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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 20 of 20. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
This is ludicrous. Some shrinks want to come up with a new diagnosis that is someone is bitter, they have a disorder.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/25/health/he-bitterness25
If that is the case, alot of people in this society are going to be labeled mentally ill. By the way if you aren't aware of it, there is something called the "labeling theory". If you label someone mentally ill, disabled, etc. they begin to believe it defines them as a person and they start to see themselves in a very negative way. Their identity becomes shaped by the label instead of just associating the 'label' with their symptoms.
I am on disabilty right now for depression and want to get off of it because prior to going on it I functioned, now I am referred to as "disabled" and the stigma really hurts my self esteem.
One doctor helped me by saying a diagnosis is just a tool to describe symptoms. And a diagnosis is something that is necessary to bill insurance!
Posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 2:54:19
In reply to Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
>someone is bitter, they have a disorder.
Oh good, but only up to a point, which is what is the treatment?I expect psychiatry to be ahistorical. I'm more impressed when it is acultural.
Posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 3:01:18
In reply to Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
A smart Australian politician said
'If you walk around with a smile on your face you haven't been paying attention'.
Posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 3:06:06
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » rnny, posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 2:54:19
>what is the treatment?
It'll be CBT, I'll bet.
See, it comes easy to me.
Posted by floatingbridge on March 21, 2010, at 3:26:56
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 3:06:06
> >what is the treatment?
>
> It'll be CBT, I'll bet.
>
> See, it comes easy to me.:-) Could be. With a focus on forgiveness....
Posted by floatingbridge on March 21, 2010, at 4:08:56
In reply to Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
Or an alternative title: Dr. Michael Linden stakes his claim on map of human psyche.
I can just imagine clinical embitterment discussed before an 'enthusiastic' audience. (Followed maybe by a seminar entitled "problem patients: ten ways to stop the complaining and get them to discuss topics you are more comfortable with".I mean, anger and revenge fantasies are so yucky. Can't we just skip that part?
Some good quotes:
"They are almost treatment resistant." (Emphasis on 'they' and 'almost')
"Revenge is not a treatment."
(I'm confused. Was that admonishmemt directed toward the 'enthusiastic', frustrated audience?)So, if 1-2% of the population is 'clinically embittered', and we add up the percentage of all the other psychiatric disorders, would the sum exceed the total population? Or perhaps there is a smaller subset that carry multiple disorders comorbidly. Hmmmm. I feel that carrying more than the average share is quite unfair. If I don't nip this sense of disparity quickly, I could risk embittermemt.
Maybe there'll be a treatment by then. Especially if Dr. Linden receives the grants he's applied for.
Thanks rnny!
Posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 4:46:05
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on March 21, 2010, at 3:26:56
My psych says that psychiatry is trying to flatline the world.
I went to church today in Hanoi.
I don't know what it was (maybe a mixture of awe, respect, contempt?).
The service was very high church as it is here, with many young people, most of it sung.
It was very moving and I wept.Didn't Walt Whitman say 'I contain multitudes'?
Why should our response to this wonderous world not be complex?So what would they do with the authors of Ecclesiastes and Job?
I'm reminded of the samizdat author who called himself 'The Saigonian', who said of the party
'Please do not embarrass yourselves. Conduct your cult on a shrine on a country road' or something like that.Radical acceptance?
I'd like to be better at that; I'd like to be able.
Posted by rnny on March 21, 2010, at 12:17:30
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by sigismund on March 21, 2010, at 4:46:05
Wow Sigismund, you are in Hanoi? Awesome! What brings you there? Just asking.
Posted by Phillipa on March 21, 2010, at 13:11:46
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 21, 2010, at 12:17:30
I knew it seems like the whole world is mentally ill well if that's true then we are all normal. Sounds better like that. Phillipa
Posted by emilyp on March 21, 2010, at 17:46:19
In reply to Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
If you want to get off disability, what is the procedure? Aren't you able to tell the doctor and your employer that you are better and no longer need disability?
Posted by rnny on March 21, 2010, at 20:27:16
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by emilyp on March 21, 2010, at 17:46:19
Yes, but you need to have employment that will sustain you and all of your bills lined up first.
Posted by sigismund on March 22, 2010, at 1:02:08
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 21, 2010, at 12:17:30
> Wow Sigismund, you are in Hanoi? Awesome! What brings you there? Just asking.
I went to do some volunteer English teaching in Dalat.
I can't think of a culture more different from the west than traditional Vietnamese culture.
With its emphasis on the collective rather than the individual and with the sense of hierarchy within families, boundaries are completely different. Boundaries are really solid.It has been said that people come to Vietnam to see not any monuments or natural features, but to see the people who beat the French and the Americans. That is a partial truth, but what is outstanding for the most part is the extraordinary good manners, emotional generosity and beauty of the people. It's odd......I wouldn't survive in Vietnam for 5 minutes without money, the people are tough and unsentimental. Yet it is easy to find someone who wants to practice their English. I spent 90 minutes talking to a highly educated young man starting with the ethics involved in the treatment of a defeated enemy in a civil war, and moving on to the human condition.
We stayed for a month in Dalat.
I would like to go back to teach conversational English to adults.
Posted by floatingbridge on March 22, 2010, at 1:23:22
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » rnny, posted by sigismund on March 22, 2010, at 1:02:08
Sigi, may I ask how you came to do that--volunteer English teaching in Vietnam?
Posted by Angela2 on March 22, 2010, at 19:15:37
In reply to Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by rnny on March 20, 2010, at 10:14:06
I read the article. They may be on to something, but they better be careful about over diagnosing such a thing. Many people can be bitter for many different reasons. I say they may be onto something because I know someone who is like this. The only difference is that the person I know would not "snap and kill people." They better be careful about making such assumptions. It could definitely damage someone's self esteem with the wrong diagnosis.
Posted by Sigismund on March 22, 2010, at 21:08:22
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on March 22, 2010, at 1:23:22
I did a crappy little course here, the sort they have now with the user pays thing with which I'm sure you are familiar. It gave me a certificate, and I have a BA.
(The Vietnamese have not experienced enough of progress to be disillusioned with this sort of stuff. At my hotel there was a psychologist giving volunteer lectures on clinical psych. He was there to tell them that psychology is not a science, and that unmeasurable things (personality of the therapist!) are more important. But of course they are dazzled by science, technology and progress.)We know some people who do it either as volunteers or paid or both, and the idea came from them. My wife actually got paid, more than a million Dong. I never expected to be paid. I told them what I thought of the course and said I wanted to learn how to teach English, so I was involved in conversation classes.
I think there might be an opening for conversation classes around themes with 5 or so people in each group.
Say you have a PhD in physics and want to learn to speak English better. The class could be formed around a theme that was helpful.
Or say you were in the tourist industry, the same could be done.The adults are a delight to help. They are so eager to learn. The young man who was on the desk of our hotel knows at least Vietnamese, English, is learning French and has started on Chinese.
And you FEEL different when you say Vietnamese words. I would so like to have been multilingual.
Posted by Sigismund on March 22, 2010, at 21:09:20
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill!, posted by Angela2 on March 22, 2010, at 19:15:37
>I read the article.
I was too scornful to read it
Posted by floatingbridge on March 22, 2010, at 23:52:49
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » Angela2, posted by Sigismund on March 22, 2010, at 21:09:20
Sigi--it really is quite hilarious. Could be a spoof--a sort of 'spinal tap' (film) of psychology.
BTW, I am mono-lingual.
:(
Posted by Sigismund on March 23, 2010, at 0:24:00
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » Sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on March 22, 2010, at 23:52:49
Regarding cultural hegemony (or whatever people call it these days) I thought you might like this.
>Responding to a sentence completion item that began "The people I like best are......." the US children usually mentioned friends, while Vietnamese mentioned family members. To the stem "I like my mother, but...." the US children tended to add some negative action by the mother ("sometimes she gets angry with me"). A fourth of Americans even mentioned negative feelings toward the mother. Only 7% of the Vietnamese mentioned any negative action by the mother and none expressed any negative feeling toward her. Over half the Vietnamese mentioned an obligation to do something for the mother. The sense of 'on' (moral debt) among 9, 10 and 11 year-old children living in the Mekong delta was revealed by lines like this: "I love my mother very much but I am still young and I cannot pay my debt to her".
>In the items intended to elicit fears, US children expressed "an externalised fear, emphasising animals and the dark." But Vietnamese children "seemed to be emphasising more internalised sorts of fears. They emphasised fears of personal inadequacy, failure in parental-familial relationships or some violation of sociocultural mores." And whereas US children indicated that their fears led them to "do something bad or undesirable", "most Vietnamese children indicated that their fear led them to perform some duty".
"Understanding Vietnam", p297
Posted by floatingbridge on March 24, 2010, at 10:38:46
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » floatingbridge, posted by Sigismund on March 23, 2010, at 0:24:00
Seems like a good book--I put it on my wish list.
While reading your post, I recalled reading about Tich Nhat Han (sp?). Apparently, he was perplexed by his early encounters with western students. His instructions on loving respect and compassion were not effective. He had been telling his audience to regard everyone (including every creature) as they would their mother. Finally, someone explained the less-than-stellar status of 'mother' in the west. He then tried to use the example 'grandmother'.
Posted by Sigismund on March 24, 2010, at 14:31:04
In reply to Re: Are you bitter? You may be mentally ill! » Sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on March 24, 2010, at 10:38:46
Patterns of mental distress would likely manifest differently in a culture with different assumptions, and I was thinking back to that article you posted...The Americanisation of Mental Illness.
I don't know what relevance a western artifact like the DSM would have for the Vietnamese.
I doubt that they have ADHD. Disruptive students are (were?) punished by being required to kneel in class.Non-western cultures have had to cope with their humilation. In Vietnam there is this weird sect, the Cao Dai. I can't recall their saints, but Victor Hugo is one. This dates back to the time of the French, maybe the 30s, not the kind of saint you would be selecting after the French defeat in 1940 if you were hoping for an infusion of magical power.
This is the end of the thread.
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