Bloggunhymen - Who cares what psyciatrists write on walls?!
- By Evan McCoy
- Published 11/20/2009
Evan McCoy
Evan McCoy (aka Xion) is a Canadian of Irish and French descent. He's also a 23 year old parent and philosophy student currently living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He likes movies and talking, so a movie-related blog just seems right.
So I was watching 12 Monkeys for the first time in several years. I had forgotten about the themes revolving around psychiatry and just remembered the movie as being about an inevitable time loop that I always regarded Bruce Willis as being too dumb to figure out in time, even though the audience had it down maybe 3 quarters of the way into it. That being said, I always enjoyed the movie a lot especially for its gleefully insane Brad Pitt. Anyway, if you haven't caught the flick in a while, you really should. My favorite Gilliam movie by far.
I am a person who is rather distrustful of psychiatry. I often think especially that, at least in Canada, child psychology/psychiatry is truly diabolical. These fuckers stake claims on our children's behavior like it's the wild west. Every year, new disorders are popping up and hyper kids are given a laundry list of mental afflictions ranging from ADHD to "Conduct Disorder". If I were a kid in this era, I'd be so strung out on ritalin, lithium, and what-have-you that I'd hardly be a person. I'd have a list of "disorders" as long as my arm. And yet I have grown up to be a pretty normal guy. Explain that, eggheads!
Not to mention that pills seem to be the answer to everything. Sometimes I'm sure pills really help people. Other times I think it's like performing brain surgery on a paper cut.
For all my criticisms, I do believe in the traditional clinical psychology in which you sit down with a trained counselor and talk out your problems. You might be able to get the same results from an insightful friend without paying $100/hr+ but at least the method is sound.
Where 12 Monkeys gains a shade of relevance is in a great couple of lines spoken by Madeline Stowe.
"Psychiatry--it's the latest religion. And we're the priests--we decide what's right and what's wrong--we decide who's crazy and who isn't... I'm in trouble, Owen. I'm losing my faith."
Consider me an agnostic.
I am a person who is rather distrustful of psychiatry. I often think especially that, at least in Canada, child psychology/psychiatry is truly diabolical. These fuckers stake claims on our children's behavior like it's the wild west. Every year, new disorders are popping up and hyper kids are given a laundry list of mental afflictions ranging from ADHD to "Conduct Disorder". If I were a kid in this era, I'd be so strung out on ritalin, lithium, and what-have-you that I'd hardly be a person. I'd have a list of "disorders" as long as my arm. And yet I have grown up to be a pretty normal guy. Explain that, eggheads!
Not to mention that pills seem to be the answer to everything. Sometimes I'm sure pills really help people. Other times I think it's like performing brain surgery on a paper cut.
For all my criticisms, I do believe in the traditional clinical psychology in which you sit down with a trained counselor and talk out your problems. You might be able to get the same results from an insightful friend without paying $100/hr+ but at least the method is sound.
Where 12 Monkeys gains a shade of relevance is in a great couple of lines spoken by Madeline Stowe.
"Psychiatry--it's the latest religion. And we're the priests--we decide what's right and what's wrong--we decide who's crazy and who isn't... I'm in trouble, Owen. I'm losing my faith."
Consider me an agnostic.
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Comments
Comment #1 (Posted by KR)
I think your attitude is dangerous. Maybe that's a compliment. Occasionally in a group setting you get an individual or even sometimes two who for some reason are identifiably disruptive and cause problems. Sometimes they grow out of it; I'm aware that you never really did. Is this a problem, and if so, should it be medicated? I don't have those answers, but I do feel that if it pertains to you or your child a few dozen hours of research are in order. Maybe some day I'll have to do that research and then I'll have a valid opinion to share.
Comment #2 (Posted by Evan McCoy)
I don't think my attitude is dangerous. Does a disruptive individual have a defect in their behavior which is evolutionarily detrimental? Are they failing in some essential task of getting along with the group?
Is transgression now to be considered not only disagreeable but dangerous?
Or are we merely talking about humanity's ongoing attempt to homogenize and regulate the individual as a cog in the wheel of civilization, useful to society only insofar as the boundaries are kept to?
While I do tend to be combative, disruptive, and transgressive does this mean I am a pariah or should be treated as such? Should I be medicated to regulate my "bad behavior" and Stepfordize me into being a useful-as-functional member of society?
Psychiatry is the process of deciding which behaviors are subject to regulation and which aren't. There have always been such processes, haven't there? Community must insulate itself from dangerous instability, and perhaps psychiatry is only the most recent trend in doing so.
Seems like an expression of the ongoing battle between the community and the individual.
