R/L paradigm.” I’m not sure I disagree.

            Is it worth trying? If so, why. If not, why? Is it like striving to better oneself?

            A job once started, never finished?

            Off now, to watch “History of the Federal Reserve,” and to prepare for my next post. This will be at least the fourth time I’ve watched it…but I’ve lost count.

            If you want to watch along, you may have to watch on Bitchute, Odyssey or Rumble. I apologize. If you’re not used to it, it may be a shock…although the Hacktivist community SWEARS that Bitchute is bulk data collection for MI6. Your neck of the woods.

            Dunno. Maybe so. Maybe not.

            The full title: “Century of Enslavement. The History of the Federal Reserve,” by James Corbett.

            It may also be on archive.com I’m looking now, but the edit button is about to slam shut. This is where I go when I disappear for years….hahah…

            And I don’t mean cyberspace either.

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          • Wow. This is taking awhile. My apologies. I had trouble loading the video using the methods I talked about. Seems like sometimes people upload James Corbett’s stuff on YouTube, but I would avoid that if you can.

            I first went to DuckDuckGo, then I typed in the title. THAT took me to a page where I could see the documentary from Bitchute, Odyssey, or YouTube. The vid. wouldn’t play in Bitchute, and YouTube could have unfortunate edits. I now have it open in Odyssey, and am listening. Finally. Yes, it’s worth all of this.

            Watch me bring it back to Anti Psychiatry. As I once told OH: if I ever have a podcast, it’s going to be called All Roads Lead to AP.

            Oh, and it’s archive.org. Not archive.com

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  9. Thank you, Peter, for your persistence in showing that psychiatry is not a science, not a legitimate branch of medicine, and, to say the least, not beneficial. I will enjoy sending this little gem to all my lists. Kudos, too, to whoever chose the hilarious illustration.

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  10. The problem, as I see it, is there is no agreed way of measuring outcomes objectively. There are numerous ways of measuring outcomes subjectively, such as the Duncan & Miller ‘Outcome rating scale’, or Lambert’s OQ45, etc. But entering into an objective measure, such as “symptom free” or even “in full-time work or study”, is to enter into a territory that is rife with controversy – because what is meant by a “symptom”, let alone what it means to be free of “symptoms”. And what are you implying if you use “in full-time work or study”; are you saying that people who aren’t have a psychiatric problem?
    However it is good that this problem has been published in JAMA Psychiatry – a phenomenon that many of us have been reporting for years is now making its way into the dominant journals. Thank you for bringing it to our attention Peter Simons.

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  11. Steve McCrea wrote: “Of course, no real analysis has been done on causes, because they’re afraid to find out the truth because they suspect it’s their wonderful drugs.

    Of course, life survival strategies and poverty and other stresses would contribute to this, but some of those strategies are actually a result of “treatment” in many cases. For instance, smoking is incredibly common in the “chronically mentally ill” and is often blamed for these dramatic statistics. But it is well known that cigarettes increase dopamine, and a discussion with the “patients” shows that many of them smoke to reduce the adverse effects of their “medications” that dramatically reduce their dopamine levels. And of course, being a “mental patient” almost ensures that poverty will result from long-term “treatment.” Drug abuse is also common among the “CMI” population, but I’d still maintain that this is another failure of the “mental heath” system, as an effective system would make people less likely rather than more likely to use street drugs.

    It’s all fine and good to blame the patients, but the hard reality is, more treatment leads to shorter lives, and there is no “explanation” that absolves the “doctors” from this horrible statistical result. No other “treatment” modality for any other disease state would allow this kind of statistic stand.

    There MIGHT be subgroups whose lives are extended by psychiatric intervention, but I have seen no study that has even looked at this question. If there were such findings, I’m pretty sure we’d see huge headlines saying “Psychiatric treatments increase longevity!” even if it applied to onl”

    Thanks for this. It’s an incisive and clear overview of the complexities and yes, lack of research which is sincerely engaged with humane issues is a big red flag.

    The problem with untreated child/adult trauma is that it will lead many people towards unhealthy choices that will risk early death and disease. Sedative drugs help some people to avoid addressing trauma, but can, as you point out, also lead to unhealthy lifestyles as a direct effect of the chemical changes they bring about in the brain.

    I’m having difficulty with these issues, in terms of getting my head around them. That’s on a very personal level.

    So I thank you for taking the time to seriously reply to my points.

    I think I’ve finally come to accept that childhood and adulthood trauma has led me to where I am. And that it’s my refusal to accept that that’s holding me back. There are some emotional pains I’ve not been able to address. And those seemingly non-addressable pains have led me to some self-defeating choices. For instance, parental alienation is a pain that is ceaseless and very damaging, and in this society it happens so much that it is almost normalised. And then if you can’t talk about it — often because the very people who are offering to help you have themselves alienated — it’s hopeless.

    So lots of people are carrying all kinds of traumatic pain and are left with the choice of drugging it away officially or non-officially or a combination of both.

    Even using sugar to self-medicate traumatic pain is a legitimate response to pain.

    I’m rambling on a bit but thanks again. It’s all helping me shift perspective which probably many people that read here are in the process of doing too.

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      • Thanks for the recommendation. I found Mr Mackler a long time ago and he’s one of the good ‘uns, without a doubt. Before I found him I was found by a psychotherapist and he suggested I confronted ma and pa… so they are long gone.

        Once they were out the way I was supposed to grow wings. Instead I found a shovel and started digging. By the time I looked up and realised my error, I was thinking: okay, no problem. Now I can grow the wings.

        Apparently wings don’t grow in the dark.

        Took a long time hollering and finally someone threw down a rope. I tugged at it now and then. Always seemed well attached, good and solid.

        I continued hollering, pointlessly. Some might say I’d become habituated?

        Anyway… finally I heard a voice. Who’s that calling my name? No-one ever calls my name…

        I climbed up and…. well… I’m never going down there again.

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  12. @snowyowl

    I’m heartened to learn that OH continues to operate.

    You wrote: “Here’s a question for you. You say, “no one transcends the R/L paradigm.” I’m not sure I disagree.

    Is it worth trying? If so, why. If not, why? Is it like striving to better oneself?

    A job once started, never finished?”

    I don’t think it is worth trying, no. Complete waste of time. Maybe even an actual neurosis?

    Some things are unavoidably binary. For instance, binary itself. Can binary transcend binary? It’s on that level of absurdity i’d position any claim of transcendence…

    There is a mildly obscure middle, where the right moves into the left and vice versa. But that ground cannot be sustained, any more than the point at which a 0 becomes a 1 can be populated. It’s a truly abstract conceptual space.

    When people claim to have transcended a binary they are usually hiding something, or not being entirely honest about something.

    Part of that attempt at concealment is a lot of use of two words in place of one. That one word they could be using being the thing they are trying to hide.

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  13. snowyowl wrote: “If you want to watch along, you may have to watch on Bitchute, Odyssey or Rumble. I apologize. If you’re not used to it, it may be a shock…although the Hacktivist community SWEARS that Bitchute is bulk data collection for MI6. Your neck of the woods.”

    I’m aware of those ghettos, which I consider to be ghettos of the far right, the reactionary right, and lots of neofascists aka alt-right.

    I don’t often watch stuff there because it’s the kind of stuff that people like me find disagreeable. Of course if you are a regular there that’s going to form part of your forensic profiling. All the WHOLE internet is bulk data collected and your WHOLE interaction is your forensic profile.

    For the record, I’m not politically active, as such. GCHQ/NSA are well-aware of my fondness for Novara Media on Youtube and my fondness for direct-action peaceful protestors such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.

    I occasionally have a dabble with rightwing stuff, as I have a morbid interest in the current state of decomposition of HItler’s corpse that continues to rot inside peoples’ brains. I utterly despise neofascists. I used to have a number of old friends that went to Africa and Italy and Spain to shoot them dead. Now they are dead. But the fight against the goose-steppers never ends.

    What most far right people ultimately, deep-down desire is Race War. Because they aren’t allowed any more to come clean about that, they spend a lot of time hating on any other minority group they can find, or having moral panics about just about anything, most days of their life, simply to use up the energy that they are secretly wanting to engage one day in Race War. I truly sincerely with all my heart despise these people, even though many of them are hoodwinked, I have no time for them whatsoever. I don’t care how they dress it all up.

    But I do enjoy hearing them whine about their white victimhood, So now and then I tune in for some of that. A guilty pleasure.

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  14. @snowyowl That’s me being triggered. You deserved a more balanced reply. I’ll try harder next time.

    I’m giving Century of Enslavement. The History of the Federal Reserve by Ronnie Corbett a view on Odysee which doesn’t appear as rammed with far-right filth as the other hosts you mentioned.

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    • @rasseles.redux

      Trigger away, I think you’re funny! Your daughter driving in a car to a place with a stationary bike that goes nowhere with a mirror in front of her.

      hahaha.

      I agree with you about my forensic profile… but the data analytics scratches its head and then its ass because I spend a lot of time on Dissident Left Podcasts as well. And, of course, “Independent.” (what is your opinion of Jimmy Dore, Kim Iverson, and Krystal Ball…all Dissent Left, to some extent…and, of course, Glenn Greenwald)

      Your new description of the binary intrigues me again…if one were to heal oneself from their childhood traumas (can that healing ever be complete?)—the data analytics would go into a wormhole of infinite wrong assumptions and projections that never stick to me….or not that much…

      Holy Shit! You said “neurosis!” On MIA??? Hahhaha

      There’s a joke in there too.

      The part of me that likes to be organized is going to do a quick cheat sheet so I can keep track of which idea came from which podcast. Not just James Corbett, either. Although Jame’s podcasts are a fun place to start because he has excellent source notes and hyperlinks.

      I will leave you with a quote from Dr. Johnson: “Always scribble, scribble, scribble, EH Mr. Gibbon?”

      Its a compliment to your writing style, wicked, to the point, and not long-winded.

      DOCTOR Johnson.

      Dude, picking on Brand??? Make it funny. I need a laugh.

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  15. “Your new description of the binary intrigues me again…if one were to heal oneself from their childhood traumas (can that healing ever be complete?)—the data analytics would go into a wormhole of infinite wrong assumptions and projections that never stick to me….or not that much…”

    The data analytics otherwise known as algorithms are sick, wounded, ill, unwell, disturbed and disturbing. Trying to beat them would be like trying to outfox a hypermanic in full-on rapido mode. Just not gonna happen.

    You are what they say you are. And there is sod all you can do about that.

    There are ways to feel out in the dark for a vague form of what they say you are. And that is an extremely perilous endeavour and may just usher in at first a false dawn, then a false awakening, then an untimely end. Tread very carefully indeed.

    One reason I dug a big deep hole for myself was because I resisted the language, the language of therapy and healing and overcoming. Not the concepts, but the language.

    I realised that the only way out of that hole and up that offered rope was to embrace the language and by doing so accept a group identity. You can choose to be alone and be in your very own deep pit. Proudly proclaiming your independence. Then what?

    I don’t believe childhood trauma is something that “heals”. I believe we learn to become more self-and-other aware. We learn to live with memories and emotions. For example, a memory of a trauma has strong emotional content. But the memory and the emotions are not the thing itself. Through that process childhood trauma has an increasingly less deleterious effect on us.

    And one powerful effect of all that is that we discover a new ease within, a new peace.

    So to try and bring this back to the original article we are commenting under, and gracefully drift off…

    Childhood trauma creates troublesome children that become troublesome adults. Psychiatry drugs them. Problem solved. Outcome successful. Many of these people will then go on to traumatise the next generation of the children. And on it goes.

    Nowadays children bodies are also traumatised by the air they breathe, the fluids they drink, and the food they eat (or don’t eat). These environmental effects also bring about troublesome behaviours. Psychiatry drugs them. Problem solved.

    And the story repeats in adult trauma too.

    The language of recovery, of modern populist psychotherapy (and also to some degree psychobabble) is the language I resisted for a long time, and have recently begun to embrace — with lots of caveats.

    Trauma bonding. Codependence. Triggering. False self. Angry baby/sad baby. Narcissist. It’s almost cult-like in its repetition and though a shared language, people are often using the same terms to mean different things. I’ve climbed up the rope to find more people using this resisted language than I originally retreated from. There appears to be a lot of tail-chasing.

    However, what I discovered was that unattended wounds from childhood heal anyway, without doing anything. But they can cause a disfigurement. Then the only way to get at it and try to heal functionally is to reopen the wound, and work at it with purpose?

    How to open a wound that’s healed causing a disfigurement?

    And finally, how do we know we’ve got disfigured healed wounds from childhood? One clue is what are we doing with our time? Who are we unconsciously appointing as our new parent figures, whose words we are hanging on to, and who are abusing our trust by sending us through labyrinthine, loosely connected passages that lead nowhere except back to the abuser for more clues and hints and pointing-the-ways?

    That is what I think of all the Talking Heads you mentioned. Including Russel Brand.

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    • @rassrelas.redux

      I am moved.

      It’s The Cube Zero of me calibrating my emotions from a skyscraper with uh-oh scaffolding.

      It’s the dubious honor of being Shakespeare’s gimp…he puts you in one of his tragedies, makes you play every role, and gets a sick thrill.

      Everything you said about the analytics. Yup.

      I didn’t mean outpace it. I meant mediocre to not-so-great days accepting that I can’t. Outpace it. I’ve gotten used to being uncomfortable.

      Still…your words moved me. A lot.

      Thanks for saying something relevant under this article.

      Cause I can’t. Not now.

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