I think I understand the anti-psychiatry BS on DU, now

[tama]

13. Primitive me

Yes, European civilizations often call indigenous non-European peoples "primitive". My cultural roots are "primitive" and yes, our people used to consider that life/soul consists of three parts or relations: 'spirit/breath', 'nature' and 'self'. Europeans also consider that our language has "poorly developed category of person and subject" (which mean literally "mask" and "thrown under", btw), as we can form sentences without subject and object, just with verb, and incline our verbs in "indefinite person", much of which is untranslatable into European languages where more analytic categories are obligatory and unavoidable.

Primitive world views are often characterized and animistic and shamanistic. "Animism" could be defined as extending 'theory of mind' ("the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) to whole of world and all of its parts, instead of e.g. just (some) other humans and possibly some animals. There seems to be a continuum of lot of individual and cultural variety how widely theory of mind is extended. Which view is already assuming and applying theory of mind very widely, as I just realized.

As you say, cultural norms differ and affect perceptions and how they are socially communicated. E.g. many children having imaginary friends seems to be universal phenomenon, and how various adult cultural norms and belief systems react and interpret those experiences varies a lot. As do sensual perceptions of those friends in various states of mind. And of course not all children lose or abandon their imaginary friends, and also many adults can also get and develop such experiences on various sensual levels, e.g. "auditory hallucinations" considered fairly common and normal phenomenon that contemporary Western psychiatry no longer considers psychopathology.

In "primitive" shamanistic cultures people showing similar symptoms that western psychiatry tends to diagnose as bipolar and/or schitzophrenic, are often considered signs of "shaman disease", talent and sensitivity and natural inclination to communicating with "imaginary friends" of spirit worlds, to learn from those experiences of communication and to use them for healing and other forms of help. Also Western studies show that children with imaginary friends learn from those experiences of communication e.g. communication skills, coping with adult worlds and expectations and receive psychological aid in various difficult situations.

"Primitive" shamanistic communities don't have absolutist negative attitude towards various mind-altering substances, as I presume is well known, but usually consider matters of mental problems (such as will to harm self and others) matters of the whole community being ill, not just of individual member of community, and criteria and habits and purposes for using mind-altering substances are tuned from that perspective, to heal the relation of the community with rest of nature and regain state of balance.

The "journey of soul retrieval" is a common feature of shamanistic practice, and I've come to interpret it to mean that the two aspects or relations of life/soul find some way meaningful and balanced reunion with the missing third aspect or relation to feel whole and healthy again.

In "primitive" animistic and shamanistic view answer to "some spiritually meaningful thing bigger than us" is of course and not just one thing but many inclusive layers of. As "spirit" comes from word 'aspirare', to breath, then e.g. atmosphere is obviously a "spiritually meaningful thing bigger than us". And we need clean and fresh air to feel well and healthy. Fumes from cars and factories etc. make us feel sick and unwell. And scientists say they are changing the whole climate in a way that will make life much more difficult for our children.

In tripartite "primitive" view it's very rational and clear that the self-relation can easily come ill when it has lost balanced communion with the nature aspect and especially if it can't even breath well, as all three aspects or relations need to be in balance to feel well and whole.

We have had school killings also in Finland, and there followed a big national discussion about guns, of course, and also about psychiatric medication, how it is used and for what purpose at the level of "things bigger than us". The head of national psychiatry said that his field is using new innovative psychotropic substances to keep people able to work and cure symptoms that don't allow people to work, as the state and it's institutions wish in their relation to a thing bigger than they, global economy. He didn't say anything about healing or a thing bigger than global economy, the biosphere and and the planet and the nature that from which our ability to breath and live depends from.

Many people in Finland, perhaps because in some ways we are still quite primitive, asked what is wrong with us as society and culture, when some members of our community behave in such way?

Have we lost our soul, a part of it? Which part and how can we retrieve it, to regain healthy balance? How did we lose it, originally, and where is it now?



Sorry for talking so long and taking too much of your time, if you had patience to read this far, in which case thank you for giving ear also to a primitive point of view.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin