R. D. Laing in Post-Critical Perspective

1974 ◽  
Vol 124 (580) ◽  
pp. 252-259
Author(s):  
Allen R. Dyer
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Corporate Group ◽  
Counter Culture ◽  
Passive Aggression ◽  
Sane Society

R. D. Laing has offered a challenge to society and to psychiatry which is difficult to accept, for it implies that ‘sane’ society and psychiatry as its instrument actually perpetuate rather than alleviate certain kinds of mental illness. In spite of Laing's growing popularity with the counter-culture, there is a conspicuous lack of consideration of Laing's thought in the psychiatric literature. This may be taken as a rejection of what Laing says, a sort of professional passive aggression. Indeed many would suggest that Laing has passed the limits of sanity; he is certainly deviant. Yet psychiatry's reticence may reflect the difficulty in responding appropriately to Laing's indictment. Apparently there is much truth in Laing's analysis. It is existential, and his considerations involve each of us as persons, not just as members of a corporate group, psychiatrists or sane citizens. Furthermore there is a temptation either to accept or to reject what Laing says as a whole without careful attention to the implications of his arguments.

scholarly journals Nursing Home Social Services Directors Caring for Residents With Serious Mental Illness

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 117-117
Author(s):  
Denise Gammonley ◽  
Xiaochuan Wang ◽  
Kelsey Simons ◽  
Kevin Smith ◽  
Mercedes Bern-Klug
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Nursing Home ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Serious Mental Illness ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Psychosocial Care ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Care Planning ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Care Plans

Abstract Psychosocial care for residents with serious mental illness (SMI) requires understanding of co-morbidities and careful attention to needs, rights, and preferences. Analyses of social services directors (SSDs) responses (n=924) to the National Nursing Home Social Service Director Survey considered perceived roles and competence to provide care stratified by the percentage of NH residents with SMI. Depression screenings and biopsychosocial assessments were common roles regardless of the percentage of residents with SMI. About one-quarter lacked confidence to train colleagues in recognizing distinctions between depression, delirium and depression (23.4% unable) or to develop care plans for residents with SMI (26% unable). A bachelor’s degree (OR=0.64, 95% CI:0.43, 0.97) or less (OR= 0.47, 95% CI:0.25, 0.89) was associated with less perceived competence in care planning compared to those with a master’s degree. SSDs reported less involvement in referrals or interventions for resident aggression in homes with a high proportion of residents with SMI.

scholarly journals Madness in the Society: Analysis of ‘One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest’

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irine Maria Joy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Beat Generation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
The Social ◽  
Counter Culture

Sanity is what society projects it to be, and which isn't true always. Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stands against the institutionalised mental illness in hospitals. The novel can be analysed as a metaphor of nineteenth century America when asylums were a place where non-conformists of the society are sent to. Foucault's Madness and Civilization discusses these notions clearly along with the interconnected themes of power, insanity and rebellion. The patients in the asylum may seem insane, but the idea of insanity is often misinterpreted and misrepresented by the society Madness is connected to correction rather than sickness. Therefore, the techniques used to heal the illness are far more unethical. This paper is an observation of insanity or madness in the society. It also unravels the concept of ‘unreason’ by Foucault in Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The social and historic reading of the whole text explores Anti-Conformism (Beat Generation) and Counter Culture Movement (Hippie-culture) in America i.e, Individual v/s Society.

Fool’s Gold: Psychologists Using Disingenuous Reasoning to Mislead Legislatures into Granting Psychologists Prescriptive Authority

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-524
Author(s):  
Brent Pollitt
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Nurse Practitioners ◽  
Primary Care Physicians ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychotropic Medications ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Training Requirements ◽  
Prescriptive Authority

Mental illness is a serious problem in the United States. Based on “current epidemiological estimates, at least one in five people has a diagnosable mental disorder during the course of a year.” Fortunately, many of these disorders respond positively to psychotropic medications. While psychiatrists write some of the prescriptions for psychotropic medications, primary care physicians write more of them. State legislatures, seeking to expand patient access to pharmacological treatment, granted physician assistants and nurse practitioners prescriptive authority for psychotropic medications. Over the past decade other groups have gained some form of prescriptive authority. Currently, psychologists comprise the primary group seeking prescriptive authority for psychotropic medications.The American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy (“ASAP”), a division of the American Psychological Association (“APA”), spearheads the drive for psychologists to gain prescriptive authority. The American Psychological Association offers five main reasons why legislatures should grant psychologists this privilege: 1) psychologists’ education and clinical training better qualify them to diagnose and treat mental illness in comparison with primary care physicians; 2) the Department of Defense Psychopharmacology Demonstration Project (“PDP”) demonstrated non-physician psychologists can prescribe psychotropic medications safely; 3) the recommended post-doctoral training requirements adequately prepare psychologists to prescribe safely psychotropic medications; 4) this privilege will increase availability of mental healthcare services, especially in rural areas; and 5) this privilege will result in an overall reduction in medical expenses, because patients will visit only one healthcare provider instead of two–one for psychotherapy and one for medication.

Practical High Resolution Microscopy

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 302-303
Author(s):  
P. A. Marsh ◽  
T. Mullens ◽  
D. Price
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Electron Microscopes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
High Resolution Microscopy ◽  
New Facilities

It is possible to exceed the guaranteed resolution on most electron microscopes by careful attention to microscope parameters essential for high resolution work. While our experience is related to a Philips EM-200, we hope that some of these comments will apply to all electron microscopes.The first considerations are vibration and magnetic fields. These are usually measured at the pre-installation survey and must be within specifications. It has been our experience, however, that these factors can be greatly influenced by the new facilities and therefore must be rechecked after the installation is completed. The relationship between the resolving power of an EM-200 and the maximum tolerable low frequency interference fields in milli-Oerstedt is 10 Å - 1.9, 8 Å - 1.4, 6 Å - 0.8.

A Tribute to the Late William J. Curran

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
O. Lawrence ◽  
J.D. Gostin
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Legal Medicine ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Institute ◽  
University Professor

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.

Commentary

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 8-8
Author(s):  
Richard T. Katz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Behavioral Disorders ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Behavioral Disorder ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Diagnostic And Statistical Manual ◽  
Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale ◽  
Psychiatric Rating ◽  
Psychiatric Rating Scale ◽  
Mental And Behavioral Disorders

Abstract The author, who is the editor of the Mental and Behavioral Disorders chapter of the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Sixth Edition, comments on the previous article, Assessing Mental and Behavioral Disorder Impairment: Overview of Sixth Edition Approaches in this issue of The Guides Newsletter. The new Mental and Behavioral Disorders (M&BD) chapter, like others in the AMA Guides, is a consensus opinion of many authors and thus reflects diverse points of view. Psychiatrists and psychologists continue to struggle with diagnostic taxonomies within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but anxiety, depression, and psychosis are three unequivocal areas of mental illness for which the sixth edition of the AMA Guides provides M&BD impairment rating. Two particular challenges faced the authors of the chapter: how could M&BD disorders be rated (and yet avoid an onslaught of attorney requests for an M&BD rating in conjunction with every physical impairment), and what should be the maximal impairment rating for a mental illness. The sixth edition uses three scales—the Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale, the Global Assessment of Function, and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale—after careful review of a wide variety of indices. The AMA Guides remains a work in progress, but the authors of the M&BD chapter have taken an important step toward providing a reasonable method for estimating impairment.

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