John Read: The Origins and Meanings of Psychosis
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- Professor John Read is a highly regarded and internationally acclaimed academic and clinical psychologist/researcher whose research areas include the psycho-social causes of psychosis and psychological treatment for persons with psychosis (a term which includes persons diagnosed with ‘schizophrenia’).
Filmed at a one day conference in Brighton on the 26th June 2019. Organised by ISPS UK South coast Network in collaboration with Soteria Brighton, Hearing Voices Brighton and the Spiritual Crisis Network.
ISPS promotes psychological and social approaches to psychosis across the globe. Providing a place where professionals, service users and carers can share their ideas, hopes and struggles, and join together in constructive dialogue and debate.
Visit the links below to find out about more events and the benefits of becoming a member.
ISPS UK: www.ispsuk.org
ISPS International: www.isps.org
ISPS UK Twitter: / ispsuk
'Bad things happen, and that's what drives you crazy' So true!
When emotions overload us psychologically, we "collapse" as a way to survive. Sometimes events and memories are so hard to bear, we need to go into an altered state with a split from reality when reality offers zero to little emotional relief. This is why the whole world is on a pill or drink, or take drugs, or gamble or shop too much, as a way to calm their overwhelming emotions. It has very little to do with the brain, but everything to do with what happened to a person in the either recent or distant past. It can be something as seemingly manageable(?) as constant verbal battering of a child by an out of control parent, with or without attendant violence in the form of physical beatings. Childhood neglect, abuse, constant uproar in the house with the parents constantly screaming at each other, threats to be killed if you told anyone outside the home what was going on at home; all these factors can make a person destabilized, to the point they cannot think in any peaceful way. There is a book called "Between Parent and Child" which explains about the best way to talk to children in a way that elicits their co-operation and maintains the dignity and respect for both the parent and the child. It is by the late Haim Ginott. There are a few short videos on CZcams with some examples of the things he talks about in his book. He also mentions perhaps the little known fact that when you are upset, it is difficult to think calmly about any situation. Today's abused and neglected children become tomorrow's in-patients at psychiatric facilities. It is a gross injustice to label people as mentally ill, when in fact those who have survived such violence are exceptionally mentally strong, but every person is only human, and there are limits to what we can endure. We were never allowed to speak of the violence and were threatened with death if we did so. So, the massive emotional distress that this caused showed up in the form of odd ideas and behavior. Instead of understanding, we got labelled, and separated by being housed in a hospital. Violence, whether verbal in the from of constant criticism or advice giving, combined with little to no respite from it in the 'family home', can quite easily send a person into altered psychological states which allow that person to SURVIVE, when otherwise they may not.It is the mind's clever trick to give a person psychological and emotional relief from a situation which otherwise would be too hard to bear, especially in a family where each person had to fight, just to communicate and survive. Psychiatrists are in a tough spot when they know there is violence and or neglect at home, knowing they eventually need to release a person back to the 'care' of their family. It isn't that people are bad, it is just that parents are human, and sometimes due to what they went through themselves, have little emotional resources themselves in order to share with the children and remain together emotionally, themselves. When the family environment is so non-nurturing, it is very difficult for the children to grow up free and confident within themselves. People are not crazy, but often what they had to endure in their home was.
Psychosis is a coping strategy of your mind when you are very upset. It is when there is emotional dysregulation. It is best eased by writing. Talking when very upset is often not possible, nor helpful. It is due to an event/s which have undermined the person's emotional balance. It is a psychological injury. It can be from childhood or any time in life. If you cannot afford therapy either financially or emotionally, then please give writing a try. Heaps of research and studies about how writing calms emotional distress. Much of what gets called "mental illness" is actually emotional distress, amplified. For this, writing really helps. You do not need to write all the things that upset you. In fact, writing a list or a song lyric or something that has little emotional content is often better. Take back your mind and emotions, one word at a time. Injury and neglect can be repaired to a large extent by attending to yourself by writing.
My brother & i were held hostage by our parents who barely attended to physical needs, let alone emotional or psychological ones. He was left alone a lot. He was bashed. By my father. Mother was severely affected by war & separation from her family. i became her caretaker from an early age. Trained not to think or feel or even admit any needs or emotions. Threatened with death if we told what went on at home. i basically exist now just to tell the truth of how bad it was for us, but especially my brother.
So sorry 😢I hope he is finding the healing he needs and you as well 🙏🏻
My brother passed 21 years ago. But thank you.@@faithalive3463
Social ostracism. lack of social relationships. Not all shrinks are bad. But some will do & say anything to make money, including make up bullshit labels to try to get paid. There are some professionals who are honest & do their best to do no harm. They do exist.
The one thing that helped me to come back from severe mental impairment ? Writing. Why does it work? Because you make contact with your own real thoughts and feelings. The ones you were not allowed to say. The ones that no one could accept or listen to. The thing is, mental things happen because we have no one in our lives who can consistently calm us when we're very very upset. Most if not all who suffer mental disruption have often suffered thoughts and feelings that were not accepted or listened to. By the time someone comes for therapy or hospital - the person is often so fed up with all the things that went wrong - with no one there to listen or to care - that they kind of collapse, mentally and emotionally. People are not inherently mentally ill. The mental dis-arrangement comes from things that happen that overload a person. The writing in a very simple way - starting with a list for shopping - or song lyrics or a story in which the person gets their feelings out of their head and heart and onto the page - goes a long way to helping the person restore their ability to think. And writing to others or talking when you're very upset often just makes things worse. These days people are often very sensitive about what is written in a text or email. Many are struggling with all sorts of emotional distress they often don't reveal to others, because they've learned it doesn't often help to share. It often makes you more vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation by people in the therapy business who try to keep you separated from your more helpful & authentic feelings, such as anger. The often unwanted and invasive questions you get asked when you end up in hospital or afterwards often make little to no sense. How do you feel ok when so much has happened in your life - sometimes thing after thing after thing - those who survived world war two often didn't speak about what they went through. They couldn't. It was too much. It is common sense to admit that there were events in your life which led a person to feel so awful they feel they need to medicate with pills or alcohol. Often talking about the upsetting events is not even possible because to do so may be too threatening to your family. As in, children being taken away and fostered or adopted out. The fact is, most people don't care. They pretend they do. But really, in this society, it's every man for himself. This is the advantage writing has, over talking. It also lets you vent without hurting your own or anyone else's ears, it's available to you any time, you don't need to wait for an appointment with anyone. You can get up in the middle of the night - write your upset out, get it off your heart - and go back to bed if you cannot sleep. People are very strong. But they do have their limits. When those limits are reached it doesn't mean you're forever damned or doomed. It means you're upset and you're human. It is totally possible to recover, with the help of writing. When you've had a lot of denial in your life because of terrible events, it's one of the most effective ways to tame the tangle of ideas and feelings trapped inside you. Write yourself back into your life.
Regarding Italy, did you know about the revolution in psychiatry there that happened in the seventies under the name ''democratic psychiatry'? One of their slogans was 'freedom is therapeutic'. They still have a much less coercive system than in the UK and most other countries, with most mental health care in each city based around a number of community mental health centres that are open twenty four hours a day rather than out of town hospitals and specialised units. One of their working policies is that doors should be kept open to ensure safety. I don't know if there is no coercion but from what I've read it is used much less. Part of the revolution was to close the big asylums, but I think this was done more thoughtfully, with more of a proper replacement than happened here under Thatcher. One example is there are social cooperatives that patients can work in, in decent conditions, and be paid a proper wage. Not that I am saying work is the answer to mental health problems, but this is about making a place for people in society and treating them on an equal basis to other people, not forcing them into work they don't want.
There are a couple of articles online in Asylum magazine about the mental health system in Italy (a country which you mentioned as having much better mental health than most countries in its economic class). One comparing the care systems in Italy and the UK (source: Asylum Magazine - An Intellectual Emergency in UK Mental Health Services by Vincenzo Passante Spaccapietra), and one talking about the history of the democratic psychiatry movement and what has happened since then in the city of Trieste, which was the centre of the movement in the seventies (source: Asylum Magazine - The Politics of Mental Health Care in Trieste an update by Vincenzo Passante). Re reading them, there are still some problems with the mental health care system in Italy, but it still sounds a lot better than that in the UK from the point of view of the use of coercion and treating patients on an equal basis to other people.
Like Bessel van der Kolk says : trauma.
There is no such thing as schizophrenia. Trauma. Hardships. Alienation. Loneliness. Feeling beaten down by circumstances.
Appreciate this upload. Great video excellent mindful approach. I have waxy flexibility; “I have to do it I was told too…..”…this sh*t applies directly to us drug addicts, cause we have a “brain disease”…such a crock of sh*t!!
🌻
Please research Parasites causing Pyschosis
It is but one cause. Herpes encephalitis is non-parasitic.
We all have so much going on in our brains which are usually outside of conscious awareness. I wonder if voices and hallucinations, as to whether some psychosis is the penetration through the barrier of "screening out what is irrelevant."
in fact, secondary psychosis was never a question of where it comes from, in my opinion. but primary psychosis, which they say is purely genetic and they don't know the cause. the reasons for that are psychotraumas. (But polygenics plays a role: 10-20%, just think about why it is that someone can be hypnotized and someone can't? or why only the population: 3% is affected? because bad events happen to many more people than psychotics, or, for example, why does everyone have a different IQ? and this is not a matter of learning.) So I think genes play a role, but it is secondary and can be turned off. but it is wrong to say that we do not know the cause of primary psychosis. because we know. the main risk factor is psychological trauma.
Need more knowledge for aware with topic....
Yes i absolutly agree with John. A big dose of Psycho traumas cause psychosis. But: there is genetic component or not? Because there is other poligenetic condition like : autism: which has a few genetic test now. And it 30% working. Or PTSD genetic bloodtesting its also work at soldiers in Military. And thats true that not every sexual abused child get psychosis. (Only just 10%) The other 90% recover without psychosis. And only 3 people of 100 will experience psychosis one day in a life time. Its so small group, so we think it should be some kind of sensitivity. Dont you think? So? Who is right? I know that "skizofrenia" is not exists. But maybe some poligenetic weekness should be there, dont you think??? John said:" it's not genetic but we all have different stress sensitivity." So what is this sensitivity if its not a genetic factor? Somebody clever please tell me the TRUE! Thanks Péter and one more thing: if there is 3 people: if they survive the same trauma. One of them: get psychosis. one of them: get depression, one of them: get nothing for example. So why is it happening? Maybe they have to get the same thing if they get the same dose of trauma. So? How is it? Please somebody help me !!!
Couple things: The human experience, the collective of what each of us experiences is much too complex to distill down to a few key events. You could say it is in a lot of ways the sum of traumatic/stressful experiences minus perhaps some protective factors. For example, we know that having just one person that believes in you and that you trust can make all the difference in how one adverse event affects you. So just looking at one experience "Sexual assault" is not that meaningful. Even that event can widely vary how traumatic it feels to the individual. Who did it? What were the circumstance? How old was the person? How strong was the person's ego when it occurred? etc. etc. etc. And let's say there is already sexual trauma that is harder to identify, or other trauma.. it compounds. A lot of trauma in a person is hard to figure out, even for the person. What about having been left alone in a crib to cry? The person will not even remember that. But that can be one of the most traumatic things in someone's life. One factor in resilience is the nervous system. And a nervous system can be weakened even in utero if there are a lot of stress hormones floating around from the mother. So lots of difference there already. We also know that DNA is really overrated, that in the end it is about what gets expressed (epigenetics) and that is influenced through the environment. And yes, it can also get passed on. So generational trauma does affect a person on a genetic level. There are studies that show you can induce a phobia in adult mice and the baby mice will inherit the phobia without ever having been exposed to the stimuli in a dangerous context.
In the end, we need to get away from the idea of genetics. It is not that helpful and can disempower a person and make others fearful of something occuring to them. When in reality it is all so flexible.
Another factor is high sensitivity. We do know that how sensitive an individual is can vary. Sensitivity is a type of nervous system, some people absorb a lot more information from their senses and so they can become more easily overwhelmed and need more time to relax. This is observed in lots of animals. It is something that is present from birth. I think those people tend to also be more likely to suffer trauma and therefore have psychotic experiences.
@@christinawillner9023 yes, but what cause sensitivity....genes. Everything have genetic factors. Like secondary psychosis: Alzheimer + psychosis (AD +P) its a special type of Alzheimer. Head injury + psychosis: there is genetic factor. Coffee + psychosis: there is genetic factor. Heat stroke+ psychosis: have genetic factor. Starving disease + psychosis: have genetic factors. Insomnia + psychosis = there is genetic factors. Drug + psychosis: there is genetic connections. Alcohol + psychosis: there is genetic factor.
So why: trauma + psychosis.....there is not genetic factor (?) Why??
The population: more than 80%, dont have psychosis at all, never in their life time. Why? Because they dont have such things like this? NO....every body have trauma, every body have heat stroke, every body have starving, every body have insomnia, lot of people have Alzheimer, every body drink Coffee, .....ect, ect. But 80% - 95% dont have sensitivity for psychosis.
I think the point is that:
Some people have sensitivity what cause genes.
But have to find what triggered. And solve it. And the genes turn off.
Thats it
@ I guess I did not mean to say there is no genetic factor. It is always a factor. The question is how big and how relevant that is in treatment. In the end I care about someone feeling better. And for that it is always most important to look at the state of the person in the now. You are right that sensitivity most likely has a genetic factor as well. But it's much more human to me to just identify that the person has a high sensitivity and help them deal with that, Why is it always so important to know the genetics? When again so much of it is about epigenetics (environment) when it comes to your DNA.
I think it is possible that 80% of people never have the unique set of circumstances that cause a psychosis. And as you pointed out as well, there are different things that we all call "psychosis" since it is a symptom based diagnosis. So often it is not actually the same "thing". But we call it the same.
Humans are very complex eco systems where lots of factors come together.
But I disagree with your statement of everyone drinks coffee, everybody has insomnia etc. there is so much variation in those experiences. Again, not everyone has enough factors that come together that end up in psychosis. It is all very complex. I just think the thought of: well a lot of people experience XYZ, but only some of them get psychosis" is a bit flawed. Since again, it's all about a subjective experience, how overwhelming something feels to a person, including past history, nervous system state, details of experience, existing world view etc. etc. But yes, some differences at birth exist in the nervous system in a person. But I do believe even the most sensitive person, if they have relatively little trauma they never have a psychosis. And even someone with a very robust nervous system can be brought to insanity with the right circumstances. I believe forced sleeplessness brings everyone there for example. So it is a natural human state we can all experience. Some of us are just "fortunate" that we are never brought there through our experiences.
@@christinawillner9023 yes I agree. But psychosis happen 3 person of 100 person. Its the geneticly 3.5% sensitive ones. The others: the chance like 0.01% ....like example a metal Bridge collapse because no reason....the chance like the same 0.01%....so its little bit....very little. Especially over 30 years old.....
@@christinawillner9023 you are pretty :)
This is too crazy, the guy uses statistical arguments and generalizations, the exact same arguments "Lies, damn lies and statistics" that the drug companies use to describe the "average" treatment response. It's unbelievable, he's literally saying, "nevermind lived experience, here are some statistics". The hypocrisy is mindboggling.
Don't explore things with materials or study material.. Reason is quite difficult for listener...
Eli Lily should hire this guy. I can see the advertisement "Life makes us all a bit mad, so pop a Zyprexa when you brush your teeth".
'Sent by God' How funny!
There is a God
This statement carries too much baggage that terms must be clarified and agreed upon before any debate is possible.