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Re: What exactly is

As for the first reply to my post:

My personal experience is insignificant compared to the message I am trying to convey. "I" only exist when it benefits the explanation of whatever I feel is important to transmit in this forum.

If you think you may learn something important from my, less than agreeable, experiences with mental disorders, I will subject myself to the exposition of my personal life once more, but I will not do it because someone is "interested" in it.

As for Hexi's contribution:

I may have understood at least part of your position. Don't misinterpret what I wrote, please. Something can be, and probably is, wrong.

There were only two points I wanted to make. The first one is that the obvious sign you mentioned, the increased number of persons described as having mental disorders, isn't the best argument because it can be explained by other means. The second point is that the problem is not in psychology or psychiatry itself but in the community that is supposed to act in those areas with good sense, based on knowledge of the science they use and practical experience (like any kind of doctor).

I think you understood both points and I now I believe I finaly understand all that led you to express this concern. As far as you can tell, there are entire generations being poorly raised in such a way that their members do not know how to live with reality or deal with the obstacles of every day life. Instead of addressing the cause of the problem (poor upbringing of children and teenagers into adulthood) you believe your country is hiding the true nature of the consequences and puting the responsibility on mental disorders or, if the consequences truly are a drastic increase in cases of mental disorder, people are only dealing with the end result and not the root of the problem itself.

This is what I understood from your reply. If there is anything I misinterpreted (or if I got it all wrong), please, let me know.

About what you said as far as new generations are concerned, what you say may be true in your country, I am not there to see for myself and I will obvisouly trust your insight, but it is not necessarily true everywhere. In my country strange things have happened with some generations but the one that might be more similar to the one you describe has already passed. I have been in close contact with freshmen at my university two times with an interval of 12 years: I didn't notice much difference. Twelve years is a very short time, granted, but you must admit it means the two generations should already show signs of what you say is happening, and they don't.

It is sad that what you say is happening in a country like Finland, which I always thought had a more advanced mentality than the usual first-world countries. I have a limited knowledge about your country but I always had the impression that it was one of the last places on earth where I should suspect such a thing would happen.

Perhaps your society has achieved a state where it has some characteristics of an utopia but those same things, because they are too perfect and dificult to mantain, have resulted in distopian effects. Perhaps your country functions so well people are loosing contact with harsh realities and don't learn, during their childhood, how to deal with the normal problems of every day life.

These are just wild guesses... I'm talking completely out of the void on this one. I would like to say there is a very logical explanation to what is happening, tell you what that explanation is and be able to reassure you that things will get better, but I cannot.

Look to sociologists and people in related areas: only they have any chance of understanding, with the help of psychology, the true nature of whatever aflicts your homeland. Anything else is as unwise as trying to understand the changing of the tides by explaining the behaviour of every molecule of water in the oceans.

I will be waiting for your reply.

"There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten." - Indira Ghandi

Re: What exactly is

No, you got my point quite well. I'm not a verbose person so i tend to keep my posts short and to the point which, at times, leaves room for misunderstanding but that is fine with me as i care very little about the subjects i write about. This is just stimuli for me.

As to the subject at hand. In Finland, we are slipping towards a total nanny state. When i got to 7th grade, there was an initiation of sorts for getting out of elementary school which included some humiliation and picking on the new kids, to welcome them to a new chapter of their lives. It was all in good fun. As an example, i wore one my mothers dresses for the day, it was required, and some lipstick. Then we were guided, 1 class at a time, to the gym hall and taken through a course with our eyes blindfolded to stick our hands into all sorts of nastyness. This was a fun day for everyone. Now, it's banned and any such activities which "pick" on the new kids is punishable by severe detention. In sports, they no longer keep score in PE classes as everyone wins. This is the kind of pampering idiocy that goes on in our younger kids at school. These are just 2 examples but i can list more if you insist, it's just to illustrate how ridiculous it's gotten.

Also, i don't think Finland has ever been a "stable" country mentally, i don't get where you got that impression. Our suicide rates are quite high and violence is common. Especially at home. Kids are dragged into school counselors at the first signs of trouble (i was a regular there) and you are labeled as "crazy" or atleast "odd" after that. This in itself is not such a problem but how on earth can they expect 1 person to have any meaningful relationships with a hundred children, or more. This one person decides if you need professional help and at that point, you are labelled for the rest of your academic life and in some cases, makes one unable to even apply to certain jobs. I just find the whole system so... ****.

Re: What exactly is

You know the position I am in at the moment, because of another thread, and, since I have already learned much in this forum, even in the few days I have been here, my contributions may soon end, as I continue my work as an alexanthropogist in other, more ethically sound, fora. However, this is a very important discussion, about a problem that is deeply troubling for me, and I will try to see it through to the end.

The method you described, for aiding the mental evolution of children and their social integration, does not seem completely sound but, if it was based in your culture's tradition and it was a natural part of a child's life, there is no reason to believe it was damaging and may, in fact, have been positive for the edification of children in your country.

I cannot be sure because public humiliation can be detrimental and I do not know exactly how it was done, but this is my honest opinion. I have little or no knowledge about the effect of that exact kind behaviour on children but, it seems within the reach of my own good sense to meditate upon the subject.

As for what happens today, using your accounts as a base its analysis, it is very clearly an extreme position in the other direction: it is just as paranoid as what is happening elsewhere about pedophilia. A ten year-old child was forced to apologise to a friend for hugging that child and it is no longer permitted for children to sit on the lap of Santa Claus impersonators in at least one place where it was traditional to do so.

As a rule, no extreme position is healthy for anything pertaining to the social and psychological life of an individual, and the way your country seems to be functioning borders on utter insanity. There is little a single person can do in your position with the exception of publicly debating the subject, searching for like minded persons who can spread the word and try to change the status quo.

If you were more, as you say, "verbose", I would encourage you to write articles explaning your point of view, in a clear and fundamented way, and send them to every mass media entity you thought might be open to consider publishing your point of view. Even if your opinion isn't popular, there may still be some smaller or more controversial newspapers and magazines that would accept you contribution and start a possible cascade effect that could eventually result in a country wide open discussion of what you find is wrong.

The only problem you might encounter is persecution by those who adamantly defend the current state of the country and those who, out of fear or ignorance, follow them.

If there is nothing you can do, trust the human society's hability to heal itself and return from extreme positions to a natural balance. It is common for many cultures to fluctuate between extremes continually, over decades or centuries, or to take some time to reach an equilibrium. Your country may have suffered some negative influence from other cultures, specially the USA culture, that have turned to fear and paranoia because of certain events and facts that, although they should be viewed with care, have been exploited by fearmongers to the extent where there is little or no rationality left in what people think about the related subjects.

Let us hope this doesn't lead to the birth of yet another, very negative, mass revolution as it happened in the early decades of the twentieth century in places around Europe, at the hands of another megalomanic insane manipulator of the masses. I do not wish to live through what can become something of the magnitude of the "holy" inquisition or, much less, something even remotely similar to the holocaust.

If you want, since I am devoting many ours to reading and writting, you can send me very thorough e-mails about what you feel is happening in your country, and why you think it is happening or why it is wrong, and, if you find my writing style agreeable, I can help you create a reasonable text for you to express your opinion in public.

Other than this, I can only advise caution and patience.

Good luck.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

Re: What exactly is

Adam, you are an idiot. On another thread you asked me to stop flaming. The person who started that other thread said he needs help and asked me to take my comment over here so that my argument with you would not interfere with the help he needs. OK.

Adam, why have you not yet apologized to Dr. Robert for your failure to respond properly to his answer to your first post, for your rudeness and disrespect to him and to his excellent work on his website and in providing this forum, and for the misinformation which you keep putting out here?

Now, listen, you jerk: You are an idiot. This is not flaming. It is a simple fact. You criticized the doctor in a rude and disrespectful manner. He answered you politely, and pointed out that your ideas about sexuality were mistaken. He demonstrated your mistake with a number of references (which I doubt you ever even checked). You did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge that he had replied to you with new information, much less the intelligence to respond to the new information.

You are on some kind of vendetta here, and that is obvious to many of us, not just me. You don't make the rules here, so stop trying. I suggest you leave this forum where you really are just a useless pain in the ass. If you want to parade your absurd ideas about sexuality, or if you want to slander Dr. Robert, why not get your own website to do it, or start your own forum.

This forum is not about slandering Dr. Robert, it is about open minded discussions of serious topics among people of good will. You obviously are not interested in that kind of discussion since you lack even the common decency to have replied to the doctor properly or to acknowledge that he presented you with new ideas which required serious consideration.

You talk about flaming--my god, man--your entire communication with Dr. Robert has consisted of you flaming him. No wonder he cut you off just like he cut Zenemy off. You are just like Zenemy, and I suspect you are him in disguise. Why should the doctor have anything to do with you? Why should any of us, for that matter?

As I say, you are an idiot. And it is even worse than that, Adam. You are an idiot who thinks he is smart (you aren't). You are the kind of puffed up idiot, who uses the word "fora," and then feels obliged to explain it to us inferiors out here just in case we aren't brilliant and educated idiots like you.

Adam, you are a raging narcissist, and that's not flaming but pure fact. Not only that, you are a liar, and those of us who have followed the doctor's website know it. In a pig's ass he changed that reply to the boy to evade your scrutiny as you keep implying. I read that piece months ago, and I know better. It hasn't changed a bit.

You really are lost. Get a life.

Re: What exactly is

I would be interested in hearing greater detail about your sleep problem. Please go on about that matter.

Re: What exactly is "normal"?

Thank you Hexi, for a very interesting debate. I may wish to reply to one post or another, specially if it is about something very relevant like the question you proposed, but it would be foolish of me to keep contributing to this forum on a regular basis if there has been such an upheaval against me. I will leave this forum almost completely out of my regular routine for the time being. If you ever wish to further discuss this or another subject please, feel free to send me an e-mail.

Even if I won't advise you to ask something directly to Dr. Robert, I wish others continue debating important matters with you and that your experience here will be a positive one.

Enjoy the summer! =)

Re: What exactly is "normal"?

Anthropussy,
The "upheaval" was entirely self-inflicted. You said that Dr. Robert's website was "lacking and biased." He asked you to specify. You did. He demonstrated that your objections were based on an incorrect understanding of human sexuality. You claimed that sexual orientation is culturally created so that the doctor was wrong in telling that boy to accept his sexuality. The doctor proved you entirely wrong by giving you a number of references to the contrary. Instead of admitting your error, you began a long series of attacks against him, including accusations of mal-practice, accusations that he had changed his posts in order to somehow fool you, you accused him of being "underhanded," you threated to harass him and hound him even though you have no grounds for doing so and worst of all you said that he is not an authority on human psychology and so should not be giving his opinions. That is ridiculous. If a doctor of psychology and psychotherapist of many years experience is not an authority, who is? It is YOU who have been pretending to be an authority when you are not. Your misunderstanding of sexuality ("Heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality are constructs of society, every psychologist and psychiatrist knows this almost since the 70's: that's thirty years ago!") which the doctor tried to correct shows that not only are you not an authority, but you are simply so full of shit that it is leaking out your mouth. How do you have the nerve to come on here giving all kinds of advice as if you really know anything, claiming to be an expert because you have met experts, claiming to be some kind of savior of humanity, and basically stinking up the joint, and then say that the DOCTOR is not an expert? This is his forum, Anthropussy, not yours. He IS an expert. YOU aren't.

You brought this "upheaval" on yourself. If you had the ordinary decency to apologize for your mistakes, everyone here would have accepted you even though you do come off unbearably pedantic and superior. But when you launch a dishonest attack against the founder of this forum who is a person many of us admire for his open mindedness and willingness to accept everyone without judging, you should expect to meet resistance. The worst anyone called you is idiot, and that seems fair enough to me.

If you had any real integrity you would apologize to the doctor for your insults and your lack of respect for his learning. At least you would say that you were mistaken about what "every psychologist and psychiatrist knows." But if can't manage that kind of intellectual honesty then you, Anthropussy, are a fake and a fraud, and you will not be missed here at all.