The Ouija Board and the Skeptic

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I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not even a therapist. I’m someone who’s struggled with mental distress and the systems meant to help. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: our approach to mental health often misses the forest for the trees. It focuses on individuals as though they exist in a vacuum, ignoring the environments and systems that shape their lives. That’s a mistake, and it’s one I think we can address.

Admittedly, I feel like an outsider to the field of psychiatry. Because, frankly, I am. My insights come not from formal training but from lived experiences, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), brief encounters with psychiatric care, and a lot of philosophical reflection. I view some challenges in psychiatry as fundamentally ethical issues, not exclusively clinical ones. Yet there’s a pervasive belief that opinions on the subject are only valid if they come from credentialed professionals.

This tendency to dismiss outsiders reminds me of a story:

I was at a party once where a group of people gathered around a Ouija board, claiming to communicate with a spirit named Harry. When I expressed skepticism, they promptly announced that the Ouija board wouldn’t work with a skeptic in the room. So, I quietly excused myself, amused by the realization that my absence would leave them obliged to believe whatever the board told them.

I sometimes feel psychiatry operates in much the same way. Its practices are so entrenched, its methods so accepted, that skeptics and outsiders are often dismissed as uninformed or unqualified simply because they haven’t undergone the same training that instills confidence in its frameworks. But skepticism, especially from those with lived experience, isn’t just valid—it’s necessary. It forces us to question whether our tools and methods truly serve those they claim to help.

A white-coated white male with glasses looks skeptical; an ouija board is the background

Experience Counts

Experience is highly valued in most areas of life. What qualifies someone for a job? Experience. What imparts wisdom? Experience. Yet, when it comes to mental health, the lived experiences of individuals are often dismissed in favor of academic training. Psychologists and psychiatrists are experts in their fields but not at all in the unique conditions or events of anyone else’s life. Professional expertise often grants them the confidence to “diagnose mental illness,” despite lacking adequate knowledge of a person’s lived experience to understand that person’s situation.

When someone is in distress, modern psychiatry often zooms in on the person—their brain chemistry, behaviors, and past. But what about the people around them? What about their family, their community, their workplace? What about the whispers, judgments, and subtle exclusions that pile up over time? Can we truly help someone without addressing these broader dynamics? Focusing on the individual as the sole source of the problem often leaves these environmental factors untouched.

Mental health is deeply affected by the systems in which we live. From childhood, we are shaped by our environments—our family structures, communities, schools, and workplaces. These environments can either nurture our mental well-being or contribute to our distress. Yet psychiatry tends to isolate mental health struggles from their context, reducing complex issues to individual pathology.

If we genuinely want to help someone in distress, we need to address the environmental factors within our control. By the time a person has been exposed to significant ACEs, for example, basic brain structures and heightened susceptibility to distress have already been established. These exposures are environmental issues, not personal failings. During early development, a person has no control over what they’re exposed to. It’s not their responsibility. But when problems emerge later in life, a competitive society attributes them to personal shortcomings, further burdening the individual. This misplaced responsibility can itself be a powerful driver of distress.

This highlights a critical issue in psychiatry: the tendency to treat individuals without examining the family or community dynamics that contributed to their struggles. Rather than addressing these dynamics, psychiatry frequently equips the distressed person with coping mechanisms to endure toxic environments rather than confronting the root causes of their suffering.

To address the local ramifications, focus on immediate environmental factors, including home life, family discovery—which would imply meeting these people and talking to them. Broader, community through education. Even broader: systems through policy change.

No amount of medication can change a toxic world. A person’s distress often begins with those closest to them—family members who shaped their early environment. The realities of our political, economic, social, and religious systems shape our behavior, too. Until the fundamental governing systems change, the best we can do is to focus on the person’s immediate orbit. How do the people around them think of, talk about, and treat them? These factors are deeply relevant to the environments we encounter every day.

Psychiatry’s search for biological answers sometimes overlooks the part of the story we can actually influence: the environments that nurture or harm us. While medication can influence biological realities, it doesn’t touch the broader systems that perpetuate harm.

The Impact of ACEs on Mental Health and Development

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are deeply relevant when considering how early environments shape an individual’s mental health. ACEs include physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction such as parental mental stress or distress, substance abuse, or domestic violence. These experiences have been shown to significantly influence an individual’s psychological, emotional, and physical health throughout their lives. The research on ACEs underscores the idea that mental health struggles are not simply the result of individual deficiencies, but often stem from traumatic environments that children cannot control.

One of the key findings in ACE research is the lasting impact these experiences have on brain development. Martin Teicher, a neuroscientist renowned for his work on childhood trauma, has demonstrated how exposure to stress and trauma during critical developmental periods can physically alter the structure and function of the brain. His research was confirmed by CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE studies involving 17,000 individuals.

Areas of the brain impacted by having a high ACE score include those responsible for memory, emotional regulation, and executive functioning, which are all critical for coping with life’s natural challenges. When these brain regions are impaired due to early adversity, the individual is at a heightened risk for mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood.

The neurological consequences of ACEs are not confined to the emotional or cognitive realms—they also affect physical health. Chronic exposure to stress during childhood can lead to long-term changes in the body’s stress-response system. Elevated levels of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, can damage vital organs over time, contributing to conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and chronic pain. These physical manifestations of trauma further highlight the need for a holistic approach to mental health—one that acknowledges the interconnectedness of mind and body and the role that environmental stressors play in shaping both.

While traditional psychiatry tends to focus on diagnosing and treating individuals in isolation, ACE research calls attention to the broader systems that influence mental health. These systems include family dynamics, community structures, and societal expectations—all of which can either nurture or harm an individual’s mental well-being.

For instance, a child growing up in a household where there is domestic violence or substance abuse is likely to develop maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as withdrawal or aggression, which can persist into adulthood. Similarly, children who experience neglect may struggle to form healthy attachments and trust others later in life. These environmental factors must be considered when addressing mental health, as they are often the root causes of distress.

Yet, in the face of this overwhelming evidence, psychiatry frequently focuses on treating the individual in a vacuum, often overlooking the external factors that contributed to their struggles. This tendency to ignore environmental influences is not only an ethical issue but a practical one. If we fail to address the systems and environments that shape mental health, we risk addressing deeply rooted systemic problems at the individual level with temporary solutions, or worse, iatrogenic ones. The current system often prescribes medications and coping strategies to help individuals endure toxic environments, but it does nothing to challenge the sources of that toxicity.

To me it seems we live in a clash between natural systems (e.g., biological) and man-made systems (e.g., economic). The natural systems of order that would shape us have been replaced by human-made systems shaping us instead, regardless of the disparity between the brains that naturally evolved and the man-made systems demanding those brains to function differently than they would in the natural world. In this clash, developing brains adapt to human-made systems rather than natural systems. (If humans actually knew better than nature, this might be beneficial.)

As with any complex issue, a truly effective approach to mental health must be multifaceted. The focus on individual pathology needs to be shifted to the systems that perpetuate harm. A person who has experienced ACEs has likely developed a heightened sensitivity to stress and may struggle with emotional regulation as a result. While medication may help alleviate some distress, it does not address the underlying trauma that has shaped the individual’s mental and physical health. Similarly, therapy that focuses only on individual coping mechanisms, without considering the broader family or community dynamics or even national policies, may fall short of providing long-term healing.

This is where the importance of empathy comes into play. Understanding that mental health struggles are often rooted in systemic and environmental factors allows us to offer more compassionate, context-aware support. It promotes a more realistic view of human beings. It also empowers us to challenge the systems that perpetuate harm, whether that’s through advocating for trauma-informed care, addressing societal inequalities, or supporting policies that promote healthier, more nurturing environments for children. By doing so, we move closer to a model of care that not only addresses the immediate needs of individuals but also works to prevent future harm.

The ACE research provides a critical lens through which we can view mental health struggles—not as isolated issues but as reflections of broader societal and environmental failings. If we are to create lasting change, we must address both the internal and external factors that contribute to mental health. It’s not enough to simply treat the distress; we need to understand the root causes and work to fix the systems that have caused so much systemic dysfunction.

Not Our Natural Selves

None of us are who we might naturally be because we’re molded by our human-made systems from birth. Understanding this doesn’t absolve anyone of responsibility, but it does provide context. The problem isn’t just individual, it’s systemic.

If we’re to challenge these systems, we need to speak up. We need to share our stories, not just as data points but as lived experiences. For those of us who’ve felt the sting of judgment and the weight of systemic failure, our voices matter. We can educate and explain, offering perspectives that promote understanding. Change won’t come quickly, but it can start with a conversation—a shift in how we see and treat each other.

So here’s my plea: let’s stop focusing solely on fixing individuals and start addressing the environments that shape them. Let’s challenge the systems that perpetuate harm and create opportunities for connection. If you want to help someone in distress, show them genuine care. It’s not something they will ever receive from a paid professional in a sterile setting.

For what it’s worth, I believe the most effective therapy comes from those closest to a person—family, friends, and others in their immediate orbit. However, this requires those individuals to first be educated on how their behavior might contribute to or alleviate the distress of their loved one. A person’s environment, particularly the attitudes and actions of those around them, can play a crucial role in their healing process.

Bring kindness into their lived experience. Reach out—ask if they’d like to spend time together. Listen without judgment. Treat them with the same respect and empathy and camaraderie you’d hope to receive. These small acts might not reflect what they’ve experienced before, or what they haven’t had enough experience with, but you have the power to provide that difference. Reach out as best you can to the person’s natural self.

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

80 COMMENTS

  1. yeah, I like this guy. He has good animal spirits and they furnish him with good social critique (including critique of psychiatry) and a nice human manner of expressing himself. I do feel his insights are pretty much conclusive but we need first to destroy the whole of civilization and get every socially conditioned greed machine sleeping peacefully in their graves before what you say has widespread social relevance or resonance, and this is not to you’re discredit. And as you may already know, civilization will collapse before psychiatry is reformed, but worry not – you don’t even have to wait: it’s happening now, as any clear sighted human can see. I would say though, don’t try and change society – create a new society, with me, with Mother Nature and all the other members of society who would join us. I know of maybe one or two, and that’s a start! I mean I know one or two personally. Perhaps I know a few more virtually including one or two who comment on this website. Probably we’re like sperm and only one in a hundred million of us will survive, but it was fun trying!

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    • Thanks Birdsong. You’re not the only one. While therapists may genuinely care—and most do—that care doesn’t always lead to true healing. To me, it seems therapy’s impact depends on the distressed person’s ability to receive and process it. It’s similar to how a pill packed with nutrients won’t necessarily provide health benefits if the body can’t fully absorb them.

      Likewise, care from a paid professional in a structured setting, though well-intentioned, often lacks the organic “bioavailability” needed for lasting change.

      While therapy might make a person feel better for a while, it can’t change the dysfunctional, unfair world surrounding a person who becomes distressed by it. Care givers are as powerless to change the dysfunctional systems as is anyone else.

      But if therapy truly healed or cured, would repeat visits to the therapist still be necessary? (Is it fair to even expect real healing when the care provided can’t address the systemic roots of distress?)

      For care to be effective, it seems to me, it needs to address the root cause of the problem. If it can’t do that, it could at least address the more immediate environmental causes a person is reacting to. If it can’t do that, either, it must at least come from an organic connection—immersive and rooted in genuine relationships—not something dispensed through occasional or routine paid transactions. “I will dispense the care you require for one hour starting at 3:00 pm on Thursday the 27th at my location. Payment is due upon provision of service. I look forward to seeing you.”

      A therapist doesn’t know the whole person like others might, and may not be as impactful as those might; the therapist only knows the person as one in distress and in need of therapy, someone on their schedule.

      Unfortunately, our systems reduce us all to being rats in a rat race, commodifying all labor–even care. “I won’t provide you care unless I’m paid to do it” isn’t a sentiment most caregivers would choose, but they face the same reality as everyone else. In a world where labor is commodified, we’re all made to work for money, including those who offer care.

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      • Thank you, Dan. I agree with most everything you’ve said here.

        I’ve always found the “therapeutic” relationship extremely off-putting for the simple reason that the nature of this kind of relationship is NOT organic.

        I am someone who firmly believes that if therapy truly healed or cured, repeat visits would NOT be necessary.

        I believe the public has slowly but surely been sold a bill of goods, that the expansion of “higher education” has supplied the world with an army of emotionally stunted incompetents more than happy to see themselves as better than those with less “education”.

        The crux of the matter is that people aren’t taught how to listen to themselves; they are taught to think that they are damaged if they are having a hard time; that they need a “professional” to sort out their life when all they really need is someone to listen to them without judging them. Instead, we are taught to look outside ourselves, we are taught to obey, to disregard what our feelings are telling us; I don’t think this requires a therapist; I think therapists get in the way.

        Psychotherapy is called “the talking cure”, but it should be called “the listening” cure”, something I don’t think most therapists are very good at doing because it seems their training fills their heads with ideas that serve them more than the client.

        I believe most therapists distance themselves from clients to keep up the facade of being all-knowing. This is cruelty at its worst.

        I have little sympathy for therapists, no matter how talented or well-meaning because I think anyone worth their salt doesn’t have the stomach psychotherapy’s shenanigans.

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        • Thanks Birdsong, for your comments.

          “. . . that they need a “professional” to sort out their life . . .”

          So true: outsource everything to the experts, specialists in providing the care those in a distressed person’s orbit can’t (due in no small part to their convictions in a concept of “mental illness” they keep chasing, promoted by—who else—specialists in treating mental illness).

          The “listening cure”—I like that. Might adding “active” to it help?

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          • Having to hire someone to listen to you is an utter disgrace. It shows how low modern society has sunk.

            Listening with an open mind without an agenda while being mindful of the intention behind someone’s words makes all the difference, especially for the people that truly need to be heard.

            It’s all about caring enough to be truly engaged.

            Listening “clinically” is not an advancement, it is an insult to the entire human race.

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          • And oh yes, by all means add the word “active” to it. Speaking to a passive listener is like speaking to a corpse.

            But how about using the word “attentive” instead? Just reading the word “active” puts me on edge.

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          • Hi Dan, love the perspective you offer in this article. I host a radio program called Rethreading Madness on mental health- we focus on giving agency and voice to those with lived experience and are heard all over the globe. Can we chat about having you come talk about this on air? It is important info.

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      • “Care givers are as powerless to change the dysfunctional systems as is everyone else.”

        This sounds like a rationalization. I see no point in feeling empathy for people who choose to profit from a system as corrupt as “mental health”.

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  2. i was discharged less than a week ago from what may have been known as a psychiatric hospital with a better reputation. i sought care there this time for this reason. it was NOT caring inside at all. what i saw and heard many nights on what was considered a general adult population unit caused me to be triggered from the first night and every night of my almost three week admission. one night as i was going to my room, i happened to oversee something in the person’s room right before mine as their door was partially open. person on bed was still and two nurses were there seemingly with an injection into this person’s arm. all the while evidently multiple used towels were being discarded in a portable soiled linen trolley basket located in the hallway. i had use of a shower chair prior to this. that night i shut my room door and my bathroom door, sat on my shower chair in the dry shower stall, in total darkness, and rocked and hugged myself, and cried all night long. not for myself, but for that person and all the other people in their rooms i heard up and down my hallway at least whose screams, cries, pleadings, and basic animal gruntings i heard many, many nights throughout my stay. i was told multiple times by staff that i was not on either a triage or crisis unit. the quiet room was not in my hallway. for myself, my increasingly serious medical symptoms were never addressed by my psychiatrist there. this included not noting any medical, physical, or psychiatric symptoms of the initial stop-gap psychiatric medications i was originally given to keep me stable enough to get to consistent psychiatric regulation and monitoring. i am now symptomatic with what i feel has, or can become, serious heart issues. i have been following up with my main physicians and have yet to see many of the other specialist doctors i may need ongoing. i am home only one week and still fear if i make one small unintentional misstep before i meet with my new outpatient psychiatrist this coming wednesday i can lose all my freedom by being involuntarily committed to yet another very toxic psychiatric unit or hospital. i was going to get blood work done tomorrow. but…uh oh… it is snowing up to 6 inches accumulation. need to walk or take public transportation. at my age of 69 years, i fear just stepping outside my apartment while there is snow and/or ice on the ground without slipping, falling, and really physically injuring myself further. i am known as a highly sensitive person as long as i have been alive. i am devastated by things i saw and heard there in addition to the too many insults and covert and overt narcissistic and simply oblivious abuses to me, both physical and nental, throughout my about 50 year journey through the wilds of this mental health menagerie/wilderness in the u.s. for me. it is sad for me to report that as i had done my best to do a modicum of advocacy through trainings through a local/national mental health non-profit organization’s chapter in my local area for several years, a few newer volunteers felt they knew how better they were for what i had already done and was told was very helpful by the participants in my advocacy groups… well, i no longer do advocacy. i no longer can even access anyone to advocate fo me at all now. i am 69. i am tired. my physical health has been neglected and accelerated to become much worse in a seemingly very short amount of time. all i really want now is for both my physical and mental health to be and stay stable. the ability to live independently in my own apartment and under my own cognizance. to be free and allotted every single freedom every other person has a right to. and to feel some small sense of empathy from somewhere, someone out there because in general, i do not and have not yet. still, my own heart breaks daily for how seemingly uncaring and even cruel many people, most people in this world have become.

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    • Dear Donna – I can deeply relate to your post. I am 69 also.
      I am well on my way to becoming a “blind and toothless” old woman (in the U.S.A.). It has occurred to me on multiple occasions, in the past 10 years, that health care “can’t make it so hard that I can’t do it”. Yet – this continues.
      I have come to the conclusion that “we can’t change the times we live in”. And what we are all experiencing is a difference between what we believed the world to be, and what it has become.
      I have not lost my enthusiasm for living every day, but I have become resigned to the fact that I matter to no one – and one day (not today) – I will die alone neglected. This is the times we are all living in. All the while – community and family is trumpeted as something everyone should have, to live a good life. I don’t know that I have ever experienced that world.
      I’m making pressure cooked vegetables and beef, this morning. Life is good. I don’t mind that I can’t bite anything, or see the TV – just as long as I don’t dare think it should be otherwise. I am a very good cook.

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      • Sorry, Hope. Our way life has disempowered what should be most powerful: community. Communities are often reduced to being collections of people looking out for number one living in close proximity. Or, community is increasingly becoming a group aligned by some commonality even if separated by distance, e.g., the LGBTQ community.
        Wouldn’t it be nice if those living in close proximity were aligned in a commonality beyond looking out for number one?

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    • Cruel really does seem to be the new normal. Maybe it has been for a while?

      A well regarded for profit private hospital effectively ruined my social identity. To top it off I was subjected to unrelenting cruelty and abusive involuntary treatments that had long lasting consequences. And now?

      Let’s just say that when the so called helping professions make an example out of someone it’s pretty much over. If it wasn’t for my family I’d be another victim of psychiatry on streets or dead.

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        • Sometimes, family (and even friends) can cause or contribute to the challenges a distressed person faces. They can be a source of a distressed person’s reactions. When a family dynamic tolerates—or is shaped by—the conditions under which Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) arise, it can become toxic. It’s “normal” in some families. So is casting someone as a scapegoat.

          Once established, scapegoating often perpetuates itself further into a person’s social dynamic, inviting further mistreatment and isolation. Societal structures support, enable, and empower this dynamic and behavior.

          Going no-contact with family or friends is one of the most difficult and painful decisions a person can make. For many, family is seen as a foundation of unconditional love and support. But for others, it can be a source of ongoing hurt, characterized by betrayal, denial, gossip, or false narratives. Over time, these wounds deepen as others hear the stories (and never the whole stories), perpetuating the harm.

          This decision often comes after years of attempting to reconcile or repair broken relationships. It’s not impulsive, even for those prone to impulsivity. Severing those bonds is painful but may become necessary to escape toxicity and protect mental health. It’s not about hatred or narcissism; it’s about self-preservation after realizing that staying in the relationship causes more harm than good.

          Yes, it’s sad—but not as sad as being misunderstood, scapegoated, or mistreated for a lifetime. For those who make this choice, it’s a step toward healing and reclaiming a sense of peace, even if it comes at great emotional cost.

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    • Donna and Hope, I am so sorry to hear of both of your situations. More people need to understand how harmful psychiatric ‘help’ can be and how unjustifiable labels and libel they put on a person’s records has very detrimental effects on being able to get proper medical care for physical conditions. It is especially cruel and tragic as people get older. I would liken it to elder abuse and it needs to be exposed.

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      • Dear Rosalee,
        I am old. I don’t find terms like “elder abuse” (or sexism, or ageism, or privilege) particularly useful (no offense, intended). The term “useful” is my engineering background showing. Things either work, or they don’t. I don’t comprehend … subjectivity. I used to tell the psyche people – “just because you don’t understand what I am talking about, doesn’t mean I am psychotic”. They drugged me silly, anyway. (I am free of psyche, these days)

        What I like most about being old, is the depth and breath of comprehension. The first 40 years of my life were so incredibly blessed … almost like I was born to succeed in my times. And I did, big time. But, life is a whole lot of things. Everyone gets a chance to have very bad things happen to them. My best friend (age 91) – the father of her 5 kids was a bigamist (non consensual). Not a word used very often – out loud. She was the one who told me about this – truth. She is 100% correct.

        It is about survival. It always was. And it always is. Risk / reward. A calculation.
        Just because the world, as it is – has disappointments … for me, is no reason to cry in my soup … though I have done my fair share of crying.

        “What do I have to do to have the best day possible”? That is a question I find useful. But thanks, Roselee. Your heart is kind. I hope the world never breaks it.

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    • Hi, I cried reading your comment because I feel much the same way. I don’t have the mental energy to write much right now, but I worry for all aspects of my health, I’m stuck in an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship, I’m judged for not leaving (because they don’t comprehend OCD and how it affects me personally), I’ve been torn down, dismissed, disbelieved, etc. When I try to stand up for myself, they try to beat me back down. I’m alone in real life. No friends, no family. I agree, there’s so much cruelty. I just want you to know someone cares, and that person is me.

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  3. BRAVO! My son had numerous mental health professionals working with him from the time he was 8 years old. Mostly, they medicated him until he died of an accidental overdose of his prescription meds two weeks before his 29th birthday. It wasn’t until he was 18 that he admitted to having been sexually molested by a neighbor starting when he was about 4. None of the professionals considered how his symptoms were those of PTSD. In addition, Alan had fears of abandonment partly because of me and partly because his “nanny” vanished from his life when he was about 3. No wonder I am particularly struck by “Psychiatry’s search for biological answers sometimes overlooks the part of the story we can actually influence: the environments that nurture or harm us. While medication can influence biological realities, it doesn’t touch the broader systems that perpetuate harm.”

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  4. Talking to “professionals” always felt off to me.

    I never liked interacting with someone’s professional mask, a carefully curated persona with an agenda.

    I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being skillfully manipulated into engaging in a one-sided conversation.

    My not trusting them made them angry. They seemed threatened when I informed them that trust is built over time in spontaneous situations.

    They would say they “cared”, but statements like that rang hollow because to me they essentially were.

    I found it impossible to respect someone who expected me to gaslight myself so they could feel good about “doing their job”.

    I’m glad I finally realized my misgivings about this kind of arrangement were entirely valid.

    It’s hard for me to articulate the difference between natural and staged conversions; that the former feels authentic while the latter does not because is not.

    The best I can say about “therapy” is that it’s authentically fake. The only thing real about it is the money you lose.

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    • A natural conversation feels authentic maybe because it arises organically between two equal participants, each contributing and sharing in a way that reflects their relationship and level of closeness. The details included in such conversations depend on the mutual trust and intimacy between the people involved.

      In a therapeutic setting, however, the dynamic is inherently different. One person is in a position of vulnerability, sharing deeply personal details, while the other is in a position of power, paid to be there, and often perceived as an authority. This imbalance shifts the nature of the interaction. The therapist, equipped with their training and theoretical framework, assesses the information shared through their professional lens.

      The challenge for me lies in the fact that whatever details I divulge are filtered through the therapist’s perspective, shaped by their education, experiences, and biases. While they may offer advice or insights based on the information they deem adequate, I can’t help but wonder how they can arrive at any meaningful conclusions at all without knowing the countless other details that contribute to the full picture of my experience. This gap leaves me questioning the validity of the advice, as it feels based on an incomplete understanding of who I am and what I’ve been through. A person’s life story doesn’t easily fit into the therapist’s allotted timeframe for care provision.

      Sure, they can pump a person full of “feel good” to get them through to the next scheduled session, but they won’t begin to share or understand the lived experiences endured in the meantime, the ones drawing their clients back for more “feel good.”

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      • Dan, I’m happy you found someone who understands and supports you emotionally.

        For me the energy of a “psychotherapeutic relationship” was always off no matter how competent or well-meaning the therapist because the arrangement is artificial.

        It was like eating junk food; it may have tasted good in the moment but as soon as “the session” was over it took less than 10 minutes for me to start feeling sick.

        I don’t like interactions where one person puts up a front to impress and intimidate people into parting with their money. I don’t like talking to anyone who thinks they’re entitled to know my feelings.

        All I need is someone who gets what I’m saying in 10 words or less, who intuitively understands and isn’t afraid to admit it, who doesn’t demand my going into possible painful and always tedious detail, more often than not just to satisfy their own morbid curiosity.

        I’ve never been into baring my soul—especially to professional peeping toms.

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    • Although it may sound cliche now, The Rascals truly hit the nail on the head with their song “Good Lovin'” (and notice the advice of the medical professional isn’t the usual prescription):

      “I was feeling, so bad
      I asked my family doctor just what I had
      I said Doctor (Doctor)
      Mr. M.D. (Doctor)
      Now can you tell me what’s ailing me (Doctor)
      He said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
      Yes indeed, all I, I really need
      Now gimme that good, good lovin’
      (Good love) All I need is love
      (Good love) Good, good lovin’ baby
      (Good love)
      Now honey please, squeeze me tight (Squeeze me tight)
      Don’t you want your baby to feel alright
      I said baby (Baby)
      Now it’s for sure (It’s for sure)
      I got the fever, yeah
      And you got the cure (Got the cure)
      Everybody yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
      Yes indeed, all I, I really need
      Now come on and gimme that lovin’
      (Good love) All I need is lovin’
      (Good love) Good, good lovin’ baby
      (Good love)
      All I need is love
      (Good love) All I want is love
      (Good love) Lovin’ you early in the morning now
      (Good love) Lovin’ you late at night now
      (Good love) Love, love
      (Good love) Love, love, love, love, love”

      The care provided by a therapist might be loving, but it will never be the “good lovin'” a distressed person needs.

      I say this from my own lived experience. I am so lucky and grateful that I found a person who sees me and knows me and accepts me for who I am. I honestly would not be here writing these words today were it not for the love of this special person. As it turns out, this lovely, wonderful person married me, so I have my prescription for good lovin’ filled on a daily basis. This immersive therapy is fantastic, the best thing I’ve ever known. But it can’t and doesn’t change the world around us. I believe the power of love could heal the world if we would just let it–first by trusting it. My heart goes out to those who aren’t as lucky as I am.

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  5. Talk is cheap. And I’m not impressed with advocating revictimization blame the victims to flood your markets of pharmaceuticals, psychiatry a brutal weapon of systemic violence oppression you fail To mention the Canadian abuse and framing the refugee as those from war torn country’s as mental and oppressing them in poverty with nothing to fight a huge system with a history of genecide and failure to take accountability sterilizing and flooding the markets of medicine denied all the impoverished quality of life life sustaining finances and continuation in need of human civil constitutional rights if these are not met we do not have mental health and many variables are used to deny an individual or class of individuals these rights like discrimination prejudice slander libel lies Misinformation framing them fraud manufacturing evidence against them using white collars that don’t know their ass from the hole. In the ground as far as the people they are processing concern for and without criminal records nor incidents of attempted suicide forcing treatment for life denying them. Proper adequate medical education for employment and destroying our lives out history quigi. Boards are probably more intelligent than psychiatry you are right there more able to see the future read minds all of which this expert witness garbage is all about arrogance egomaniac with god complex’s but nice try.

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    • thank you for helping me to understand the bigger, maybe worldwide view, of the mental health system from a much broader perspective than my very personal take on my most recent and must be very last hospitalization of any ilk specific to where i reside now in the Midatlantic region of the united states. i am 69 years old and felt i escaped a psychiatric hospitalization i never would leave alive. although when i was much younger i was committed to my state hospital for one year which was most notorious for patient abuses by staff. i did not specifically see outright abuses on my units i was on but knew of other patient abuses on many other units than mine. on this most recent hospitalization, i did have an attempt on my life. but as i knew, or thought i knew, i would, unrealistically now in hindsight, get help i was not officially committed. so, in an honest and respectful reply to your comment, i was primarily expressing my take on this original article without researching the overall state of mental health services, profession, peers, etc. i apologize for not clarifying this in my replies and/or comments, even in this particular reply. thank you again for waking me up to the much broader realities of what many, most, and/or all of us peers may and do encounter. hopefully, providers, professionals, and all related mental health workers will someday wake up to the reality that, yes, they are actually treating human beings with physical and mental senses, not exactly attuned as everyone else’s, but still as valid as someone else’s coming maybe from a different station in life.

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  6. “Although Dan holds a graduate degree, his most valuable lessons come from personal experience in the school of hard knocks.”

    So, were those knocks most valuable or most regrettable, or both?

    Is it possible that these worlds of ours, being evidently endlessly perfectible, are not less than perfect but at least infinitely more than pluperfect – especially once we reckon that “nothing is wrong, and everything must change?”

    Do we come to this planet to learn stuff, or just to hang out, stresslessly, or to suffer in order to learn to transcend suffering, or what?

    Do we come here to inherit and to make assumptions, and then to question them – ALL?

    Surely, I can’t possibly be the only one here thinking that my own childhood did not contain any “ACE:” It WAS an “ACE,” can I?

    An “ACE,” a “PTSD,” a “postnatal depression” and/or a “generalised anxiety disorder?”

    Did that make me somebody “unnatural” whom I ought not be, or did Life/Nature/Evolution/Consciousness/Being/The last Big Bang unerringly lead me to become precisely whomever I need to be, right now, as ever?

    Does not our most brilliant, sophisticated, insightful, contemporary neuroscience still helplessly, haplessly, recklessly, unthinkingly perpetuate The Great Lie, the unspoken assumption that our Judeo-Sauline Science has so successfully spread – that we human beings (being mortal) are never, ever starting from exactly where we ought to be?

    Thank you very much for a most tremendous and thought provoking piece of writing, with much of which I disagree.

    Tom.

    “If this world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra.

    To forgive is human; to err, divine.

    “Find out who you are, and do it on purpose!” – Dolly Parton.

    “Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of a world’ – the collapse of an old philosophy of life.” ― C.G. Jung.

    “There is no coming to Consciousness without pain.” – C.G. Jung.

    “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.”

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  7. Thanks for another excellent article Dan. Context is SO important to understanding why someone is suffering mentally or emotionally and to actually be able to help resolve the suffering. It is ludicrous that psychiatrists ignore crucial context. Doing so should be viewed as malpractice.

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  8. “Sure, they [therapists] can pump a person full of “feel good” to get them through to the next scheduled session, but they won’t begin to share or understand the lived experiences endured in the meantime, the ones drawing their clients back for more “feel good”.

    The power imbalance in “therapy” is potentially addictive for both clients and therapists; it’s the ideal set-up for a mutually unhealthy addiction.

    However, something tells me more therapists than clients are addicted to “therapy”…

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        • It seems the parasitic part isn’t unique to this transactional relationship, where a service is performed (or work is done) for monetary compensation.

          Under capitalism, we’re left deciding HOW we are going to be parasitic, not IF. Ride others’ backs to “success”? Capitalize on their illnesses, needs, beliefs, or legal troubles? It’s “just the way it is.”

          Although those working in the trenches may not be as motivated by profit, they often work for someone who is (—someone who might view them as parasites).

          While I’m not disagreeing with you, why pick on therapists?

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          • Dan, in all honesty I think you are much too forgiving of people who work in the therapy space, a space I believe deserves as much skepticism as psychiatry.

            I see no reason to defend people who work in either arena.

            I never left a therapist’s office feeling as though it was time well-spent.

            For me the most healing encounters are spontaneous ones with people simply being themselves instead of playing a role.

            When I’m in distress all I really need from someone is a feeling of camaraderie, that someone gets how I feel and why because they’ve been there themselves and aren’t ashamed to admit it.

            Do you think I should I feel bad for not finding the clinical gaze of a therapist at all comforting?

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        • Thanks, Birdsong. I certainly don’t think you should find comfort in anyone’s clinical gaze. (You’re really good at self expression, you know?) I like that you found the most healing from those around you, having fun, simply being themselves, not playing roles. That might be the best therapy.

          I see your point about focusing on therapists in this context, too. They and psychiatrists are often similarly aligned in their focus. You owe no apologies.

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          • Thank you, Dan.

            Spending time in normal settings with people unafraid of being themselves is where healing begins. It helps me feel connected to the human race in a healthy way.

            Overthinking makes people sick. I think the unconscious can do a lot of the work as provided you let it alone. Staying away from disingenuous people helps a lot, too. You don’t even have to know anyone. Just spending the day walking through a busy Costco can do wonders for an anxious mind.

            Most therapists subscribe to psychiatry’s disease model narrative meaning that most take the DSM seriously and are ignorant of the potential dangers of psychiatric “medication”.

            It’s a mistake for people to think psychotherapy is the safer option because most of the time it is not. It’s just a slightly different version of the same psychic poison.

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          • “I like that you found the most healing from those around you…. That might be the best therapy.”

            Spending time around kindly people who see you as you makes all the difference.

            In a nutshell, it’s simply better being around people who don’t label you psychiatrically.

            However, spending time alone reconnecting with one’s deepest self — be that peaceful or painful — is often the most restorative.

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          • Positive mirroring only works for me in natural settings not colored with nor orchestrated by someone’s clinical machinations.

            Subjecting myself to someone’s clinical gaze was most disheartening; at least I learned how much I dislike synthetic connections.

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    • I find it interesting that a person who is DEPENDENT on pharma psych meds–daily doses–is considered “appropriately medicated” while a person who turns to nature’s medicine cabinet instead is considered diseased–“addicted.”

      While everyone clamors for scientific evidence that, say, marijuana has beneficial effects before it should be re-scheduled or made legal, where was the scientific evidence that made nature’s products illegal in the first place, and now requiring scientific evidence to overturn what was never scientifically established to start with? It may have been racism that was behind making natural substances illegal, it certainly wasn’t scientific research.

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      • Most people don’t have the time to look skeptically at themselves, much less psychiatric “medications”. They automatically assume that scientifically trained people know what they’re talking about.

        The best way to deal with this mess is stay away from people authorized to label them psychiatrically.

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      • NOW you’re talking!

        In the USA, I believe we still live in a Puritanical society, with all the hypocrisy which such a hegemony must entail.

        “There are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.”
        ― Bill Hicks.

        But things ARE changing, no doubt, for, as Bohr pointed out, the opposite of a deep truth also holds true:

        “Plus ça change, plus c’est la mĂŞme chose…et le plus que c’est la mĂŞme chose, le plus que ça change!”

        Meditation or anything which helps us reach higher/deeper states of consciousness (and what, EVER, does not, ultimately?) can and I believe will lead us to look back on our present struggles as necessary relative evils.

        “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”
        ― Bill Hicks.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFcTPfVybHA

        Much love, life, light and laughter, and may the Force be with you all.

        Tom.

        And my weather forecast: good, because getting better and better and better….

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  9. No need for Ouija Boards OR “mental health professionals” when all it takes is a little self-knowledge:

    “DISSOCIATION: welcoming our lost parts”, This Jungian Life

    “THE TRANSCENDENT FUNCTION: Getting Unstuck”, This Jungian Life

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  10. “We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods far behind.

    But what we have left behind are only the verbal specters — not the psychic facts — that were responsible for the birth of the gods. We are still as much possessed today by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians.

    Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth. In a word, neurotic symptoms. The gods have become diseases. Zeus no longer rules Olympus, but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctors’ consulting room, or disorders the brains of politicians and journalists, who unwittingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world.

    As your neurosis starts from a fragmentary state of human consciousness, it can only be cured by an approximate totality of the human being. Religious ideas and convictions from the beginning of history have this aspect of mental pharmacon [pharmacy]. They represent the world of wholeness, in which fragments can be gathered and pulled together again. Such a cure cannot be affected by pills or injections.”, Carl Jung

    “RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE: What Do You Worship?”, This Jungian Life

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  11. Both my husband and I have worked with therapists, albeit in different capacities, neither of us as patients, with one brief disappointing experience each of had when we were much younger.

    For the most part, our takeaways have been similar. Which is that therapists are generally as messed up as the rest of us and sometimes even more messed up, if only because of how righteously convinced they are that they’re not.

    I’m old and retired now, but for decades I worked in special education, so there was a period in my life where many of my closest friends were teachers and therapists. Before that, my best friend as a teenager (a friendship that lasted many years) was the daughter of a well-respected therapist, a doctor who later went to prison.

    Later, I took on the responsibility of managing my elderly mother’s care as her dementia rendered her unable to properly care for herself. Naturally, meds were prescribed. The first round almost killed her. Once I realized what was happening, I immediately put a stop to them, something everyone involved (doctors, therapists, caregivers) strongly warned me against doing. Though her thinking was still impaired, she came back to life almost immediately after that.

    I lived nearby and visited every day, sometimes numerous times throughout the day. She began walking and talking again, and had moments of lucid thought and speech, once confiding in me, “You know, Love, I don’t think I’d be alive right now if not for you.”

    Disturbed by what I’d witnessed, and without going into all of the details, for a number of years I ended up informally advocating on behalf of other individuals living in licensed long-term care facilities, many of whom were elderly and without family members who were either actively or diligently involved in their daily care. I saw a lot of horrible things that had become normalized.

    It broke my heart. It wouldn’t be the last time my heart would be broken by people’s indifference.

    When I’d try to intervene, most (not all) of the volunteers, doctors and nurses were incredulous and remained fixed in their illusions or delusions about how well-cared for their patients were. The only person who knew and supported me was the Director of our local Ombudsman chapter, who went so far as to offer me a paying job, which I declined.

    My perspectives have shifted a lot over the years. About the world, myself, and almost all of my relationships. I’ve lost or let go of almost all of my former friends. I just couldn’t pretend to be the person I once believed I was supposed to be but no longer am.

    The thing about the culture we live in, and this includes the doctors and therapists who serve it, is that it encourages and rewards our narcissistic views of the world by conditioning us to think, believe and behave like other members of our chosen groups. And to dismiss, minimize or negate other people’s realities and innate value as human beings in the process.

    Most therapeutic interventions, but certainly not all (again, there are always exceptions that prove the rule), only reinforce our own uniquely flavored narcissistic perspectives, which exist along a spectrum. I’ve had to deal with my own ‘stuff’ too.

    How can any of us truly see another if we can’t see ourselves?

    One of the most rewarding periods of my life were the years I spent volunteering at a small clinic, where my intuitive gifts and sense of people’s realities, both visible and unseen were welcomed and of meaningful benefit to others.

    It’s not unusual for those of us who’ve experienced trauma earlier in life, and without anyone to turn to for support, to sometimes be compensated in this otherworldly way. Related to this, dance was like a prayer for me. I danced and sang my way into being again. Later I discovered other artistic gifts, painting, drawing, collage and poetry.

    Art, speech, dream and animal therapies (for instance working with horses) seem like viable alternatives when other options fail to address our core issues of otherness and alienation. Nature is healing as well.

    I appreciate your perspective Dan, and the space you’ve created for others to safely empathize with others and share their own less than humanizing experiences within our system(s).

    As an aside, have you ever read Erich Fromm’s “Escape from Freedom” or Daniel Deardorff’s “The Other Within”?

    Daniel Deardorff’s book in particular has become a trusted book oracle, one I turn to on days when I find myself searching for words to give my feelings of otherness a voice.

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    • Thanks for the comment. I’m pretty sure “leaders” who establish systems of governance to order the masses—be they political, economic, social, religious, or whatever—greatly overestimate their ability to do so, while their will to do so should be challenged and explored. If their intent is to elevate themselves, then they’ve done wonderfully. If their intent was to elevate others/everyone else, they’ve failed miserably.
      It’s now too late to ask them: “Where do you get this idea that individuals should be controlled as masses?” “And how do you arrive at the conclusion that you know best how the masses should be governed?” “Does the idea of governing others make you feel important and powerful?”

      Absent any challenges and empowered by the complicity of those similarly bitten, they succeed in establishing the machinery of control while never fully grasping the dehumanizing consequences.

      Once established, these systems persist because who wants to change the rules of a game they perceive themselves to be winning? By design, a few will rise to the top and see nothing wrong, of course, with the system that delivered them to their “well-deserved” artificially elevated positions. Some might then give to the poor—people who are systemically reduced to poverty by the same system that systemically elevates a few; using their power and influence to actually change the system by which so many are needy doesn’t even occur to them. From their perspective, the system is working perfectly.

      Mmm . . . concentrated power—just add ego.

      Anyway,I haven’t read those books. Maybe someday, thanks.

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      • Thanks for the thoughtful response, Dan. You’ve summarized my point beautifully.

        One thing I’d like to add though, and in case anyone thinks this is about a particular individual, system, group, organization, state or nation, it’s not. It’s about learning what it means to be human. Individuals and groups have been abusing their power in all of its forms and in various ways throughout history. It’s a dynamic in play within personal relationships too.

        In extreme cases, when the wounding, shame or dissonance we’ve experienced becomes too much for our fragile psyches to consciously bear —and it’s thought most of these experiences take place early on, usually during infancy or childhood— our dissociative defense mechanisms can sometimes take over. While dissociation can be helpful up to a point (helping us to survive the unimaginable) when it becomes pathologized it creates problems.

        Later in life, this can distort our perceptions of reality and make it difficult for us to see ourselves or others clearly, or to fully empathize and take responsibility for our actions or remember accurately. We can begin to see ourselves as perpetual saviors or victims in situations where this isn’t true.

        This describes our landlord, who when faced with a brief moment of dissonance involving an obvious deception and lack of competence on his part, told me there was no such thing as reality, saying it was purely a matter of perspective.

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        • I think a cognitive dissonance arises anytime a person struggles between doing what’s right according to their internal sensibilities and doing what’s right according to expectations or dictates imposed by dysfunctional systems. Instead of doing what one would naturally decide to do, we end up doing whatever makes or saves the most money. Or whatever gets us ahead in a rat race. Or we’re left “just following orders.” Some are so thoroughly indoctrinated into the dysfunction that they perceive no conflict at all.

          It’s painful for one aware of a moral conflict between what’s really right on one hand, and what’s considered right according to our dysfunctional systems on the other, to abandon what’s really right in favor of doing whatever the dysfunction demands. “It’s just the way it is.” By succumbing to the dysfunction, we might think we’re doing what we should for conformity’s sake, accepting the mental anguish of being forced to do what we otherwise wouldn’t.

          But in the long run, I think we’d do better to avoid that anguish (individually and societally) by addressing the dysfunction under which the conflict arises. Wouldn’t it be great if doing the right thing was the common expectation, and always the right thing to do?

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  12. PS: Dan, not far from here you recently wrote:

    ‘I recently had a psychiatry group reach out after reading one of my published blogs, dangling the possibility of paid work. Not having two nickels to rub together, I was really hopeful. I sent them several essays. When they finally responded, their “offer” was for me to write about how their patient-centric approach to suicide is 76% effective—essentially a promotional piece. It was like decoding an ad just to realize it said, “Drink more Ovaltine.”’

    By doing what you saw as right there, and refusing the money, and telling us about it, you have surely make a very significant contribution to making a reality – a manifestation – of what you expressed above as an aspiration:

    “Wouldn’t it be great if doing the right thing was the common expectation, and always the right thing to do?”

    For that, alone, I think we all owe you a enormous debt of gratitude, even if it one which we must “pay forward.”

    Thank you!

    Wishing you joy,

    Tom.

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