More on ethics and psychology

Just to let you all know that I know there are some very caring and very good psychologists. I do NOT dislike Psychologists or Psychiatrists. Just sometimes I think that they get too hung up on the science side of things. We are each of us quite different in our approach to life, our view of the world, the way we react to the inevitable problems that arise, and most importantly the way we view ourselves.

If someone needs help to straighten out their life – they may be depressed, or aggressive, or confused, or they may want to be a better athlete, or they may be lonely and just need someone to talk to, then do whatever you can to help! They might have been asked to do something at work which makes them uncomfortable, because of the ethics involved – the list is endless. It matters not whether you use Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming or whatever. If it works use it. If it doesn’t, then stir the pot and use what does! Mix and match!! This is never a one size fits all approach.

And some medication, in the short term, repeat short term, may calm down a client to the point when therapy may be utilised. To rely on drugs however, for insomnia as an example, indicates a lack of understanding of the human psyche, and is very unhealthy in the long term (despite what the drug companies say). Sleep is the most natural thing in the world. If you can’t sleep then get some help, talk to someone, solve the problem, but don’t take the easy way out by taking drugs.

The Ethics of Depression and Suicide

I wonder sometimes about the ‘science’ of Psychology – is it really just a pseudo-science? As a ‘mature age’ psychology student at a local university I have to do what they say and study what the lecturers tell me to, if I want to get my degree, but I am still highly sceptical. There is ethics imbedded in this as everything must be ‘scientific’ and ‘replicable’, with no plagiarism. Sometimes I think they live in a ‘silo’ – unable to see outside the box they are in!!

Psychology, I believe, is trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. What is ‘Life”? That which animates; the ‘life essence”, cannot be seen, touched, tasted or measured – yet it is there. If it is absent we are dead. Then we have the mind, (and consciousness) – everyone talks about them but no one has the vaguest idea what they are. They are confused with the brain and yet the ‘mind’ (or consciousness) is not the brain. The brain is made up from cells and the cells perform functions in the brain. The cells apparently co-operate to enable us to operate our body, to memorise, and generally pass messages around. This is basically a biological function. It is not possible for the ‘brain’ to tell itself what to do, for the individual cells (that make up the brain) to tell themselves which functions they are to perform. This is the ‘mind’ (or consciousness) in operation. We can ‘transform’ ourselves, become a better (or worse) person. This cannot be measured! The ‘mind’ is creative; the brain is a ‘processor’. This is where my scepticism clicks in, and I will tell you why.

Some 31 years ago my first wife committed suicide. A few years earlier, after the birth of our child, she was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression (PND) and she was prescribed a well known sedative (name withheld – see below). This is a highly addictive benzodiazepine drug, with significant side effects. This did not help. She was subsequently referred to and treated by a psychiatrist who diagnosed her as “manic depressive” (i.e. bipolar). The psychiatrist subjected her to Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) as the “best treatment”. This she hated and feared with an abiding passion and became very anxious before each ECT treatment was due. For this anxiety she was treated with the then new “wonder drug”, another sedative, (name withheld – see below) also known as (name withheld – see below), which is also a highly addictive benzodiazepine derived drug, also with significant side effects.

She told me that she “lost her soul” with these various treatments. She died six months later. I now know that this was her way of retreating, to hide the inner pain and to try to withdraw from an experience that she found overwhelming (pregnancy, childbirth? I will never know for sure). She was young and had not much life experience to draw upon. There was also parental and peer pressure involved. At the time I too was young and too naive to know any different than to trust the “specialists”. All she wanted to do was to talk to someone. I kept a warts and all journal of the entire three year episode to keep my sanity!!

The point is that Bipolar has no known biological or organic basis for diagnosis. It is not a medical “disease” and it is not proven to have a genetic basis ( Myers D.G “Psychology”, 2007; Dr. Craig Hassed “New Frontiers in Medicine”, 2000; Dr Terry Lynch “Beyond Prozac” 2^nd edition, 2004; Dr Dorothy Lowe “Depression” 3^rd edition 2006; Wikipedia was also referred to). Diagnosis is based on self reported experiences and observed behaviour (American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV-TR lists the various criteria). On what scientific basis therefore were the drugs prescribed, or the ECT given?

“They”, the psychologists (scientists?) just do not know! They are trying to do the impossible, to integrate subjectivity (what is in the mind, or consciousness) which objectivity (what can be seen and measured), then prescribe drugs based on their diagnosis. Is this ethical?

Note: I have been, perhaps, overly cautious in not naming the drugs my wife was prescribed. Contact me for their names, if you need to know. While they did not cause my wife’s death they were certainly a contributing factor. The ethics of drug companies is another, long, story!!

More on Relationships

Sometimes I wonder at the things people do and why. What we do and why comes down to our idea of ourselves – who we think we are. And who we think we are depends on our relationships with others. Our relationships give us each a position in the world. We relate to others, we react to what others do or say. Nothing is more upsetting to our wellbeing than to have a relationship that has failed.

Imagine, if you can, an extreme hypothetical where you were placed on a desert island immediately after birth. Forget how you were fed or nurtured, it is as I said, an extreme hypothetical. Imagine now that you are about fourteen years old, you would not know if you were tall or short, fat or thin, dark skinned or fair, pretty or plain, in fact you would not even know if you were male or female! Having never seen another person, in this hypothetical, you will have had no one to relate to; nothing to compare yourself to.

What we normally do is to compare ourselves to others, not like what we see and then think of ourselves as different, better, from a higher class, more beautiful, more intelligent or whatever. That is when problems arise. Fights begin and wars start because of this kind of thinking.

If you enter into any relationship thinking like this, or develop this kind of thinking later in any relationship (at work, with a friend, or romantic etc) there will be major problems. This is where ethics and life meet head on. Ethics is all about treating people the way you would like to be treated. There is no other viable option. We need relationships, so it is not a good idea to screw them up! To do so causes stress, and is generally unhelpful.

The poets often get it right. John Donne, (1572 – 1631), penned the famous lines (actually from one of his sermons, not his poems):

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Are your relationships OK?

Relationships are funny things. We can think that everything is OK in our relationship with our spouse, partner, children, work mates, friends or whoever. But is it really so?

We must be fair in our relationships – treat others as you would like to be treated – is the best way. This really means good communications. Tell people how you feel; if you are upset; if you are angry; if you are disappointed with something they have done. But you have to expect to get similar treatment! To have others telling you how they feel!

The other day a lady came to see me. She was in a bit of a panic. Some days earlier she had been at the breakfast table with her husband of many years. He had recently retired, she had just seen the last of their children leave home, so they were in an ‘empty nest’ situation. She had spent the best part of the last twenty five years looking after the children, while her husband had been working. The situation was that as she was eating her breakfast she looked at her husband (who was reading the paper) and thought, “I know your name but I don’t know you! I don’t know your favourite colour. I don’t know your real likes and dislikes. I don’t know what moves you, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. I just don’t know you!” For years they had been dealing with each other in a superficial way. No REAL discussions on their thoughts, or views, or how they felt on anything meaningful. They had not communed (ie communicated) for years!! It was actually quite sad.

Now that they only had themselves to deal with she got scared. How was she going to handle this? Now that he was, as it were, divorced from the self worth of his job, and she from the daily care of the children, she realised they had nothing in common. Their relationship was in need of some radical treatment.

Are you like that?

Why Ethics is important

[Amended 24/01/2020]
I know I wrote this a long time ago - it is in fact my second ever blog - but I still believe that what I wrote then is true today. Possibly more so!!

We all have different views of the world we live in. It is our view point that colours what we do and why we do it in a particular way. But we must never forget that what we do will affect others in ways that we cannot foresee. Nothing we do is in isolation – other people are always involved in one way or another. What is the saying – ‘six degrees of separation’? If you know six people you will have a link to everyone in the world!! They will know six others that you do not know etc, etc. So anything we do or say may impact on someone we have never even heard of. It is therefore important that we are very careful in what we do or say, for that very reason. This means being ethical in our relationships with others. If we follow the six degrees of separation to its logical conclusion, what we say or do will come back to us in the end. What goes around comes around!

Ethics should be considered as a set of principles by which to live; a code of conduct for our relationships with all whom we come in contact. Ethics encompasses social mores, usually expressed today as good manners; our behaviour towards our fellow humans and fellow creatures; and trust. 

The world operates on trust. Trust is a belief that others will act in accordance with ill defined, but generally accepted standards of behaviour and respect for others. If trust is absent then very little of what we deem necessary, to allow the free flow of social intercourse and commerce, will occur. All these matters are governed by ethics.

What started me off on ethics

It all started with a supermarket shopping trolley. I was irritated with a trolley at our local supermarket, abandoned, in the middle of the only vacant parking spot that I could find. As I got out of the car to move the offending item, I mentally reviled those people who have no consideration for others and are probably self interested, unethical, and obviously lazy. Then, at the end of my visit to that shopping centre, I caught myself about to do that very same thing – abandon the very trolley that had earlier started me off, and which I had used!!

This set me thinking about what ‘made’ me perform actions, or think the thoughts I did, which may or may not be charitable toward others. What I discovered about myself was not very pleasing. But it started me on an enquiry into the why and wherefore of thinking and the actions, ethical or unethical, that stem from those thoughts.

This subject is as old as mankind, and that is what, at first, bothered me. If people had been thinking similar thoughts, and investigating their causes, for millennia, why was it that I had not, seemingly, progressed very far? My problem seemed similar to that of many, as witnessed by the daily reports in the media.

This is a never ending quest, which every person, and every generation seems to have to learn anew; it is one which has led me down many devious byways. All the paths trodden, all the well used roads I travelled, appeared to lead, ultimately, in one general direction; toward the inescapable conclusion that all thoughts and all actions have a purpose, and that purpose should not be centred on me; that there is a higher purpose, which each one of us has to discover for ourselves. That purpose is more enduring, more important than most of us realize, while engaged on our daily ‘grind’. It is how we live our lives and form our relationships with other wayfarers we meet on our life’s journey. It touches on the very purpose of life itself.