Another sad story

[Antigen]

Che, I just want you to know that I once had a bumper sticker on my car that said "My homeschooler kicked your honor roll student's ass". I miss that sticker!  :waaaa:

[Whooter]

How can you avoid being defined by labels? What action do you suggest someone take to avoid allowing a label to define them?

One way is to pursue the path that “you” want to pursue and don’t listen to others.  For example if you have attended a residential treatment facility and people label you a “survivor” it doesn’t mean that this has to define who you are.  You can decide, on your own, that you want to finish college and become a nurse, doctor, lawyer or  start your own business etc.  You are defined by your actions and how you feel about yourself, not by labels others place on you.



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Survivor is a label people choose. Even under the odd circumstance that someone might call someone a survivor, that person is free to openly object to it and expect the social environment to accept that statement. This does not qualify as being within the same context as a label like RAD

 A child diagnosed with RAD cannot object to the label or the resulting treatment. This experience would be felt as an attack on anyone’s ability to feel secure in their environment. Forced embracing, holding, smothering, and expressions of love and sympathy that are normally reserved only for spontaneous, genuine, intimate human contact is extremely dangerous when used as a ritual tool in therapy. Children pick up on the nuances of social interaction quickly and realize that these expressions are not genuine personal expressions but only behaviors exhibited for manipulative purposes. You can’t fault them for then distrusting basic expressions of love in the outside world.

But  I agree with you that one way we can define ourselves is by our actions, you are what you do, but you do what the situation demands of you.  When someone has a significant enough power to dictate the fate of another based on their behavior, or a label can been placed on you which dictates how you are to be treated by other you cannot expect their behavior to be “theirs” and theirs alone.  Consider these children here being treated for RAD with Attachment Therapy. We can hardly look at them and say to ourselves that they are truly owning  their actions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDri7Bb ... re=related

 I think anyone would agree that in such a situation they would behave in whatever way they thought would get them out of it the fastest, which incidentally would be to do whatever they said would achieve that result. This is the opposite of being an individual and being “you”.  

How would you attempt to be yourself in this situation?  How would you feel about yourself?

Awake, I agree that children cannot object to any label placed upon them, whether it be RAD, ADHD, Cancer victim, rape victim etc. until they become a certain age and even then they don’t have control.

I personally don’t think it is wise to form an opinion of treatment based on a youtube video.  One would need to research RAD and determine for themselves the treatment that would best fit their child.  Exposure to Radiation, for example, can be deadly yet we openly embrace underpaid and undertrained people to expose our children to it every day with the hope that it will cure their cancer.  These children are physically restrained and drugged against their will  and exposed to high doses of Radiation that could destroy their internal organs and alter their life outcome.

If someone constructed a similar youtube video of these restrained children being forced fed radiation therapy we would all be similarly enraged if we didn’t understand it.  Likewise these children would do or say whatever it took to escape that day of treatment if they could.
If we didn’t understand the positive effects of radiation treatment we may be justified in breaking into the room, assaulting the people restraining and poisoning that child and freeing the child from possible death.

I agree that the video is compelling but Education is the key to understanding RAD and its available treatments.  This is a sensitive topic to many and even some professionals disagree on treatment options because it is relatively new.



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[Awake]

I don’t think we are on the same page here, Whooter. You said

[

My thinking here is that we are all labeled in one way or another but these labels don’t need to define who we are.  People should be free to meet and get to know each other with a clean slate.

If people want to use them to define themselves that is fine, but others shouldn't do it.

I think that is something we should all strive for.  

You are also saying you define the self in terms of what you do, actions, behaviours, and how you feel about yourself. I agree this is one way to evaluate ourselves.

[  You are defined by your actions and how you feel about yourself, not by labels others place on you.

I agree that, in part, YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO. But I will take it from your silence that you do not object to what I said.

[
But  I agree with you that one way we can define ourselves is by our actions, you are what you do, but you do what the situation demands of you.  When someone has a significant enough power to dictate the fate of another based on their behavior, or a label can been placed on you which dictates how you are to be treated by other you cannot expect their behavior to be “theirs” and theirs alone.  

In short, You are what you do, you do what the situation demands of you, if someone is controlling your situation they are accountable for what you do. Therefore, in such a situation, what you do is not you. It would be a mistake to hold the children in the video accountable for their actions in this situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDri7Bb ... re=related
(I also wouldn’t expect  others to make judgements based on a simple video, but it would not betray descriptions of attachment therapy or bonding therapy. My experience was chillingly similar, so maybe I can sympathize a bit more)

You also said,

How can you avoid being defined by labels? What action do you suggest someone take to avoid allowing a label to define them?

One way is to pursue the path that “you” want to pursue and don’t listen to others.  

What you are saying here is that THE LABEL MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PURSUE A PATH THAT IS “YOU” WHICH MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID BEING DEFINED BY LABELS.
You justify labelling by concluding that labels don’t NEED to define who we are.

[

My thinking here is that we are all labeled in one way or another but these labels don’t need to define who we are.
.

But if you are what you do, and what you do is under someone else’s control because of a label, then the label DOES define who you are. Try as you might you cannot avoid it in this circumstance.

You also say

[
Awake, I agree that children cannot object to any label placed upon them, whether it be RAD, ADHD, Cancer victim, rape victim etc. until they become a certain age and even then they don’t have control.
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This constitutes the danger. The child cannot object, the label will define him/her, and will undermine their ability to define themselves within the social environment. This basically amounts to someone who’s social power is decommissioned, you cannot underestimate how devastating and alienating that experience would be. (On a related note, I disagree that “Cancer victim” and ”rape victim” are labels that children cannot object to. If a child were to say, “No, I am not a victim, I am a rape “Survivor” it would sure raise some eyebrows if the parents, caregivers etc. were to object to using it. It may not seem like much of a change, but it can make a big difference in how people feel.)

I would simplify what appears to me to be what we are agreeing on.

Some labels that are placed on us can and do define who we are. Those labels create a social context that makes it impossible to avoid being defined. Therefore the label has the power to stop you from pursuing a path that is you, producing actions that are yours, YET THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR THOSE ACTIONS WITH THE (mis)UNDERSTANDING THAT THE LABEL IS THE PERSON, PART OF WHAT DEFINES THEM, AND IS THE EXPLANATION FOR THE BEHAVIOR, WHEN THE LABEL ITSELF IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BEHAVIOR.

So getting back to one of your earlier statements, you said,

[  You are defined by your actions and how you feel about yourself, not by labels others place on you.

I think you mean to say, “you are defined by your actions, how you feel about youself, and in certain circumstances, you ARE defined by labels others place on you.”

I think the dangers of this are worth discussing.

[Whooter]

I would simplify what appears to me to be what we are agreeing on.

Some labels that are placed on us can and do define who we are. Those labels create a social context that makes it impossible to avoid being defined. Therefore the label has the power to stop you from pursuing a path that is you, producing actions that are yours, YET THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR THOSE ACTIONS WITH THE (mis)UNDERSTANDING THAT THE LABEL IS THE PERSON, PART OF WHAT DEFINES THEM, AND IS THE EXPLANATION FOR THE BEHAVIOR, WHEN THE LABEL ITSELF IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BEHAVIOR.

You make some good points awake and I see what you are saying.  The label does take on a power of its own and there are certain aspects that you cannot control.  One being how people perceive you upon seeing or hearing about your label.

Not sure if you are familiar with "The Scarlet Letter" or not but take Hester for example.  She had no control over the label placed upon her or the way people viewed her but she was able to redefine herself and look beyond the label and focus on raising her daughter Pearl.  In Hester's own mind, over time,  the label no longer defined who she was.  She had become a good and caring mother.  So even underneath the weight of her social stigma she prevailed and was able to live a happier life than most of the other woman in her social circle….. The stigma was still there and people judged her but the label no longer defined her.

For the longest time my Avatar was labeled with “Aspen’s Goebbels”.  This label was placed there to discredit my posts and was a punishment for not going along with the group think here on fornits.  I chose my own path, think independently and that is not taken very well here (as many people know all too well).  Even though I am not a part of Aspen nor a member of the Nazi party some people, upon viewing my avatar, judged me as an "evil industry person" lol.  So in some respects the label was effective in discrediting my point of view.  But in my own mind I know who I am and this prevailed in most cases and people were able to look beyond this label placed upon me and see me for who I am.

In Hesters case the Label "did" alter her behavior because she had no choice, she couldn’t leave and she had a daughter to raise.  In my case the label only affected me here on fornits and I was able to come and go as I pleased so it didn’t affect who I was or soften my point of view.



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[Awake]

I would simplify what appears to me to be what we are agreeing on.

Some labels that are placed on us can and do define who we are. Those labels create a social context that makes it impossible to avoid being defined. Therefore the label has the power to stop you from pursuing a path that is you, producing actions that are yours, YET THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR THOSE ACTIONS WITH THE (mis)UNDERSTANDING THAT THE LABEL IS THE PERSON, PART OF WHAT DEFINES THEM, AND IS THE EXPLANATION FOR THE BEHAVIOR, WHEN THE LABEL ITSELF IS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BEHAVIOR.

You make some good points awake and I see what you are saying.  The label does take on a power of its own and there are certain aspects that you cannot control.  One being how people perceive you upon seeing or hearing about your label.

Not sure if you are familiar with "The Scarlet Letter" or not but take Hester for example.  She had no control over the label placed upon her or the way people viewed her but she was able to redefine herself and look beyond the label and focus on raising her daughter Pearl.  In Hester's own mind, over time,  the label no longer defined who she was.  She had become a good and caring mother.  So even underneath the weight of her social stigma she prevailed and was able to live a happier life than most of the other woman in her social circle….. The stigma was still there and people judged her but the label no longer defined her.

For the longest time my Avatar was labeled with “Aspen’s Goebbels”.  This label was placed there to discredit my posts and was a punishment for not going along with the group think here on fornits.  I chose my own path, think independently and that is not taken very well here (as many people know all too well).  Even though I am not a part of Aspen nor a member of the Nazi party some people, upon viewing my avatar, judged me as an "evil industry person" lol.  So in some respects the label was effective in discrediting my point of view.  But in my own mind I know who I am and this prevailed in most cases and people were able to look beyond this label placed upon me and see me for who I am.

In Hesters case the Label "did" alter her behavior because she had no choice, she couldn’t leave and she had a daughter to raise.  In my case the label only affected me here on fornits and I was able to come and go as I pleased so it didn’t affect who I was or soften my point of view.

I haven’t read that book. It does sound like an interesting story though, and you make some interesting comparisons to your own experience with labels here on fornits. When you say,

“In my case the label only affected me here on fornits and I was able to come and go as I pleased so it didn’t affect who I was or soften my point of view. “

I don’t think quite so many people realize how important the ability to withdraw from the field is for someone to maintain a stable and secure sense of self. If you spend enough time in a situation in which your identity is being attacked and you can’t withdraw yourself, a person can, and likely will, simply become ‘withdrawn’. This is yet another label the individual is held responsible for.

If the subject is prevented from withdrawing from the field, is then being continually held accountable for being withdrawn and is under constant pressure to overcome this negative label, you are setting up a classic context for a person to develop a dissociated sense of self.

You are in effect asking the person to stop acting on reality but be sensitive to and act on the false reality presented by the social body in control of their environment. In order to act functionally within the “reality” created by the social environment, this person has to teach themselves to properly anticipate and create imaginary “reality constructs” to match the demands of the group. The result is a dissociated sense of self in which a person suppresses their natural, spontaneous reactions to the environment, and must be constantly re-interpretting the experience, that they feel is real, to produce an outward appearance that will match the “reality” imposed by the group.

None of this is new. This conceptual theory of how mental illness develops has been explored  and it’s history also produced divisions concerning the ethical use of force in therapy. It also inspired new theories and many bodies of work concerning techniques of coercive persuasion specifically for use in therapeutic settings with clients resistant to therapy.

Are you familiar with any of this?

Here is the theoretical root that describes the danger of the situation we are talking about.

“TOWARDS A THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA (1956) Gregory Bateson, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, and John Weakland

This is a report on a research project which has been formulating and testing a broad systematic view of the nature, etiology, and therapy of Schizophrenia…… We have now reached common agreement on broad outlines of a communicational theory of the origin and nature of Schizophrenia; this paper is a preliminary report on our continuing research.
we must look NOT for some specific traumatic experience in the infantile etiology but rather for characteristic sequential patterns…. The sequences MUST have this characteristic:  that from that the patient will aquire the mental habits which are exemplified in schizophrenic communication. That is to say, HE MUST LIVE IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS ARE SUCH THAT HIS UNCONVENTIONAL COMMUNICATION HABITS WILL BE IN SOME SENSE APPROPRIATE.
   
The hypothesis that we offer is that sequences of this kind in the external experience of the patient are responsible for the inner conflicts of Logical Typing. For such unresolvable sequences of experiences, we use the term DOUBLE BIND.

THE DOUBLE BIND

The necessary ingredients for a Double Bind situation, as we see it, are:
1.   Two or more persons.- Of these we designate one, for purposes of our definition, as the “Victim”…..

2.   Repeated experience.- …. The Double Bind structure comes to be an habitual expectation.

3.   A primary negative injunction.- This may have either of two forms: ( a) Do not do so and so or I will punish you, or (b) If you do not do so and so, I will punish you…. We assume that punishment may either be the withdrawal of love or the expression of hate or anger- or, most devastating, the kind of abandonment that results from the parent’s expression of extreme helplessness.

4.   A secondary injunction conflicting with the first at a more abstract level, and like the first enforced by punishments or signals which threaten survival.- This secondary injunction is more difficult to describe than the primary for two reasons. First, the secondary injunctionis commonly communicated to the child through non-verbal means. Posture, gesture, tone of voice, meaningful action, and the implications concealed in verbal comment may all be used to convey this more abstract message. Second, the secondary injunction may, therefore, include a wide variety of forms; for example, “Do not see this as punishment” ; “Do not see me as a punishing agent”; “Do not submit to my prohibitions”: “Do not think of what you must not do”; Do not question my love of which the primary prohibition is (or is not) an example” and so on….

6.   A tertiary negative injunction prohibiting the victim from escaping from the field.- …. It seems that in some cases the escape from the field is made impossible by certain devices which are not purely negative, e.g. capricious promises of love, and the like.

7.   Finally the complete set of ingredients is no longer necessary when the victim has learned to perceive his universe in Double Bind patterns. Almost any part of the Double Bind sequence may then be sufficient to precipitate panic or rage. The pattern of conflicting injunctions may even be taken over by hallucinatory voices.”

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Believe it or not there have been at least a few experimental settings (that I know of) that experimented on groups utilizing this simple formula and were successful in not only reproducing schizophrenic symptoms, but noted that if the experiment did not reveal it’s purpose to the subjects after the fact that the symptoms persisted. Subjects that were told about it afterwards did not retain the resulting symptoms. As well,  the ingredients of the Double Bind have been maintained and analyzed within an institutional setting. Moreso I have read that further considerations concerning social experimentation of the Double Bind were not pursued because it is simply unethical to produce, or even try to produce, such a state even in voluntary subjects for the reason that the true beliefs of the experimenters cannot overtly be made known for it to work.

There is a great deal to discuss in this area, but I want to take our conversation topic a bit further to say, IN SOME CASES LABELS HAVE THE POWER TO CAUSE MENTAL ILLNESS.

In cases like we have been discussing, and in the cases of the children in the video, (for now I will submit that it is debatable as to how well it represents typical treatment, nevertheless represents the context described in the Double Bind.)
 
I would consider watching this video again, observing the actions of the children and reconsidering just what is going on in the scene before you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDri7Bb ... re=related

There are children wildly catharting, sobbing having given up any struggle against the therapists even when being forcibly restained, intense pressure to express anger to “get the rage out of them”, the child is directed to not just recant but ‘re-live’ past trauma (which the child does act out, and is seemingly distraught).

There is a child restrained within blankets under the pretense that he is reliving pre-natal trauma and is expected to purge himself of that pain. (In my opinion he seems to be struggling to give his therapists the genuine reaction that the therapists want).

During the process the therapist asks the child if he trusts them. He says yes. Can you trust the childs word on this? Can you hold him accountable for his answer?
One of the therapists in the video says, “We can’t make children have feelings. Everyone has a feeling. What we do is help them identify those feelings.” (Are those feelings really theirs, or is it just what they are showing in this situation?)

Whooter, you said we are (in part) defined by how we feel.

I think another important question to ask is can someone control how you feel? Or even further can expressed misinterpretation of genuine emotional signals actually teach a person that expressing that emotion will not achieve the desired cathartic effect?

If so, would a reasonable defense be to repress the emotion entirely? Or is it possible a developing child (as in the video) might even learn to completely confuse signals of love and fear coming from their social environment? Based on this situation is it possible that a child could be taught to produce signals implying openness and love AS A DEFENSE when threatened with confrontation and states of fear?

Later in the video a psychologist identifies this kind of bonding behaviour as “trauma bonding that you see in people who are taken hostage”.

I think we can see that the behaviors of the children can be linked to the guided experience given to them by the therapists, and that the experience could be considered traumatic to anyone.

It was also later compared to brainwashing. I don’t know if I would qualify it on those exact terms, but it is easy for me to see why such a comparison would be drawn.

Nearer the end of the video a woman (who seems to have developed within the social norm) relates her childhood experience with bonding therapy saying, “ I would fake my way out of it, because I didn’t want to do what they were making me do.”

This is the perfect implication of what we should consider is really taking place in the video. The children are producing the symptoms of the illness AS A DEFENSE AGAINST THE LABEL THAT HAS BEEN PLACED ON THEM WHICH PUTS THEM IN THAT THREATENING SITUATION. THE THERAPISTS ARE DEMANDING THAT, FOR THE CHILDREN TO PROGRESS AND LEAVE THERAPY, THE CHILDREN PRODUCE THE VERY SYMPTOMS OF THE ILLNESS THEY ARE LABELLED AS.
THEIR ONLY DEFENSE IS TO ADMIT THEY ARE ILL!

One thing I asked you previously in this conversation that I want you to ask yourself again is, “How would you attempt to be “you” in this situation? How would you feel about yourself?... and I would even broaden that to question that in some cases people will actually TRUST  the reality presented by the social environment and TAKE ON THE FALSE BELIEF THAT THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS LABELED AS “THEIRS”, AND AS WELL,  SOLELY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR FEELINGS IN THAT SITUATION, AND HENCE CAN EVEN BELIEVE IN THEIR OWN ADMISSION OF ILLNESS. ( At best I wish you to take these questions as rhetorical just for your consideration in these matters.)

A was just about to go on and on at length about how my own experience, but if a picture was worth a thousand words, and the video with the RAD treatment equalled a novel, you would be in for alot of reading to encompass my experience.

One major difference was that I was l not labelled ‘RAD’ but ‘Troubled Teen’.

As a result I was restrained by my peers within the context that the choice to “fight for my life or die” was mine, and the result of which I was held accountable for. I was directed and forced to recant, relive and cathart over ‘assumed’ past traumas,  and once I acted on their direction, I was under constant threat of punishment (under the guise of help and therapy) to ritually re-display the emotional purge associated with that event in order to get ‘better’ and  progress in therapy. I was pressured under the social environment  to verbally attack my friends.

 It was dictated to me that, in order to get better, I express (with every fiber of my being, “scream with your whole body” ... if you can make sense of that) in therapy my rejection and hatred for every member of my family, Mother, Father, and Brother.  I was held accountable. I won’t go on, but it goes on.

You said you have struggled against labels yourself here on fornits. You said people should be free to meet with a clean slate. You said if people want to use labels to define themselves that is fine, but other’s shouldn’t do it.

You have a clean slate with me. At this point you can define yourself to me in any way you’d like and I will respond  with the common courtesy of taking your word for that. Our continued interaction, and a focused discussion along clear, logical lines of thought are all that are necessary here.

I, like you, don’t want labels attached to me either.  I am not “just one of a few bad apples” or “ a small percentage of people that did not do well”, (which are labels I myself have felt were to my opposition on this board).

Instead I would preffer you to give me the same courtesy you would a rape victim, or cancer victim who actually preffer to be reffered to as “Survivor”

I am a survivor, and I’d like to be respected as such. So, my hand is out. Can you honor that?

[Whooter]

That would be nice, Awake, to give each other the respect we deserve based on what we know about each other.

It seems the problem people may have with the video is:  “We are only being shown the process”.  We haven’t been shown the kids before and after treatment.  They interviewed a woman who faked it and is fine (although she wasn’t in a social situation, husband, family etc. around) and a woman who had a child that died sometime after treatment.  

If, for example, the interview was conducted on a person who never received treatment and was in prison for murder and another person who completed treatment and was functioning well in society, Then showed how these children behaved prior to treatment the viewer may not judge the treatment as harsh and many would praise it.

So I think we are being lead to believe the treatment is ineffective and abusive.  This is what I got out of the youtube clip.
If we transported a doctor and a nurse performing open heart surgery on a patient back to the 18th century and people walked in on them they would be tried for murder or attempted murder and quickly hung for their crimes.  This would be justified because the people judging them never had the benefit of seeing this patient prior to surgery (heart attack, unresponsive) or after (recovering nicely).  The people walking into the room only saw a man cutting another man open while he was being restrained and that is what we are being shown.

If kids believe killing and torture of family members and family pets is okay and normal (and actively trying to do so) then maybe brainwashing or altering their self perception and perception of “good and bad” may be helpful to them.  Without intervention I cant see these children having a future functioning in society.



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