Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

I think a good way to separate what the field of psychiatry should be trying to treat is to look at some disorders in detail. Let's examine the difference between obsessive compulsive disorder and obsessive compulsive personality.

The obsessions and compulsions a person with obsessive compulsive disorder experiences are ego dystonic. This means the person with ocd may feel compelled to touch something three times in order to stave off disaster but is aware that the compulsion is irrational. They may wash their relatively clean hands a dozen times to get rid of contamination but know they've washed their hands enough after one washing. To the person with the disorder the need to carry out the compulsion is burdensome but the inability to carry it out can in the short term causes severe distress. This is not a mental illness simply because touching things a magical number of times is culturally abnormal but because of the impairment and distress it causes to the person suffering from it. The person with ocd also has great insight into the lack of logical nexus between their compulsions and their goals.

Compare this to someone who has an obsessive compulsive personality or who is otherwise described as "perfectionistic". They may sleep with a room temperature of 68 degrees because they think it's the perfect temperature for good sleep. They may drink one and a half cups of coffee because they think it's the perfect amount. But they aren't compelled to do anything burdensome just to assuage feelings of anxiety and inner tension. If they have to sleep at 67 degrees it may not be optimal but it's far better than 74. They may be different from the norm and others may find them particular or difficult but they would not have an illness whereas the first person does.

It is a relevant consideration for psychologists to ask themselves whether they are enforcing cultural norms or treating maladaptive, distressing psychological conditions. I have no doubt that psychology done poorly carries forward cultural judgments, but most mental illness involves thinking and behavior that is different from what is typical by type rather than degree and experienced as painful to the person with the condition.

[holzz]

it's a mistake for BoJo to release the lockdown.
maybe open food places, and parks, or allow shopping centres to open.
not full on as it is normally.
Not with the highest death rate in Europe.

If he wants another term in office, then people WILL remember how he handles this. Any empathy he got for being on death's door (which I don't think is a lie since I doubt NHS staff would go along with this "conspiracy". Well I hope not....) would diminish.

[holzz]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world...-uk-russia-spt

[holzz]

ms. c - it was my fault - i didn't need to fuck your things up. my demons, my fault, my responsibility. i got triggered and it's my past and my own demons.

[Stavros]

"On Thursday Trump said at the White House: “What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented … and I hope a lot of people will pay a big price because they are dishonest, crooked people. They are scum, human scum.” "

Americans are Human Scum, its women are Dogs.

When are the Democrats going to use the words of this man to highlight their campaign to remove him from office? Even knowing that Nixon and LBJ were foul-mouthed in private cannot match the astonishing public insult and abuse that has become part of the discourse of American politics -it has never happened before as far as I know, and not even Boris Johnson on a bay day comes close -Is it not time for the Democrats -somebody- to make the President's relentless insults and abuse, his attacks on the USA the major issue with which to confront him and Murdoch's minions on Fox News?

[holzz]

https://blogs.imf.org/2020/04/14/the...at-depression/

worst recession since the Great Depression?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

"On Thursday Trump said at the White House: “What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented … and I hope a lot of people will pay a big price because they are dishonest, crooked people. They are scum, human scum.” "

Americans are Human Scum, its women are Dogs.

When are the Democrats going to use the words of this man to highlight their campaign to remove him from office? Even knowing that Nixon and LBJ were foul-mouthed in private cannot match the astonishing public insult and abuse that has become part of the discourse of American politics -it has never happened before as far as I know, and not even Boris Johnson on a bay day comes close -Is it not time for the Democrats -somebody- to make the President's relentless insults and abuse, his attacks on the USA the major issue with which to confront him and Murdoch's minions on Fox News?

Once again the Clueless Buffoon Donald Trump can't keep Barack Obama's name out of that foul mouth of his. and his latest comments show that he has a very unhealthy obsession with the previous administration and loves to blame them for his failures as a leader. and is pissed off that the previous president is still more popular than he'll ever be and he doesn't like it. and has been abusing his power over the last 3 years to undo everything Barack Obama has done. The Democrats already tried to remove him from office by impeaching him earlier this year, but the Senate Republicans decided to keep him in office. and completely agree it is for the Democrats to make the president's relentless insults and abuse, his attacks on the United States the major issue to confront him and Murdoch Minions on FOX News {Propaganda News Channel} and get him out of office by November 3rd. and the Republican Party to grow a pair and do the same.

[Stavros]

It is depressing to see so much bad language from people in positions of power becoming part of the public discourse.
Today we have the absurd evaluation from the President that the invesigation into his 2016 campaign team's links to the Russians amounts to -
“The biggest political crime in American history, by far!”

In addition, retweeting stuff from someone called Buck Sexton, the aim is to completely re-write the history of that campaign so that facts become fiction, straight out of 1984. Thus, in spite of the fact that the campaign team had over 100 meetings with Russians close to Putin, and in spite of the fact that Obama warned his successort that Flynn was vulnerable to accusations of complicity in breaking the law, now we are told Sexton claims that
" Barack Obama “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration”."
Then he describes Andrew McCabe as
-"“a dishonorable partisan scumbag who has done incalculable damage to the reputation of the FBI and should be sitting in a cell for lying under oath”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-michael-flynn

It is not just the foul language that is giving this discourse such an ugly, even desperate tone. It is the fact that it runs completely counter to the beliefs that we assume are fundamental to the religious beliefs of the Vice-President and the 'Evangeical Christian' base, and thus the President himself, if they truly believe GOD gave them a new redeemer to save the USA from the hell into which it was being taken by a Black Man.

For the one cardinal value so absent from all this discourse is the Forgiveness that is at the heart of the Christian message. We hear the language of resentment and vengeance, but not one word of love and certainly not of forgiveness. The humility that forgiveness requires appears to be so distant from the character of the President there is no hope of him ever expressing it.

Indeed, it is being argued that the arguments over 'mail-in' voting will become part of a refusal, should he lose the 2020 election, by the 45th President to concede to the 46th and to thus challenge the outcome if it doees not result in his victory. The danger is that resentment is aso a driver of violence, with the chilling prospect that this particular President, and many of his supporters don't care what happens, may even desire to see the existing political system fall apart in a riot of refusal and violence.

As the Commander-in-Chief abandoned Command in January, and appears to have abandoned the campaign against Covid 19 on a 'what the hell, let 'em die' basis, so the language of politics deteriorates into vicious slander and accusation, while elevating resentment, vengeance and contempt for the law to the status of convenient and normal rhetoric.
Boris Johnson may give his darker purpose some literary flair, what we have in the US is just dirty, vulgar and pernicious in its determined attempt to destroy the public faith's in Government, the Rule of Law, and ultimately, the Truth.

[holzz]

relaxed lockdown?
is it worth the risk of escort meet-ups? hmmmm.

on one hand, the police won't catch you, now that there is "unlimited exercise" outdoors.
But then it isn't social distancing.
i get the feeling more will risk it.

[Stavros]

The risk factor is on the 'other side of the mountain' -an epidemic normally follows a clear trajectory, the first cases surging to create a large mass of infections which rise until a combination of therapies and declining hosts reduces the rate of infection. The details of the plan the Johnson Government released yesterday are confusing some people in the detail, but the broad trajectory to gradually relax restrictions is the right one, and for all the flaws in the Goverment's management of the crisis, from the negect of care homes -on a par with the neglect of safety at Grenfell Tower- the sloppy sometimes non-existent provision of PPE to frontlne staff, and the paucity of testing, tracing and tracking for the general population, means the risk facor is due to the lack of knowledge of how this virus is going to behave.
Will it decline as the hosts decline due to distancing strategies?
Will the relaxation of rules enable the virus both to persist, albeit in fewer new infections, or worse, mutate and infect previously less vulnerable groups such as young children?
We also do not yet know if there are long term effects on survivors, such as lung damage and related illnesses -Boris Johnson does not look 100% though fatigue in his case may also be due to a baby crying at 3am.

The calculation appears to be that the majority of the population are safer now than they were but that risks remain, and without doubt the costs of shutting down the economy have already worsened the recession the UK was sliding into because of Brexit.
That said, I think the majority of people -but I don't know how large the majority is- remain committed to staying at home rather than putting themselves and others at risk.

Compare that to the relaxation taking place in Russia where cases are still on an upward curve, and the worthless rubbish that the spewed out of the US President's mouth when he declaimed "We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” on the day when recorded deaths in the US passed 80,000.

The President is a cretin, and utterly indifferent to human suffering.

The comparison may be inevitable but one compares the vanity of an incompetent fool in the US, to the simplicty of the language, the sincerity of compassion, the the composure of Jacinda Ardern. One appears to be blessed, the other is a curse. New Zealand may have just got lucky, but I wonder, if people could choose, if they would prefer a leader like her to the superstars of stupidity who occupy Presidential Palaces and Prime Ministerial residences across the world.