Peter Dow

[abdoujaparov]

what appears to have passed you and feral by is that people might not be using the words in the literal sense you're taking them as.

If you were to come out with a stupid idea - and we all do it at times - then someone might well say that you're nuts.

[eFestivals]

Why does labelling someone as mentally ill affect their whole person in a way that labelling them as, say, diabetic, doesn't?

The only reason I can think of is social stereotyping and stigmatism.

If you're mentally ill, it just means that part of your body isn't working as it would if it was healthy. It doesn't mean that you, as a person, are in any way abnormal. Having a brain disorder is no different from having a heart disorder.

Except that people aren't frightened of, or inclined to ridicule, people with heart disorders.

Why does you questioning me about half a sentence while ignoring the other part which gives that half-sentence its context make your question worthwhile?

If someone is labelled as mentally ill then it opens up all of their words and actions to scrutiny for the effects of mental illness.

If you consider something someone says to be nuts, you label that part as nuts and move on.

It's a big difference.

[eFestivals]

I'm just taking the words as they have been used in this thread, in the context in which they have been used....

You're not - not exclusively, anyway.

[eFestivals]

Yes I would, because for our mental health services we are taking referrals direct from NHS clinicians.

We are niot using the services you are referring to (which was your initial point) and noone in the referral chain for our mental health services is using that service. I'm not relying on trust - I'm relying on the fact that we get properly documented referrals from clinicians

This is all getting a little confusing for a minor tangent in this thread, but....

The allegations about the service I'm referring to are more in the direction of the (really) mentally ill being 'diagnosed' as not mentally ill.

So you could be using the service, but don't know of it because those clients never reach you.

[feral chile]

Why does you questioning me about half a sentence while ignoring the other part which gives that half-sentence its context make your question worthwhile?

If someone is labelled as mentally ill then it opens up all of their words and actions to scrutiny for the effects of mental illness.

If you consider something someone says to be nuts, you label that part as nuts and move on.

It's a big difference.

[eFestivals]

That's you falling for the stigma of mental illness. people with a mental health problem shouldn't be subject to this scrutiny. This is why the label disempowers them - by making people think that the mental illness is the whole person, and that the mental illness prevents them from being rational or autonomous.

No.

The mental illness *MIGHT* prevent them from being rational or autonomous. Because that's the fact of the matter.

Having been made aware of that fact, a person is then on the look out for its effects - which is a perfectly rational thing to do.

And that's what's gone on here. abdoujaparov has seen some things in Dow's posts which have triggered his view that Dow is suffering from a mental illness, and so to him all of Dow's posting are then possibly infected with that mental illness.

Me, meanwhile, has seen many of Dow's words with his actual intended meanings. I've taken his words at face value, because I'm familiar with a person who's done much the same as Dow is doing but who very definitely wasn't suffering from a mental illness.

Which of us is doing him down? The one of us who takes what he says at face value and responds on that basis, or the one of us who thinks that everything he says might be an expression of an illness and would only be patronising in reply because of that?

[feral chile]

No.

The mental illness *MIGHT* prevent them from being rational or autonomous. Because that's the fact of the matter.

Having been made aware of that fact, a person is then on the look out for its effects - which is a perfectly rational thing to do.

And that's what's gone on here. abdoujaparov has seen some things in Dow's posts which have triggered his view that Dow is suffering from a mental illness, and so to him all of Dow's posting are then possibly infected with that mental illness.

Me, meanwhile, has seen many of Dow's words with his actual intended meanings. I've taken his words at face value, because I'm familiar with a person who's done much the same as Dow is doing but who very definitely wasn't suffering from a mental illness.

Which of us is doing him down? The one of us who takes what he says at face value and responds on that basis, or the one of us who thinks that everything he says might be an expression of an illness and would only be patronising in reply because of that?

Edited December 9, 2011 by feral chile

[abdoujaparov]

This is all getting a little confusing for a minor tangent in this thread, but....

The allegations about the service I'm referring to are more in the direction of the (really) mentally ill being 'diagnosed' as not mentally ill.

So you could be using the service, but don't know of it because those clients never reach you.

[abdoujaparov]

And that's what's gone on here. abdoujaparov has seen some things in Dow's posts which have triggered his view that Dow is suffering from a mental illness, and so to him all of Dow's posting are then possibly infected with that mental illness.

[eFestivals]

so you mean that there could be mentally ill people who could be eligible for our services but they are being weeded out because our referrers are using a remote diagnosis service to determine that they are not mentally ill? Is there any evidence that community mental health teams and mental health in-patient facilities are using these services? Because that's where our referrals come from. It seems unlikely to me

I'm not aware of any evidence of that, nope.

But until I mentioned it, you weren't aware of this process happening at all, anywhere. So who knows? Not me, and not you.

[eFestivals]

I'm seeing Peter as a person, some of whose behaviour may be influenced by issues around his mental health.

so what I said then.

That does not mean I am dismissing any or anything that he is saying

Dismissing, perhaps not.

Devaluing, very definitely - because you believe that some of his "behaviour may be influenced by issues around his mental health".

- unlike those who are happy to label him as a mentalist and an idiot.

labelling what he says as that, not him.

show me where I have been patronising in direct response to anything Peter has said. Why is it better to take something at "face value" and dismiss the writer as an idiot?

As far as I'm aware, you've not directly responded to anything he's said.

But what you have done is said to the rest of us "Peter is mentally ill, treat him differently because of that".

You'll probably deny that's what you meant, but whether that's what you meant or not that's certainly how things pans out, because otherwise there'd be no purpose in you having raised that.

Whether Peter is ill of not, there is no harm whatsoever in responding to what he says on the basis of what he says.

[abdoujaparov]

But what you have done is said to the rest of us "Peter is mentally ill, treat him differently because of that".

You'll probably deny that's what you meant, but whether that's what you meant or not that's certainly how things pans out, because otherwise there'd be no purpose in you having raised that.

[abdoujaparov]

labelling what he says as that, not him.

[eFestivals]

no, labelling him....for example:

It's talking about what he's saying rather than him. It references what he's saying.

People form opinions on others via their actions and words. Just because that opinion is expressed with particular words doesn't mean that the words used have to be meant or taken in the literal sense you've chosen to take them as.

I've used the word 'nuts' &/or 'nutter' to refer to him &/or what he's said. I've used those same words against the likes of Blair, Brown, Cameron and others who make what I believe to be similarly nutty political statements.

Do you really think I'm meaning how you're choosing to take my choice of words? If you do, I suggest a bit of self-analysis before you start on others.

Edited December 9, 2011 by eFestivals

[feral chile]

It's talking about what he's saying rather than him. It references what he's saying.

People form opinions on others via their actions and words. Just because that opinion is expressed with particular words doesn't mean that the words used have to be meant or taken in the literal sense you've chosen to take them as.

I've used the word 'nuts' &/or 'nutter' to refer to him &/or what he's said. I've used those same words against the likes of Blair, Brown, Cameron and others who make what I believe to be similarly nutty political statements.

Do you really think I'm meaning how you're choosing to take my choice of words? If you do, I suggest a bit of self-analysis before you start on others.

[Ed209]

So, it's perfectly acceptal to label someone as "mental" or whatever, but it's unethical to sugest that there may be more to it than someone being a bit weird....

what a topsy-turvy view of ethics you have

[abdoujaparov]

You called people idiots on this board, you might have even called people crazy or a nutter, we've all done it. But there's a difference between calling someone crazy, mental and idiot, whatever, and then coming on here and citing your "expertise" to say someone is mentally ill. (This is aside from the fact that from what you've said, you don't have any formal academic training in psychiatry.)

If you're going to spend your time on these boards playing Mr Sanctimonious, then you can't be too surprised when people start taking the moral high ground with you.

[eFestivals]

If you think that it's sanctimonious not to join in the playground taunting of someone who may have mental health issues, then I'd rather be sanctimonious than a thoughtless twat if they are the options on offer.

Yet there's been no playground taunting.

What you have taken as that is people's views on what Dow has said, nothing more and nothing less.

Just because you've chosen to take literally the words that people have chosen to use does not make their meaning to be what you chose to read it as.

[kaosmark2]

I have never said that anyone is mentally ill. What I have said, for the nth time of explaining, is that there might be an explanation for Peter Dow's opinions/behaviour/circumstance other than him being a "mentalist" or a "lunatic" and, if you took that into consideration, you might approach him differently and you might have a different understanding of him as a person. Nothing more and nothing less. You have chosen to interpret that in your own way. It's much easier to dismiss someone as a lunatic, I guess.

To back up my views, I have said that I have professional experience going back 20 odd years. You can accept that or not, the choice is yours. Whatever your assumptions may be, I have experience and training in working with the mentally ill - I havent come on here and shot my mouth off from a position of total ignorance, unlike some.

If you think that it's sanctimonious not to join in the playground taunting of someone who may have mental health issues, then I'd rather be sanctimonious than a thoughtless twat if they are the options on offer.

[abdoujaparov]

Yet there's been no playground taunting.

What you have taken as that is people's views on what Dow has said, nothing more and nothing less.

Just because you've chosen to take literally the words that people have chosen to use does not make their meaning to be what you chose to read it as.

[abdoujaparov]

Um, your first post in this thread:

Edited December 9, 2011 by abdoujaparov

[eFestivals]

we could argue this til the cows come home... but what I have seen are words that appear to be directed at the person, not what he has said (mentalist, lunatic etc etc). But you have your views, I have mine. I suspect that we are never going to change each others minds

I've been saying all morning with great topical timing that Dave Moron is a nutter, crazy, that he's lost his marbles.

Despite saying that, I'm not thinking that anyone needs to be calling him a doctor.

I'm not even thinking that someone needs to call him the services of a Housing Association pen-pusher.

C'mon, get a grip. You're at least as far from real life as anything you suspect of Peter Dow.

[russycarps]

I think I called someone a tit earlier on in another thread, this doesnt mean I think they are a huge disembodied wobbly fleshy boob with a typing wand strapped to it.

[abdoujaparov]

What a clown you are...

[abdoujaparov]

I'm not even thinking that someone needs to call him the services of a Housing Association pen-pusher.