Re: Grids & schizophrenics

J. Maxwell Legg (income@ihug.co.nz)
Thu, 26 Nov 1998 05:20:55 +1300

Tony Downing wrote:
>
> Re the proposal that, to avoid a medical model of schizophrenia, we should
> construe those whom medics construe as schizophrenic, as being "deviant
> construers who are troublesome to at least a couple of sigificant others"
> ....
>
> Doesn't this gloss over the fact that their deviant contruals are even more
> trouble to themselves? Paranoid thoughts and terrors are no fun, even if,
> from within the frame of reference of the sufferer, they may seem
> justified; a lot of schizophrenics are very unhappy; a lot commit suicide.
>
> I'm not trying to argue against the idea that a constructivist account of
> delusions, in schizophrenics and others, has a lot to offer but there is
> now plenty of evidence, e.g. from abnormalities in eye movements, from
> brain scans etc. and from genetics, of an underlying neuropathology in
> schizophrenia. Therefore, an adequate constructivist account of the lives
> and thoughts of these troubled people must encompass the neuropathology
> which can distort the inputs to their construing, and perhaps also some of
> the processes of construing at all.
>
> In R.D.Laing's heyday it was tenable and stimulating and humane to try out
> seeing schizophrenia as a purely social construction, but surely there is
> now much more evidence that it is a neurological disease, or perhaps
> cluster of diseases. Medical models are very useful for diseases. When
> the disease is of the brain, then constructivist theories of how the
> sufferer makes sense of their world, and how this may explain their
> problems and symptoms, have to be part of the story - even when viewed from
> within the medical perspective.
>

Are you saying that any troublesome deviant, albeit even as a purely
social construction, who, without intervention may become troublesome to
them self,
as a schizophrenic construer, can, if they make sense of their world,
via constructionist theories, avoid their problems and further if their
evidential story is dismissed by a medical model they may surely become
diseased?

I hope constructivist theories a la rep-grids become ubiquitous in all
information appliances and I further hope that these meanings are
embodied in a public AI WYSIWYG society such that the neural nets we
call money and democracy can be replaced by an AI driven grid based
demarchy via the Internet. Unfortunately a significant number of the
incompetent powers that be use dubious medical models to consistently
invalidate my will to virtuality.

However, my constructionist theories are holding up well to the chagrin
of the diseased capitalist society in which I find myself. The expected
corollary is that I'm having fun, so grok that, if I disappear, others
will follow; - to the extent that applied personal construct theories
can make life pleasant conspiratorial social constructions will seek to
kick ass.

Virtually yours,
The Ingrid Open Source WYSIWYG Society
http://come.to/ingrid

'.'

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