Society 
Social organization or how we live together peacefully, co-operating towards meaningful progress. That is what will be the theme of this category.
February 21, 2008
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Healthcare is a business - one of the major productive enterprises in the industrialized world. How much of this business is really 'taking in our own laundry' is hard to tell at a glance.
Some say that the business with disease is largely responsible for keeping us sick, as there is no financial reward in having a healthy population. On the other hand, much money is to be made from selling remedies that do not cure but merely alleviate our symptoms.
Doctor yourself - take responsibility for your own health - is the motto of Andrew W. Saul, one of the major proponents of orthomolecular medicine, a system of health care based on supplying the nutritional elements we are often missing in our diet.
We are moving into a third healthcare revolution says Kathryn Alexander, one of the leading experts in detoxification and dietary healing who lives in Queensland, Australia and who has lectured on the dietary approach to health in the USA, Europe and Australia.
Dietary Healing - by Kathryn Alexander
Kathryn has traced the forces for change in our medical system. She says that the internet-driven knowledge revolution and the new tendency to electronically record patient data in electronic health records may be helping to overcome the current, profit-centered approach to health. By analyzing the collected data we will discover what actually works and start to rearrange healthcare to be more efficient.
The fact that our personal health records are actively being collected and will in the future be coveted objects of trade, according to Kathryn will actually catalyze patients, the real owners of these personal data, to band together. Patients will become a force in their own right with policy forming and decision making powers and together, they might just be able to tip the balance in favor of real prevention...
Continue reading "Expert Patients - A New Healthcare Paradigm"
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Thursday February 21 2008
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February 15, 2008
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How often have we been told that we create our own reality. That all we need to do is envision, with positive thought, what we want and it will surely come about.
Actually, a whole industry has sprung up around that meme, from life coaches to do-it-yourself success books. Perhaps the most recent and arguably one of the most widely known examples of this is The Secret, an inspirational film and a book that promote what is called the law of attraction.
The object seems to be to obtain what you most wish for. In our society, that normally turns out to be financial success, but it is not necessarily limited to that.
Now how does this really work. How do we create reality in a world where everyone seems to have a different agenda, where political forces are overwhelmingly seen as a violent driving force for the accumulation of power that is in contrast with the deepest and most cherished wishes of the majority of thinking individuals.
Creating Reality
Claus Janew has examined the question in some depth in the book "The Creation of Reality" which is only available in German. An abridged version, translated into English, is available from Janew's site as a PDF file. The title is How Consciousness Creates Reality.
If you are interested at all about the deeper questions of our existence, I recommend you download and print that 36-page essay. Janew says he "wrote the book out of a desire to examine the structure of our reality from a standpoint unbiased by established teachings, be they academic-scientific, popular-esoteric, or religious in nature. The solution to the classical problem of free will," he continues, "constitutes the gist of the concepts revealed."
No need to bring previous philosophical knowledge to the reading of the text, simply an interest in fundamental interconnections, a certain openness and the willingness to think along. A second, shorter paper, which has been published in the German Magazin 2000 and titled Omnipresent Consciousness and Free Will might serve as an introduction to those of you who don't want to invest the time necessary to read the whole 36-page essay. And then - you can always choose to go on from there.
I should like to thank Mike Emery for having pointed me in the direction of Janus and his essays.
And in case neither The Secret nor Consciousness and Free Will hold much attraction for you at this time and yet you want to change the reality in which we live, I have another tip for you. One more way of creating the reality we want is simply to link up with other people and start networking. You can do that either on the internet or in person - starting right in your own neighborhood...
Continue reading "Creating Reality - From Consciousness and Free Will to Three Dimensional Networking"
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Friday February 15 2008
updated on Sunday February 17 2008
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January 18, 2008
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Psychopharmacology or "pharmacology of the soul" is really a contradiction in terms, but then so is psychiatry itself. It is the art of influencing and controlling behavior that we consider socially unacceptable by means of chemicals, yet psychiatry pretends to be a part of medicine, of an effort to help and heal.
Sometimes psychiatrists have been called shrinks or head shrinkers. Shrinking heads was a traditional practice of some ferocious jungle tribes. Psychiatrists shock and drug their patients, many of whom end up leading a life of mere vegetation, and they may well feel that their head has been shrunk to resemble one of these...
Shrunken heads - image credit: Sony Pictures
I want to thank Vince Boehm for making me aware of the following essay is from medical ethicist Barry Turner. Mr turner is a lecturer in law at Leeds School of Law in the U.K. He teaches mental health, criminal and tort law and he explains, in very erudite terms, why psychiatry and especially psychopharmacology contravene the social values of our society.
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Critical Psychiatry
By Barry Turner
January 17, 2008
The dissemination of information is the hallmark of a free society and is the basis of freedom of speech. This fundamental human right is founded on the concept that information and knowledge are essential to free choice, it is the right of many individuals to hear that is being protected rather than the right of one individual to speak...
Continue reading "Psychopharmacology: Critical Psychiatry"
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Friday January 18 2008
updated on Monday February 4 2008
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November 23, 2007
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"Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward statism... A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers."
- Aldous Huxley - (1894-1963) Forword to 'Brave New World', 1932
Brave New World - Image from HuxleyNet.
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD is said to be a developmental disorder. All but unknown as little as two decades ago, word has it that now about 5 % of children suffer from it. Whatever the cause, the rise of ADHD has been explosive, and it seems that schools, rather than doctors, may be a driving force behind the diagnosis.
Officially, there is no cure for ADHD, yet children, once diagnosed, are prescribed all manner of psychotropic drugs - Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Strattera, Methylphenidate - to quiet them down and 'make them pay attention'. We are down on illegal drug use, even to the point of putting people in prison for smoking a joint. Yet here we are pushing mind altering drugs on millions of children. The side effects of the drugs prescribed - amphetamine and methylphenidate and even antipsychotic drugs like Risperdal, Zoloft and Zyprexa - are horrendous. Violence and suicide are often associated with their use.
Let's take a look at the diagnosis itself. We're talking about children who, in school, don't give close attention to details and make mistakes in their schoolwork. They don't listen well, don't follow instructions, are unwilling and are easily distracted or "forgetful". They are unable to sit still, are fidgety, "can't play quietly" and worst of all, they talk a lot. Disruptively blurting out answers before the teacher even finishes asking the question, they tend to interrupt others. In other words, those kids are a nuisance to teachers. Does that, by the way, bring back any memories of your own time in school?
Rather than being a sign of illness however, this kind of behavior tells us something about the dismal state of today's educational system! We are indoctrinating children with useless knowledge, trying to make good robots out of them. Since we still believe having a job should be the only way for people to make a living, we extend education to keep kids out of the job market for as long as possible. The brighter ones rebel at that. They are telling us: "let me go out and learn something". They are bored by what schools have to offer. They want to learn and do something useful, have adventure and feel they are part of society.
Most kids know computers better than their teachers. No wonder they are impatient. Home schooling may be an alternative for some, but not all countries allow it. What we do need, it seems, is a re-tooling of the educational system to support critical thinking, creativity, as well as the capacity to evaluate data and make decisions. There is nothing like learning something you want to learn. Active learning seems to fit the bill.
Continue reading "ADHD - Psych | 
