Wessely Challenges Government to Ring-Fence Mental Health Spending

[Hip]

Are you allright Hip?

I certainly do not have a phobia to psychologists, like many on this forum appear to have.

 

[A.B.]

I certainly do not have a phobia to psychologists, like many on this forum appear to have.

You don't think these thoughts about screening for psychpaths and preventing them from holding certain positions are a bit ... crazy?

 

[Hip]

You don't think these thoughts about screening for psychpaths and preventing them from holding certain positions are a bit ... crazy?

If you study areas such as military history, of wars such as WW2 (I have a friend who is an expert in this area), you find that there are some military commanders who in their planning tried as much as possible to minimize the number of deaths of their own solders; they were morally and emotionally sensitive to this.

Whereas other military commanders just used their soldiers as pawns in a big game, and did not care how many of their soldiers died; soldiers were expendable; these commanders were focused on achieving some military objective, no matter what the cost in lives.

My hunch is that these military commanders who did not care much for preventing casualties among their own men may have been sociopaths or psychopaths.

Hitler was certainly a psychopath (and also likely suffered from psychosis).



My view is that the moral and empathetic vacuum that exists in the minds of psychopaths can make them extremely dangerous when they get into positions of power. They just don't care about the people in their charge.

Put is this way: would you like to have a psychopath responsible for pressing the nuclear button?

 

[jimells]

You don't think these thoughts about screening for psychpaths and preventing them from holding certain positions are a bit ... crazy?

I know what you mean. If all the psychopaths were removed from government and business, we'd soon run out of Dear Leaders to occupy corner offices...

 

[A.B.]

I know what you mean. If all the psychopaths were removed from government and business, we'd soon run out of Dear Leaders to occupy corner offices...

I'm afraid that would not solve anything. It takes a Dear Leader to come up with the idea of screening the population for undesirable personality traits and removing these targets from important positions.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Study showed that you were at least 4 times as likely to find a psychopath in Big Business than amongst the general population, real figure is probably higher
same with politics

I've argued for a long time that psychopaths have had a severe harmful effect on our entire species history as urban Dwellers
most psychopaths are male, so you have abuse of females and so part of why society became male dominated and screwed up

Not all evil is done by psychopaths, no. But they are a large problem
Some folk CHOSE to do Evil, they are even worse than psychopaths.

Note Western militaries screen to block psychopaths etc
last thing they want is such a selfish, untrustworthy, dangerous bastard in their ranks
the "Spooks" on the other hand....largely most "spying" is fact checking, druge work, and most of 'em are decent enough but oh boy there sure are raving evil, manipulative wahoos in that arena who think nothing of using drug selling, terrorist bombings of civilians or their own countries, to further their "ends justifies the means"...or political power.
So, using a psychopath as a "covert agent", oh yes!

And the odds the inbred sick Elite system creates more psychopaths...is quite high, look at how they behave
The university group the UK's Prime Minster and others in the Cabinet were in, thought it was "fun" to burn £50 banknotes in front of homeless people, to torment them

"Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity" ~ Lord Acton

Psychopaths have not place in decent society, it's not a question of abusing a minority
they are *MONSTERS*, for the basic point and necessity of Humanity: compassion, is missing from them
deal with a few and then folk may have a different outlook on the bastards :/

 

[Hip]

Psychopaths have not place in decent society, it's not a question of abusing a minority
they are *MONSTERS*, for the basic point and necessity of Humanity: compassion,

I would not go so far as to say that they have no place in society. Psychopaths are born that way (although nurture also plays a role in creating psychopathy), so they cannot help who they are. 1 in every 100 people are psychopathic, so there are a lot of them. I just think it is prudent to kept psychopaths away from positions of responsibility where they have the fate of thousands of people in their hands.

But as you say, unfortunately psychopaths tend to gravitate to positions of powder and responsibility, so it might be hard work to prevent this.



In general, I think psychology is anyway starting to play a more prominent role in placing people in the right roles in society. For example, there is now a drive to get a better understanding of which personality traits are more likely to develop PTSD during military combat, and to screen those personality traits in soldiers. That will hopefully save a lot of the suicides that occur in soldiers with PTSD.

 

[alex3619]

But my general view is that psychological diagnosis should be used far more that it is in society.

It has been pointed out that nearly everyone can be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder now, the diagnoses are collectively far too inclusive. Take screening for psychopaths ... most who are selected would probably be normal people of no threat to society, if the findings in the rest of psychiatry apply to this diagnosis.

What do we do about people who learn to have a lack of empathy, or suppress it (ditto conscience) by the extreme competition and the rules for high level executives? That might be most of them.

Psychiatry is so bad at diagnosis that we need to be very careful not to diagnose people who do not need a diagnosis. People who need psychiatric help are often missed, but this is because of poor services and poor referral, both linked to poor funding. With maybe two exceptions now (Alzheimers and Schizophrenia, but neurological disorders), there is not one diagnosis in DSM5 that can be considered definitive. If they took that uncertainty into account things would be better, but I do not know how common that is. Allen Frances discussed some of this in Saving Normal.

 

[Hip]

Psychiatry is so bad at diagnosis that we need to be very careful not to diagnose people who do not need a diagnosis.

Maybe, but this also applies to people in general. Don't forget that in most situations in society, a person is chosen for a role or job on the basis of another person's (amateur) psychological judgement.

If you are being interviewed for a job, the interviewers will ask you a lot of questions, and make their own intuitive judgment about your character, personality traits and ability to perform the job.

You may be ideal for the job, but because the interviewer judges you badly, you may not get it. Or you may be the worst person for the job, but because the interviewer mistakenly thinks you are a good candidate, you get the job.

Similarly in court cases, it is often the juror's intuitive character judgment that helps a jury decide whether a person is innocent or guilty. But there is no guarantee that their judgment is correct.

So human beings in general can be less than perfect at character judgment. Nevertheless, we still use these judgments all the time in society.

 

[jimells]

That will hopefully save a lot of the suicides that occur in soldiers with PTSD.

A better method would be to quit having so many wars. Much cheaper, too.

 

[Hip]

A better method would be to quit having so many wars.

Indeed, although I think it's probably going to be easier to solve a complex disease like ME/CFS than to come up with a system that prevents wars.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I argue in this post that society should have a screening program in place for psychopaths (1% of the general population are psychopaths), such that psychopaths are prevented from holding influential or executive jobs, such corporate CEO, or a military commander..

A good first start would be to stop psychopaths from becoming psychiatrists

 

[Large Donner]

I

For example, there is now a drive to get a better understanding of which personality traits are more likely to develop PTSD during military combat, and to screen those personality traits in soldiers. That will hopefully save a lot of the suicides that occur in soldiers with PTSD.

And less consciousnesses soldiers?

 

[chipmunk1]

A good first start would be to stop psychopaths from becoming psychiatrists

But we can still have these guys on board, pleeease?

Cameron argued that it was necessary for behavioral scientists to act as the social planners of society, and that the United Nations could provide a conduit for implementing his ideas for applying psychiatric elements to global governance and politics.

Cameron started to distinguish populations between "the weak" and "the strong". Those with anxieties or insecurities and who had trouble with the state of the world were labeled as "the weak"; in Cameron's analysis, they could not cope with life and had to be isolated from society by "the strong". The mentally ill were thus labeled as not only sick, but also weak. Cameron further argued that "the weak" must not influence children. He promoted a philosophy where chaos could be prevented by removing the weak from society

Some of Dr. Cameron’s suggestions had struck Dulles as original and far-reaching – such as his proposal that after the war each surviving German over the age of twelve should receive a short course of electroshock treatment to burn out any remaining vestige of Nazism (Thomas 1989, p. 152).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sargant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron
http://www.flavinscorner.com/cameron.htm

 

[Hip]

And less consciousnesses soldiers?

Less conscience you mean?

I don't know. I know that people with ADHD are more prone to developing PTSD as a result of combat stress (ref: here), so ADHD may become one of the characteristics the military will screen for when they recruit soldiers.


In any case, I am not sure that you would want to recruit people with a sensitive conscience for military service. The military acts on behalf of the state, under the command of the state. Soldiers are not acting through their own will, but execute the will of state. So individual soldiers should not be carrying the burden of conscience, provided they act within the rules and laws that govern military engagements.

Where I think you need a sensitive conscience is within the apparatus of state, as these are the people who decide whether to go to war or not.

And within the apparatus of state, you also need intelligence and an understanding of military history. If you don't have this intelligence, it can lead to great cockups.

Look at the great joint British and American cockup that was the Iraq war — a war which France and Germany were strongly against. Saddam may have been ruthless, but removing him created a far worse situation, destabilizing the entire region, mostly likely triggering the civil wars in Syria and Libya, and leading to the emergence of ISIS. So how come nobody in the US or UK were able to figure out in advance that intervention in Iraq would be a dumb move? That seems not so much an issue of lack of conscience, but lack of intelligence.

 

[Chrisb]

That seems not so much an issue of lack of conscience, but lack of intelligence.

The term "military intelligence" was always used as an example of oxymoron. There are those who argue for "police intelligence".

 

[duncan]

I'm a little uncomfortable with some of this, certainly the characterization of why soldiers act. Abstract thought and real world human motivations seldom meet (except maybe in a textbook or screenplay). When they actually do, it seems to fall on the scalpel's edge - or at the end of an electroshock paddle.

Soldiers don't act on behalf of the State.

 

[sarah darwins]

I'm a little uncomfortable with some of this, certainly the characterization of why soldiers act. Abstract thought and real world human motivations seldom meet. When they do, it seems to fall on the scalpel's edge - or at the end of an electroshock paddle.

I'm incredibly uncomfortable with all of this! That's one brave new world I don't want to live in. I'll take the current messy one, psychopaths and all.

 

[Hip]

Soldiers don't act on behalf of the State.

Perhaps they don't in those dodgy and brutally barbaric African militias that appear from time to time, or in countries where you have military rule, but otherwise military action is instigated and authorized by the state. It's odd that you are not aware of this.

 

[duncan]

Soldiers follow orders, and they follow them for many reasons. They do things because they are instructed to do so.

This is very concrete.

Ideology and abstract thoughts like the State take a back seat, in most cases.

The real world tends to play by real world rules. Motivations, by and large, are myopic, even if they can be multi-leveled (I need money, I am afraid of my seargent, I dislike the enemy, I need to protect my friends and fellow soldiers, etc.)

Aren't motivation and perception really the two tenuous claims to infamy that psychs have?