(Not by me, I should add! I just saved it as interesting)

Its human nature to find someone to get over on. When we see things in others that remind us of things we don’t like about ourselves we use that as an opportunity to attack those things which scare us.

William, I don’t think it was so much “desire to oppress” as “this is what happened and I am clearly not over it.”

Without knowing the details of anyone’s life or anyone’s pain – some things you just don’t get over, it’s true (and I’m speaking about everyone right now, not just selected commenters). Until worse things come to replace them, I suppose.

Too bad, though. I agree. How will we ever learn more if we don’t speak honestly? And the honesty WILL always bring criticism and second-guessing. No way around that. (sigh)

Anyway, I digress. I’m very much behind removing the stigma from mental illness, and compulsory treatment for anything should always be a last resort. I’m certainly not a great believer in using drugs to cure all ills (only very rarely do I even take aspirin for a headache); but once your ‘dark gift’ turns into someone else’s night of terror, then it’s only fair for someone to step in and find a solution for you: society has a duty to everyone, not just one interest group. However, when society does step in it ought to do so impartially and compassionately, and that includes ensuring that when someone is deprived of their rights it’s on a fair and rational basis, not due to some twisted social more or the personal opinion of one or two people.

This is only a comment, so I’d better wrap it up there. Nice topic, Nat

BTW, I also agree with your defense of the word crazy.

I think sexual behaviour plays a huge role in this as well – because lots of families (usually, families play a big role in who gets committed, right?) have different rules for boys and girls. What’s considered “normal” for a man – say, hooking up with lots of women in his teens – is an aberration for a woman, particularly if she comes from a conservative background.

I agree with many of the comments by the commenter “William” who is working on a doctorate in clinical psychology, particularly where he mentions mental health diagnoses being used as a form of social control, and also his comment that DSM diagnostic criteria are qualitative (subjective) rather than scientific. A clinician’s cultural preferences do impact that clinician’s diagnosis and treatment recommendations for a patient’s behavior.

I also note William’s argument that he doesn’t want to see patients, whose behavior is simply culturally aberrant, strapped to a gurney against their will and forcibly injected with Haldol or Thorazine.

In the U.S. state of Georgia, where I live, for a patient to be involuntarily committed and forcibly treated with psychotropic meds would require a court order (in Georgia I think this is called a “1013″). In Georgia, the criterion for obtaining that court order is that the patient is a danger to himself/herself or others. The question would be whether the criteria for being a danger to self or others are so culturally skewed as to amount to nearly arbitrary imprisonment for disfavored groups or genders.

I raise the last point because I’ve worked as a hospital transcriptionist for the last 19 years in Georgia, and over that time I’ve noticed that, in nearly all the charts that I’ve transcribed that mentioned involuntary commitment of the patient on a “1013″ order, the patients were women.

That leads me to suspect that, at least in the state of Georgia, the criteria for behavior deemed dangerous to self or others might be culturally skewed against women.

Since, in Georgia, behavior that is deemed dangerous to self or others is usually what is deemed ‘inappropriately’ aggressive behavior, that leads me to suspect that aggressive behavior that might be tolerated in men is considered ‘inappropriate’ in women — i.e., men are allowed more autonomy to be aggressive in ways that would be considered dangerous in women.

That was also my thought when I initially raised the question of different treatment of men and women with similar severe personality disorders — e.g., a man who is a pathological narcissist, until he actually commits a crime, might be deemed to be showing a variant of ‘normal’ male behavior, whereas a woman who showed similar behavior might be recommended for therapy.

It would be interesting to read other people’s thoughts on these issues.