Mental Disorder vs. Hyperia.In Western society, the
DSM-5 is currently used for psychiatric diagnoses. To put it in a simplified way, we all have something called "personality traits", and the DSM marks a range of "normality", decided by a group of people, and if any of the traits is out of that range, it would create a signal. If three or more personality traits create a signal, then it would have to be squared with the spectrum of disorders to see which one matches.
Therefore, the same person can go to three different doctors and receive three different diagnoses. Because it is the physician's interpretation that determines which traits are out of normality and to which mental disorder they belong. The problem with the diagnosis is that, for example, within bipolar disorder, the group of associated personality traits are, say, 10, and the person with 3 of them would already be diagnosed as bipolar. This person, when he gets home, starts reading about bipolar disorder, and unconsciously begins to associate himself with the rest of the personality traits that he does NOT have. But unconsciously he conforms to them "because I AM bipolar".
Another of the perverse problems of this type of diagnosis is the emotional damage that is produced by making the person ACCEPT that he/she is disturbed, as the name itself indicates. The social stigma involved, labeling oneself and being labeled by others can be far more detrimental than the problems associated with those 3 traits that were initially present before being diagnosed.
As for the medicalization associated with each disorder, these medications are not designed to solve the underlying problem that causes them, they are only designed to bring those emotions back to a "normal" range, that is, that the person does not bother and is productive within the system. If someone suffers from anxiety, instead of analyzing the cause, for example a job or a toxic partner, they are quickly prescribed an anxiolytic, sleeping pills and pills to be active.
In my head it resonates, that what they are really telling you is:
-"take this pill to work and this to sleep, slave."Of course, if the patient is a danger to himself or others, I do not mean that psychiatric medications are not necessary. Nor am I saying that the DSM is not a useful tool. Only that both the way of diagnosing and prescribing medications are used too lightly and massively. Possibly if 80% of the population passed one of these tests it would result in being diagnosed with a "mental disorder". Isn't that strange? The problem is the current paradigm that if you cross the normal range, you are "crazy" and should be medicated.
Fortunately, other voices are emerging trying to create another approach to these issues, such as Dr. Javier Alvarez, who after 30 years of research in psychiatry
has created the concept of Hyperia. Which comes to say, that:
"(...)The most frequent and the most important psychic manifestations, which are being labeled as symptoms of a psychiatric disorder, could be considered normal productions of our brain, they are a cognitive function, just as memories can be a cognitive function associated with memory, delusions, hallucinations, states of exaltation or depression of mood could be considered a brain function that I call Hyperia. It is a way to try to treat as something normal of the brain that so far are treated as "psychiatric symptoms".-Dr. Javier Alvarez.
In an interview, he explained that the concept of "disease" is hardly applicable to the mental spectrum and the term has been transferred by similarity to physical illnesses, but that since there is no injury, and there is no biological or physical evidence to determine "mental disorders" one could not speak of disease per se.
And that basically what is being done right now is to "medicalize emotions" and put them in a range of "normality".
In his doctoral thesis and research work he exposes the hypothesis, that taking the descriptions that mystics, artists and geniuses throughout history, show that they have been under states of Hyperia. Today we would call them mental disorder and we would give them a pill so that they do not bother.
Fortunately, more and more studies are also being conducted that seek to associate states of hyperia and creativity:
https://www.researchgate...ntal_Health_perspective
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29864764/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32040337/
Experiments such as Rosenhan's carried out in 1968 already questioned the validity of the diagnostics and the system itself:
"Rosenhan and the other pseudopatients reported an overwhelming sense of dehumanization, severe invasion of privacy, and boredom while hospitalized. Their possessions were searched randomly, and they were sometimes observed while using the toilet. They reported that though the staff seemed to be well-meaning, they generally objectified and dehumanized the patients, often discussing patients at length in their presence as though they were not there, and avoiding direct interaction with patients except as strictly necessary to perform official duties. Some attendants were prone to verbal and physical abuse of patients when other staff were not present. A group of patients waiting outside the cafeteria half an hour before lunchtime were said by a doctor to his students to be experiencing "oral-acquisitive" psychiatric symptoms. Contact with doctors averaged 6.8 minutes per day." I would especially like to talk about schizophrenia.
In our western culture it is a word associated with stigma and people to be afraid of. However, in countries where it is culturally accepted or in rural areas and tribes where the DSM-V is not used, it is something very different.
For example, in Maori culture, hearing voices is not only not a stigma, it is something normal and welcome, let's say a little boy has his first experience hearing voices in his head and suddenly tells his mother.
-Mom, there is a man talking to me there, don't you see him?The mother replies:
+How lucky son, you have the gift of talking to the ancestors!Not only is he not marked as crazy, but they come from other villages to bring him gifts and to be interested in what the ancestors have told him.
It doesn't matter if the story of the ancestors is real or not. The important thing is that this child grows up NORMALIZING that there are voices that only he can hear and should not take any kind of medication throughout his life. In the West and our "advanced world" we give them neuroleptics that irreparably damage the person and his autonomy.
Since the 1980s there has been a movement called
The Hearing Voices Movement that refuses to medicate themselves because their voices are not a danger to themselves or others.
https://www.intervoiceon...hearing-voices-movement
I have experienced a case that I believe is very representative of social pressure and the extent to which it can affect a person. I know that a single case is not a sufficient sample to be valid for any scientific study. But it marked my vision about the system in which we are immersed and how little advanced we are in psychiatric matters, no matter how many satellites and smartphones we have.
When I joined the Telegram group of psychedelic therapy, we were less than 15 people with very diverse but extreme cases, people who had been to several doctors and each one had given them a diagnosis, people on the verge of suicide as was my case, etc.
The thing is that there was a 17 year old boy, extremely intelligent and creative, initially with a strong addiction to heroin and amphetamines who was looking for a way to stop the addiction using the support of some psychedelics. As the months went by and the trust between us grew, he confessed to us that the reason he started taking heroin was because he heard voices in his head and it calmed his panic. After meeting several of us in person and having several face-to-face meetings, he told us that he was getting scared because those voices were starting to tell him to kill his parents and that he was very worried.
We had planned for 4 of us to do an lsd intake at a cottage with our facilitator and therapist in the group. So he asked us if he can join us as he didn't know what to do and the only thing he thought would help him was to try LSD and be with us in the field for a few days.
When the day came, I can only say that inwardly, due to the same social construction and prejudices that were inside me, I was afraid. To go to the countryside, with someone who claims to hear voices telling him to kill his parents and take LSD? I had been in therapy with DMT for some time and I felt cured, I knew the healing potential of these substances and how they can act on the consciousness. But I admit that I felt tremendously worried.
When the day came, we all took 200µg of LSD except him, who received 100µg. After reaching the summit with the LSD and arriving at the plateau an hour later, at dusk, he took his sleeping bag, went to a nearby grove of trees and stayed there almost until dawn, deep in thought. He was alone there except for a few sporadic visits from our caretaker.
At dawn, we saw him approach and he sat with us near the campfire. I remember his pale face but with bright eyes and he told us how his experience had been, as he told us by the sensations, emotions and visuals he had experienced, the effect of those 100µg had produced the equivalent of taking 400µg (people with this condition have a higher flow of dopamine and serotonin as I understand). The thing is that after a quiet time, he told us with shining eyes:
-"Now I have been able to understand it, I know why those voices told me to kill my parents, in reality, it is the voice of panic that I have that my parents will find out, that I am addicted to heroin, amphetamines and that I hear voices."
When he arrived at his house, he told us that he said to his father:
-Dad, come with me to the bathroom, do you see this?, it's heroin, while he was flushing it down the toilet, Do you see this?, it's amphetamines, while he was also flushing it down the toilet. -Now please, don't tell me anything, I have something else to tell you, sit with me in the living room. -Dad, I hear voices, that's why I was taking that shit.
My hair stands on end and emotions fill my eyes when I remember and write it. I haven't heard from him in a few years, but the last time I saw him he was a happy person, with his own car and with his first partner, another girl in the group, with color in her face, gaining muscle. , that pale and thin ghost had disappeared.
I don't want to say that psychedelics are a panacea. Just accepting the condition without fear of being labeled and stigmatized, normalizing that I can hear voices that no one else hears, and in this case, having a family that supports and understands you it is more effective than any pill.
Dr. Alvarez said that when he began studying, 40 years ago, it was estimated that 10% of the population could have a mental disorder, but with the DSM-V in hand it is estimated that 60% of the North American population would be susceptible to being diagnosed as "sick" and that the hand that pushes this, allows it and pulls the strings is the same as always, money and pharmaceuticals lobbies. I would add that social control plays an important role here. If you are diagnosed, your voice does not count.
I firmly believe that our psychiatric system is broken and should be demolished, destroyed and eradicated. It is perverse, greedy and pernicious.
The current paradigm should be abandoned as soon as possible.
Giant hugs for everyone.
"Nosce te ipsum"