... which psychiatrists never do, we need to be clear on one essential point: spirituality is not the same thing as spiritualism. Totally different. Spirituality says only this: that there is a facet of human experience which cannot be captured by the processes used to investigate the material world, i.e. by science as presently defined. This is properly called dualism as it does not imply any form of religious belief. The standard definition also says there is no magic involved, meaning no laws which are not also laws of the material universe, at which point all the sensible, scientific people burst out laughing. "How can there be something about the material human body that is immune to the laws of physics? Doesn't make sense." That's why they claim that everything can be reduced to chemistry and then to physics (see Richard Carrier, Substack Jan. 16th), they want a cut-off point between reality and magic.
Spiritualism, on the other hand, says there is an immaterial, parallel reality which we cannot perceive by our senses. So how do we know it's there? Its supporters, who are about 95% of the world's population, either say something like "You know from your inner experience," or "You just have to believe what you're taught." This means either you can become aware of it through an inner experience which is not caused by our ordinary (external) senses, or you have to trust that your teachers are telling the truth. From the "scientific" point of view, these are not trustworthy sources, which raises the question: What does scientific mean? Stripped of all the verbiage, it just means "reliable," as in "Freed of prejudices, preconceptions, misperceptions and falsehoods, and following standard, reproducible procedures which lead to high levels of agreement among neutral observers." By definition, relying on "inner experience" is not reliable, partly because the experiences are difficult to pin down, partly because many people have trouble putting them into words, but mainly because people don't like to admit they have prejudices and preconceptions. This is important because science can be wrong, whereas religion and politics are never wrong.
It gets to the point where you can believe what you like about an unseen reality because nobody can prove you wrong. If people don't like your account of the parallel reality, they may ignore you or, much more likely, silence you, by banishing you, putting you in a madhouse or by chopping your head off. Why would anybody bother? Why would they care what you believe? Surely you can believe what you like as long as you keep it to yourself? But people don't let you believe what you like. My view is that humans are hierarchical animals: as a matter of biology, we form ourselves into societies and then set up dominance hierarchies [1]. People use whatever they can to justify getting themselves higher up the hierarchy. In the good old days, that meant physical strength. The strongest man (sic) in the tribe got to be top dog with all the benefits, until he got too old and was toppled by a younger, stronger man. This led to constant tribal warfare until somebody had the bright idea of using an unseen "parallel reality" as justification for being on top: "OK chaps, the Big Man says I'm to be your king by divine right, so hand me the crown and the big sword. Anybody who disagrees will find out what the sword's for." And it's been downhill ever since.
All of this is by way of saying that, when it comes to understanding humans, spiritualism is totally unreliable. This is why what is called the "scientific world view" keeps right away from unseen parallel worlds. There has to be some sort of evidence for an opinion, otherwise how do you know it isn't deviance, deceit or delusion? You don't. Spirituality, on the other hand, comes with lots of evidence. I don't even have to open my eyes in the morning to know that being awake is something that being in a deep sleep isn't. The evidence for being alive and awake is irrefutable: there is nothing you can say or do that will prove to me I'm not alive and awake. I may be mistaken or even deluded or hallucinated, but it still amounts to proof that being alive and awake is something that being dead or unconscious is not. That is what science has to explain, and pretending it isn't there is not an explanation.
Unfortunately, psychiatry got itself into an intellectual tangle many years ago and thought that if we couldn't prove something by measuring it, such as your mind or mine, then it either doesn't exist or it can be ignored. It's a bit hard to say my mind exists but yours doesn't (the basis of all the silly zombie arguments in philosophy) so it's easier to do as mainstream psychiatry has done and ignore the lot, as in:
"You're feeling very depressed, are you, my dear? Just take these and come back in a month. Next please."
What it says is: "Our vision of science can't cope with the mind, so we'd better ditch the mind and keep the science." Now it gets a bit complicated here as psychiatry doesn't actually ignore mental states: that's the reason for having a separate specialty called "psychiatry" (Greek for mind doctor). What they do instead is strip mental life of its emotional or empathic significance as the outcome of life experiences, and instead give it the same significance as other bodily events which lie outside conscious control. This is critically important. They are saying "The mind is irrelevant in causing mental states, only biology counts. This way, we can meet the requirements for a scientific psychiatry." In biological psychiatry, mental symptoms belong in the same category as, say, fevers or crooked teeth.
When it's put like that, it's patently ridiculous but that's what mainstream psychiatry is saying. The reason they say something as ludicrous as this is because they have never made the effort to work it out intellectually [2]. It's accepted as a matter of "You just have to believe what you're taught." Does that mean modern, mainstream psychiatry is on a par with any other unproven belief system, such as religious cults or politics. Yes, that's exactly what it means.
If we want psychiatry (and psychology, and all the others) to have any validity, what is needed is a new form of science that can cope with the fact that we are "minded beings," that we actually have a real mental or spiritual life which has to be taken into account. If science can't cope with it, then after a hundred years of "mindless scientific psychiatry," it's time to ditch the science and keep the mind. One particular advantage of this move is that, at last, we can stop spouting the totally unproven dogma that "Animals don't have minds." Of course they do, luckily not the same as ours otherwise the planet would be bare. We will talk more about as it's very important. In fact, Australia's favourite psychiatric talking head, Prof. Ian Hickie, has just been on ABC telling everybody "It's all biological." We'll see, because part of my case has just been published as two chapters in a new Critical Psychiatry text. This is from the flyer:
Cantú, A., Maisel, E., Ruby, C. (Eds.): Theoretical Alternatives to the Psychiatric Model of Mental Disorder Labeling: Contemporary Frameworks, Taxonomies, and Models
McLaren N: Diagnosing Psychiatry's Failure: The Need for a Post-Positivist Psychiatry (pp 60-79).
Abstract: This chapter considers the current state of theorising in psychiatry and how we got here. There are currently only two accepted models of mental disorder, the "biomedical," and the "biopsychosocial." The former is reductionist while the latter is a dualist-interactionist model. However, as a matter of established fact, neither of these exists as anything more than a name. Psychiatry is operating without scientific warrant. Psychiatry's rejection of a psychological component in mental disorder stems from its embrace of the principles of positivism, which were formalised in 1929. It is argued that these principles condemn psychiatry to intellectual sterility, and that, in order to advance beyond the descriptive phase in the development of a science, it needs to move to a post-positivist stage where mental life is established as real and causally-significant.
McLaren N: Toward a post-positivist psychiatry: The biocognitive model of mental disorder (pp80-92).
Abstract: In the absence of a formal account of mental disorder, psychiatry lacks the most basic element in any field wishing to be seen as scientific: a model of its subject matter. The problem lies in psychiatry's unthinking embrace of the principles of positivism, which eschew any talk of mental life as "metaphysical." A new model of mental disorder has been proposed, the biocognitive model for psychiatry, which gives a formal account of mind as a rational, emergent phenomenon which can be understood in informational terms. This leads directly to a model of mental disorder, and to an understanding of personality and thence to personality disorder. Mental disorder, in this model, is almost entirely a psychological phenomenon occurring in the setting of a healthy brain. This has profound consequences for our apprehension and treatment of the mentally-troubled in our midst.
Print Book ISBN: 978-1-80441-276-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-80441-277-0
Discounted version available for short period:
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References:
1. McLaren N (2023): Narcisso-Fascism: The psychopathology of right wing extremism. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. Available on Amazon.
2. McLaren N (2013). Psychiatry as Ideology. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 15: 7-18.
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This material is copyright but can be copied or quoted on condition the author is acknowledged.
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Abbreviations:
OPCAT: Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture
NIMH: National Institute for Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
RANZCP: Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
RCPsych: Royal College of Psychiatry (UK).
UNCAG: UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
UNCAT: UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
UNCRPD, or just CRPD: UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
WHO: World Health Organisation.
THANK YOU Dr McLaren I really enjoy your post! 👏👏👏Specially the twists from the humor point of views! I have to read it again with tranquility to fully enjoy the contents. Wether the wrong perspective is use to drug people, my humble opinion is the big problem comes to continue doing the same thing, aka psychiatric drugs and ECT seen the tragic results for more than half a century! 🙂Sadly is the same than Covid scam 💉, no prevent, no cure and kills..forced, isolation, etc.. Even if the perspective to point to a biological cause only is wrong, if the treatment was not harming and helping people to recover back to their base line health it can be see in a different light! It is a big contradiction to use a theory depending on the origin of a disfunction in biological systems as a the cause of the altered state of mind when all what we can see as a result of their drugs treatments and ECT is persons that never recover and ends up suffering all kind of physical and brain damage.. That should be enough for anyone that consider Science as their main interpretation of illnesses to STOP THEIR TREATMENT.
On the other hand there is now written evidence from a variety of sources that the reduction on the population seems a reality for who represents is leadering, "governments" the countries and for the look of what researchers are showing, there is poison in the Covid vial to our bodies and has been identified, climatic change seems climatic business and more..maybe those diagnose with schizophrenia are right? 🤔 Just could not cope with that reality?
The more you think about it more seems that we, the ones with "normal mental health" are the wrong ones!..
By the way I have emailed to you through Substack but I do not have any response, maybe you did not see my email or did not arrive to you humanitylives.substack.comotherwise please can you contact me on Hu... @... mail.com when is good for you.
Thank you again ❤️💙💚🤗🌹🌺🌼
As a scientist I would like to point out that there is no evidence that life evolved from inorganic matter. Yes life evolves but you cannot use an assumption to prove or disprove the existence of something. While there is no definitive proof of , or against dualism it does provide a basis for a social dynamic model to explain Schizophrenia. Starting from the old adage "it's your reaction to what happens to you that defines you ". The regression, introversion, withdrawal defense to feelings of alienation can be used to explain not only the progressive course of the disorder but also the success of the recovery movements use of inclusive relationships to handle the underlying alienation.