April 27, 2010
- On Suffering, and the Cause of Suffering -
Several overlapping quotes today:
“Human beings, without their conscious minds knowing it, were putting themselves into situation after situation the real function of which was to make each individual meet and contend with, and in some measure overcome the very things in himself that blocked the way to his real being and proper consciousness” – Jean Toomer
“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” – Carl Jung
“Cravings are the natural inclination in response to primary dukkha.” – Marguerite Manteau-Rao
Hey Marguerite, you wouldn’t happen to have any pictures of yourself working at a desk with books behind you, would you? ;)
Comment by Ian — April 27, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
Thanks Ian, for placing me in such honorable company!
I am not sure I agree with Carl Jung’s statement above. From years working with the severely mentally ill, I don’t see how people suffering from schizophrenia, manic depression, or some cases of severe depression for instance, fit what he says. There is a genetic and physiological component to some of these illnesses, and reducing them to an unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering feels almost cruel and unrealistic. This being said, I do believe many other, more minor psychological conditions, including less severe depression and anxiety, can be dealt with using the power of mindfulness and cognitive therapy.
Comment by Marguerite Manteau-Rao — April 27, 2010 @ 4:02 pm
Well, I really hope thats not very common to suffer from “mental illness” soley from genetic and phsiological factors. Such a person would be a totally helpless victim of circumstance.I find in life, that that’s rarely the case with anyones situation.
Comment by Ted — April 28, 2010 @ 7:20 am
@ Marguerite:
Honored company or not, wise words are wise words. I don’t discriminate. :)
I certainly agree with you on the genetic and physiological aspects of the more severe mental problems. I guess I mean more “illnesses” springing only from the mind here, which would include less severe mental problems, as well as stuff like PTSD, where the mind is simply unable to process all the stress and horror it’s been put through.
@ Ted:
I know Marguerite has done a lot of hospice work, and has, I’m sure, seen up close and personal the kinds of things she’s talking about. Some people are totally helpless victims of circumstance.
However, I think we all agree that a lot of what passes as “mental illness” nowadays falls under Jung’s generalization. At least, the kind of “mental illness” for which people go once a week to see their therapist. Even Frued said that we were all basically neurotic, on some level (hence: “Civilazation and its Discontents”).
In this case, Marguerite, I’d be inclined to equate this kind of “mental illness” with the “secondary dukkha” you mention in your article.
When I was undergoing therapy (one of those once-a-week kind of things) my therapist once gave me an analogy of a pearl, in that some bit of dirt (or a large rock) gets under our skin, and we can’t bear to touch it in order to pull it out. So it grows and grows, gets bigger and bigger, causes us more and more “dukkha”, until we do come to deal with it. Sort of a psychic immune system.
Or we don’t, in which case things just continue downhill from there, I would guess.
Comment by Ian — April 28, 2010 @ 10:23 am
Interesting article over at Open Enlightenment, on the difference between mental illness and enlightenment. No exactly related to this post, but exploring the same territory in a different way.
Comment by Ian — April 28, 2010 @ 11:31 am
Hospice? For mental illness?
Well, for what its worth I did hospice too and worked with people with developmental disabilities for five years. I just think that much about the way people frame “mental illness” is flawed. People forget that things are often different from culture to culture in terms of whats considered “crazy” and what is not. We might think that our definitions are superior to that of other cultures because our definitions are mede by MD’s but it all comes down to standards of conformity.
I also think that there are two other factors at work with our system, a type of maternal instinct on the part of the mostly female case workers, that sees anyone with a serious probem as “not being able to help it” and thus in need of mothering(through the state) and the other factor is the opposite impulse which is exploitation by Drug companies that constantly seeks to create new illnesses, that they can thus market their drugs to treat.
Nether of these impulses have any interest in seeing people improve their situation. There is more money and job security in people being permanent (thus revenue generating) victims.
Comment by Ted — April 28, 2010 @ 6:35 pm
Anyway I have a friend that is a Psychologist and treats people for anxiety and seems to agree with your premise Ian.
There is probably a tendency for Psychiatrists to favor a genetic and physiological basis for various mental illness, becauase all they do is prescribe drugs, basically.
Psychologists are more into helping people overcome problems, through various types of therapy, since they have less authority to prescribe drugs, even though most are pretty pro-drug. But still that’s how it appears in my experience. They seem to take the client seriously enough for them to have an active role in their own treatment, which implies responsibility.
Personally, I am pretty skeptical of any type of expert. I had all these clients with these diagnosises, and they are just words. Its not a cut and dry thing. Some people are slow and some people are slow plus they have emotional problems.
A lot of “normal” people are walking around either border line retarded or batshit crazy or both. its a fine line. It really is.
And Yeah, people with serious developmental disabilities and mental health issues are people that need to be treated with dignity and respect but some are ALSO a jerk. Retarded, plus an asshole.
Or they could be nice. They are no different. But one thing I find, talking down to them like they are a baby or not responsible for what they do, they resent the hell out of that. A lot of their “behaviors” actually come just from that. I’m convinced of it.
Treating them like you would treat everyone else means just that. They will respect you for it because you are respecting them.
Comment by Ted — April 28, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
You know, I always forget that psychiatrists and psychologists aren’t the same thing…
Although I see where you’re coming from with the “mothering” comment, but I don’t think that’s what Marguerite’s original comment was intended to imply:
This is a perfectly valid response, taking the quote from Jung as it is. She’s not saying people are completely helpless and need to be coddled like little babies, she’s saying that placing the blame entirely on the person suffering the illness, as if it were entirely their fault for not experiencing “legitimate” suffering, is not fair to them either. That seems logical and fair to me.
Other societies might have had different definitions of mental health, but we have to work from within the definitions our society has. As that quote I posted from Kobutsu points out, if we want to make things better, we first have to understand what they are now before we go about trying to improve them.
Though I would say you’re right on point about the drug companies.
Really, you don’t say? ;)
This, I definitely agree with, 100%.
Comment by Ian — April 29, 2010 @ 9:54 am
The big problem here is that we’re using “mental illness” to cover a large spectrum of problems. Some are solvable with simple mindfulness, some are much deeper and have roots going back generations, both societally and genetically.
Its not easy to deal with those deeper kinds of problems, and we have to have respect and compassion for the people suffering with them. This means both holding them responsible for their actions, and being aware and loving enough to know what behaviors they actually are responsible for and what really isn’t their fault.
I have a lot of respect for both of you, for working with people who need help in this way. This sure isn’t an easy thing to be doing.
Comment by Ian — April 29, 2010 @ 10:00 am
It wasn’t really that hard of a job. Unloading trucks is hard. It was kind of a cake job. I just would get paid to hang out with people, do some light cleaning and cooking.
With my last client I was a live in care giver. We just made fart jokes and played video games mostly and occasionally went camping. I took him to a cigar dinner once. He needed more guy things to do.
To me everyone is weird, so no one seems any harder to relate to than anyone else.
Comment by ted — April 30, 2010 @ 7:03 am
I read that open enlightenment article. It seems like its defining mental illness as some type of narcissism related to creating a solipsistic universe to preserve ones ego. I found that interesting.
I think some people can have that same mindset and appear very successful by societies standards. I think the successful ones are more adept at manipulating other people to fit their self image. People considered mentally ill have given up on that and just manipulate their own perception of reality, which no one else buys into.
Really strong willed Narcissists can pull more people into their delusion. Think Cult leader.
Comment by ted — April 30, 2010 @ 7:22 am
Man, I love unloading trucks. If I could make money being a mover, I’d totally do it. I love lifting and carrying. :)
Yeah, that’s a good point. Gives weight to the whole “we’re all mentally ill to some extent” argument. Its just a question of degree and relationship to other.
Interestingly enough, another commenter on that OE article points out that in Daniel Ingram’s book, he discusses how someone with chronic depression was (apparently) cured through insight practice. I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet, but it is interesting…
Comment by Ian — April 30, 2010 @ 10:49 am
Yeah, I like unloading trucks too, but its hard work! That is what I do now, I got a job at a nursery. I am tired at the end of the day! I also have a part time job as a scenic painter the Opera here at the U of Wisconsin. Being a caregiver is easy, if its in peoples homes and not a hospital. Lots of t.v. watching.
To me, “normal” is just average, even mediocre. Its just statistically in the middle. Plus if you have this model of people needing to be “awakened” then the default position is asleep. So normal is just where most people are at. At the extremes you have highly succesful people and highly unsuccessful people, which might actually have a sinmilar make up in some ways.
super intelligent Complex people that are really gifted and have really high energy, can more easily lose their shit and go insane, than some boring “normal” person. Or they can be a successful Artist or athlete of whatever.
Comment by ted — April 30, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
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(note from Ian: kept this one because of the bolded text, which is my addition)
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