Peace in a sane society

In the late 60s I had a summer job as a ward orderly in the local mental hospital. I worked mainly in the secure wing where the patients looked and acted ‘normal’ most of the time. But many of them took ‘turns’ and had to be held down and sedated. For example Dennis who was little and fat would head butt the wall with great severity after being wound up by Aboo who was wheelchair bound but was expert at throwing his spit into other people’s faces. So most of the inmates were sedated most of the time and just sat around waiting for meals. A negative atmosphere.

About the same time I served as an occasional volunteer at the Camphill School in Aberdeen. This was part of the international Camphill Movement which aims to create communities where vulnerable children and adults, many with learning disabilities, can live, learn and work with others in healthy social relationships based on mutual care and respect. A positive atmosphere.

R D Laing

This practical experience of two very different approaches to mental health fed my understanding of Psychology which I was studying at the University in Aberdeen. The experiences drew me to the anti-psychiatry movement and, in particular, to the work of R D Laing the Glaswegian, Zen rebel. I read three of his books and the margin jottings include several uses of ‘ouch’.

(1960) The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness

(1967) The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise.

(1976) The Facts of Life.

Here are a few quotes to give a flavor of the man:

• Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
• Creative people who can't help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.
• Madness need not be all break-down. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
• The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
• We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
• We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.

I am presently working my way through an online ‘Introduction to Psychology’ Course (a MOOC from Udacity). So far it has introduced only material that I was taught in the 1960s. But it might get more advanced as the lessons proceed.

My garbled impression of Psychology is that it took a couple of unfortunate turns during the 20th century. There was the psychiatric disease theory of Freud et al (subjectivity only) and the black box behaviorism of Watson and Skinner (objectivity only).

But Abraham Maslow introduced a ‘hierarchy of needs’ which was topped by self actualization and thus transcendence. This triggered interest in positive psychology and the Human Potential Movement. These prompted a move towards understanding what makes people supernormal. Key concepts include Flow, Flourishing, and Happiness.

Neuroscience has developed techniques for picturing the mindbrain in action – this has led to new interest in transcendence and cosmic consciousness; especially as these relate to meditation as a tool for affecting mind change.

And Evolutionary Psychology is a fast growing field which illumines the nature v nurture debate and works in consilience with a wide range of other disciplines. We are building an ever increasing body of theory about what went on during our 200,000 years of evolution as hunters and gatherers.

On the whole I am hopeful about the future. We can now obey the Oracle’s call to ‘know yourself’ in a radically new way. In a way that includes non-action (wu-wei) by a no-self (annata). Cool dudes in charge of global issues. A new view of Plato’s Philosopher Kings? Peace in a sane society. Peace in our time.