NSmolenskiFan on Nostr: A clinical psychologist with decades of experience treating people suffering from the ...
A clinical psychologist with decades of experience treating people suffering from the depths of psychosis once described the reason that many clinicians cannot help their patients:
They function from the doctrine of “Reality with a Capital R,” that is, the belief that they, the clinician, understand the world “as it really is,” while their patients are simply insane. These doctors refuse to listen to their patients, refuse to empathize with them, and dismiss their delusions without asking what truth or reality the patient is trying to express through their madness. Indeed, in some cases, the patient may not be “mad” at all; they may be accurately describing the toxicity and failure of the social institutions that have harmed them but may have rewarded the doctor. As a result, the patient can see a reality that the doctor’s self-interest prevents him from seeing.
The imbalance of power between a doctor and his patient means that a doctor’s misunderstanding can have devastating consequences for the patient. The patient may be misdiagnosed, mismedicated, but above all subjected to the compounding trauma that in seeking help for a harm that has been done to them, they are met only with further harm and careless misunderstanding. This can result in what is called “iatrogenic” illness—or illness that is the *result* of medical treatment. “Psychiatric illnesses” are often exacerbated or even generated by the clinician’s unwillingness to care about or understand their patients’ life experiences.
The hysteria around “misinformation” as expressed by someone like @cwarzel resembles a clinician operating from the doctrine or “Reality with a Capital R.” In Charlie’s view, he is one of the “experts;” one of the people who “operate in reality” and “describe the world as it is.” It is crazy conspiracy theorists who, through their willful delusions, menace the republic with violence. Warzel does not pause for a moment to ask what potential malpractice the government and the media, the Fourth Estate, could have perpetrated on the American people such that they no longer believe them. What truths are “conspiracists” seeing—perhaps hastily and inaccurately expressed in the details, but thematically true—which need acknowledging in our present moment so that we can heal as a people and make our institutions more resilient for the future?
If it’s up to people like Warzel—and there are many such people—we will only see an intensification of so-called “delusions” and conspiracy theories: the iatrogenic “illnesses” of a population subject to experts who don’t care about them and who insist on controlling Reality with a Capital R.
They function from the doctrine of “Reality with a Capital R,” that is, the belief that they, the clinician, understand the world “as it really is,” while their patients are simply insane. These doctors refuse to listen to their patients, refuse to empathize with them, and dismiss their delusions without asking what truth or reality the patient is trying to express through their madness. Indeed, in some cases, the patient may not be “mad” at all; they may be accurately describing the toxicity and failure of the social institutions that have harmed them but may have rewarded the doctor. As a result, the patient can see a reality that the doctor’s self-interest prevents him from seeing.
The imbalance of power between a doctor and his patient means that a doctor’s misunderstanding can have devastating consequences for the patient. The patient may be misdiagnosed, mismedicated, but above all subjected to the compounding trauma that in seeking help for a harm that has been done to them, they are met only with further harm and careless misunderstanding. This can result in what is called “iatrogenic” illness—or illness that is the *result* of medical treatment. “Psychiatric illnesses” are often exacerbated or even generated by the clinician’s unwillingness to care about or understand their patients’ life experiences.
The hysteria around “misinformation” as expressed by someone like @cwarzel resembles a clinician operating from the doctrine or “Reality with a Capital R.” In Charlie’s view, he is one of the “experts;” one of the people who “operate in reality” and “describe the world as it is.” It is crazy conspiracy theorists who, through their willful delusions, menace the republic with violence. Warzel does not pause for a moment to ask what potential malpractice the government and the media, the Fourth Estate, could have perpetrated on the American people such that they no longer believe them. What truths are “conspiracists” seeing—perhaps hastily and inaccurately expressed in the details, but thematically true—which need acknowledging in our present moment so that we can heal as a people and make our institutions more resilient for the future?
If it’s up to people like Warzel—and there are many such people—we will only see an intensification of so-called “delusions” and conspiracy theories: the iatrogenic “illnesses” of a population subject to experts who don’t care about them and who insist on controlling Reality with a Capital R.