Mind-body problem dualism & psychiatry 1/6

http://www.NiallMcLaren.com
An overview of my work showing a natural dualist resolution of the mind-body problem for psychiatry which leads directly to a model of mental disorder. Remember, dualism does NOT necessarily lead to spiritualism and my model fits perfectly within the material realm. When most hear dualism they think of Descartes and thus Cartesian dualism which IS spiritual/supernatural. However, the philosopher David Chalmers outlined a material form a dualism, termed natural dualism, which is what my model builds upon. We must understand that the mind is non-reducible, similar to the computer program I'm using to make this lecture. There is of course the substrate/hardware which runs the function, but knowing all there is to know about this hardware/brain will never reveal the program/mind, and this is where biological psychiatry fails. Suppressing an output state (with medications) without fixing the cognitive processes that give rise to that mental state is an incomplete treatment paradigm.

If you have any questions or comments on my work please feel free to post a comment, email me, post on my blog etc. I always to try to answer questions and entertain criticisms as this is the engine of scientific progress.

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[TheKenfig]

....THEORY behind them is valid, namely that we ARE all complete (what we call) 'id' as babies.We could call it 'dag' or something but we do not yet have ego until were realise we're 'seperate' etc. I was conscious of having incorporated 'conscience' or superego when I was around eight years old, purely by having 'invisible' parents with me whom I didn't want to offend as I loved them and thought they would be sad if I stole the apple a wayward pal was encouraging me to steal from a stall

[jockmclaren47]

@TheKenfig We can give a better account of this phenomenon in a cognitive model than in the bizarre Freudian approach. All he could say was "it is so," whereas the biocognitive model shows how mind arises from body and the two are integrated.

[TheKenfig]

@jockmclaren47 What I'm saying is in spite of what he named those three mind development components and them sounding simplistic,they feel consistent with one's own experiences of personality development, e.g. 'guilt' or conscience,and the 'ego' s formation of being in touch with the 'reality principle' and forming of our own personal boundaries of what is us and seperate from us etc. I DO think the mind and body are integrated but also that emotional illness is often to do with psych. stressors

[TheKenfig]

@jockmclaren47 However, 'defence mechanisms' which have to be called something, which might be 'plastic teapots', are not only recognised but we all have inner awareness of our own, to a varying degree e.g. we project and rationalise etc, I know I have done although not seriously. It is a bit unfair to the labels of 'id', 'ego' and 'superego' because accordingly critics of psychoanalysis can be sceptical of the 'label names', but I realise that in spite of the names we call them, that the....

[jockmclaren47]

@TheKenfig Sure, but the whole of psychoanalysis was fanciful. Clinical material and insights derived from daily practice were very helpful but the theory was nonsense. The mind does not operate by hydrodynamic principles, which was the standard of science when Freud first moved into the area. However, I expect that we will never stop talking about the id and defenses, just because they are such clear analogies of the real complexity (about which analysts knew nothing, as it didn't exist)

[TheKenfig]

@jockmclaren47 Well as I alluded to, I would not have expected that as so much, just as Freud wrote about was about neuroticism. The great book I once read by the late American Psychiatrist Eric Berne, called 'The Mind In Action' published I think in 1970, was full of Freud stuff of which he was an advocate, explaining thoroughly and extensively about Id tensions and the problems they cause, kinds of neuroses, the psychoses (total withdrawal of the Ego), the Unconscious etc.

[jockmclaren47]

@TheKenfig Mainstream psychiatry believes that all mental disorder is a primary disturbance of brain function. In fact, the sad truth is that they don't actually know what they believe as they have never worked it out properly. I have spent a lot of time on this sort of question in my books, you might find them more helpful than these videos.

[TheKenfig]

@jockmclaren47 When you say 'orthodox' and body to mind, are you describing what you feel is 'most' psychiatry ?. Much of it accepts neuroses as primarily psychological and emotional illnesses as reactions to stressors doesn't it ? ; it surely doesn't hold that all mental illness is a reaction to having e.g. gallstones etc ? or am I misinterpreting what you're getting at ?