I decided to write this message to ensure that I will look like a real ass if I break down and post again. it has transpired that I think I have said pretty much everything I have to say on this messageboard and that as a consequence of that and of curbing the internet addiction that I happen ot have, to break off now. if something drastically changes that had happened in my own life that I
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotenutrinoa case of what happens when men abuse estrogen ? as nutrino and I have already discussed via PM, as a MTF transsexual I pretty strenuously disagree with the "what happens when men abuse estrogen" crack. that said, carry on culting!
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

society values lots of things. back to your tip on overgeneralization, most people have not themselves gone through or witnessed for themselves psychiatric abuse like electroshock or forced institutionalization that causes trauma. rather than overgeneralizing the fact that this goes on, they exclude. I simply don't deny that certain unpleasant scene occur and all but demand (if I had
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

nutrino, a NPR-style mindnumb discussion has no appeal to me. I don't get paid for the word, you know. simply, the question of psychiatry's monolithic nature remains a side issue and relatively irrelevant except as fodder for an (as I said) NPR-style wordfest. the question of whether or psychiatry hurts or helps more (and I don't think of as a much of a question, but othe
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

nutrino, this critique will sound harsh, I don't mean you ill will, but what a sorry excuse... I have heard that response so many times. the authoritarian Marxists have used the same excuse, that the dictatorship of the proletariat will end and will have utopia. of course we know (have a large suspicion at any rate) that would not have happened. the Landmark apologists you have r
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

we hung out over much of Saturday and Sunday. Friday I had called her and a few of the things that I told her worried her so much that she came to visit me. (we live about four or five hours away by car.) I cannot summarize what has happened to me since last year. too much. too much to explain. we talked and I said to her that her conversion experience had changed the way I look at othe
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepoorchReindeer, I share some of your concerns about the field of psychiatry. I don't, however, write it off as a whole. Psychiatry is not a hard science like physics, but it does contain hard science components, eg biochemistry. It also contains soft science components, such as behavioural psych. Scientology contains neither hard science (reproduceable results) nor soft science (st
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

nutrino, I do not consider it a bad myth to help or even save others. the evil comes in with the buried anger or resentment that comes in there, too. and the expected response of, "now you have saved me, I will give you over to me now". say what you want about false heroes. I like to think that true ones do exist.
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

QuoterrmoderatorScientologists typically say it's the "drug companies" behind the psychiatrists working in a conspiracy. which, in all seriousness, they do. George W. Bush endorsed a plan called the New Freedom Initiative. which plans to give every resident of the united states (not all at once but starting with the high school demographic and moving on to seniors) a psychiatric
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

QuotepoorchQuotedurhamWell LRH was attacking practices in psychiatry since the 50s-that's where most of the attacks against Scientology stem from. I think any organised group attacking psychiatry is going to get attacked right back (the powerful people behind psychiatry may not be positive but they're not stupid). And without organisation I don't think you're going to achieve
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

QuotedurhamWell LRH was attacking practices in psychiatry since the 50s-that's where most of the attacks against Scientology stem from. I think any organised group attacking psychiatry is going to get attacked right back (the powerful people behind psychiatry may not be positive but they're not stupid). And without organisation I don't think you're going to achieve much again
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

yes, I realize that they have a larger agenda. to a degree I share in that agenda. their critique of psychiatry goes well beyond the use of psychiatric drugs. actually, so does mine. I would not want to live in a world where therapy and counselling got outlawed. however, we do live in a world where a police officer can get you put in a psych ward, where after a cursory examination a psychiatr
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

I do not endorse Scientology at all but again I felt compelled to respond about SSRI's... QuotenutrinoScientology cannot account for the great social benefits derived from the Serotonin Specific Reuptake Inhibitors... a major class of emotionally regulating medicines now taken by millions of people for depression, excess aggression, obsessive thought patterns, compulsive behaviors, and wi
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

QuotekathI think the problem is that if I use the terms ADHD, therapy or medication, you think I am using them as a disparaging term. Such is the stigma of mental illness. you may think that mental illness has a stigma. I say that mental illness gets used to describe behaviors stigmatized by society (often for good reason).
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotebarabaraIt occurs to me that the children called "indigos" have been discussed here as having ADHD; in other words, abnormal until around thirty years ago the American Psychiatric Association also defined defined homosexuality as a disorder. QuoteWho, exactly, sets the standards for normality, anyway? each and every one of us. however those with media access and political an
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

abnormal doesn't mean bad. a normal white resident of Atlanta in 1850 would have had no problem with slavery.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteBirdI think she is too intelligent to be swayed by the bad points of this her intelligence won't make her immune. they work on the emotions.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

aum...
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotekathQuoteAcid ReindeerI got an e-mail from a man with Asperger's who said that he had never met anyone who regreted having Asperger's. this information surprised me, actually. you can make of that what you will... Those with aspergers often have co-existing depression or anxiety which they would rather be without. IMHO psychiatry doesn't help with its idea that you can &qu
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotekath It'd be hard and probably counterproductive to completely deny that having autism, ADHD etc. brings with it difficulties in this world, however. yes, so adjust the world, not them or rather us. go back to my example of the left handed students in the Soviet school system. not sure where this goes with the other thoughts but I have two friends who have autistic brothers (one o
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

sorry, I didn't fact-check myself. you hadn't called synethesia a defect. the part of the site you quoted called synesthesia a "brain defect". we can debate whether or not to call autism a disability, I just thought that I would point out that from most of the perspective of people labelling themselves as on the autistic spectrum, they don't, as far as I can make out.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

the description of indigo children reads to me like bright kids who happen to realize their brightness versus a personality trait that exists in and of itself. two points to add, I had not really heard of synesthesia considered as a defect before. and the autistic online community, the same community thta coined the term, neurodiversity does not really describe themselves as "suffering&qu
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteshaktiSigh, this discussion has become stupidly simplified and polarized in a way that is beneficial to the Indigo dupes. not from my end, I don't buy the Indigo Children idea, exactly, however I strongly disbelieve that the current model of giving out Ritalin and psych drugs helps. regardless of whatever else (lax discipline or whatever) may also not help.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

that might just result in messages like this: Quote
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotekathQuoteAcid Reindeer what makes ADHD and better descriptor than Indigo Child, then? Parents who accept an ADHD diagnosis are more likely to accept ADHD treatment options which actually have some scietific proof behind them that they help children. Love Kath "Preteen Use of Ritalin Increase Depression", according to studies with rats. pretty much what you would expect if y
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteLoelaSo how are you doing now? not super well. my second and final institutionalization happened long enough ago that I consider the experiences as a part of me. not a good part of me. I can't look at the world the same way that I did before I got put inside. of course, I never did. my experiences inside simply made me know for sure what I already believed about how the world worked.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotekath'Indigo' is a euphemism for a child with ADHD, as Doreen Virtue clearly outlines in her book 'The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children.' what makes ADHD and better descriptor than Indigo Child, then?
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteLoelaWhy would Harvard University afficiate itself with McLean? I don't know. the wikipedia entry on McLean will have at least some of that information as will the book Gracefully Insane by Alex Beam. (I have a bit of a problem with this book. for one thing, it discretely fails to mention the fact that one of McLean's psychiatrists, Harold Williams, who played a large part in my
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quoteskeptical inquirerThis gal hinted that I should look into Gurdjieff, and I read one of his books and found it somewhat interesting but in the end kind of loopy as well. as a bit of conventional wisdom, I think most people reccomend reading the introductions to Gurdjieff written by other writers like Ouspensky (I don't recall his other acolytes off-hand) rather than by Gurdjieff himse
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quoteskeptical inquirerThat description fits her group, as far as I can tell. She never named it, and I think she used the term "fourth way." any Gurdjieff group would use the phrase Fourth Way. Gurdjieff detailed four spiritual paths which might appeal to different kinds of people and described his own as the fourth way.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"