Polar opposites

Came across an interesting comment in L. Ron Hubbard's book Science of Survival. It is to the effect that the rougher the condition a person is in, the gentler must be one's approach when trying to help them.

So, if you wanted to try to help someone who is obviously psychotic, your approach or the technique that you might use must be that much more gentle and "light" than your approach could be to someone in good shape. The basic idea is that someone in good shape is better able to handle more things and so is more capable of confronting serious problems or difficulties they may have.

This seems so obvious that it almost seems trivial to say.

It even applies in life -- and we apply it intuitively. You meet a guy you'd known in high school and he's doing well at his job, family is fine and you can tell he likes to joke around. You might exchange friendly insults with him, perhaps even crack on his momma, the loss of his hair of the new belly he's sporting.

A week later you run into him again and he looks horrible. You find out his wife and children were killed by a drunk driver.

Unless you are a complete idiot, you don't start teasing him about his loss of hair. You tread lightly. You let him do the talking, if he wants to. You even tend to talk more quietly and want to try to keep things calm around him. You might even ask if he needs anything like food or help around the house since you know there's a good chance he's ignoring the basics of life at the moment. All natural reactions and appropriate.

He's what the shrink does: If someone is doing okay in life, they might just have a conversation with the person, though they are just as likely to try to find something wrong. But, if the person is having a rough time, the shrink's inclination is to molest the person with mind altering drugs. Not, mind you, the inclination that every other sane person might have which would be to keep things calm and gentle - psych drugs are an assault with horrible, disturbing side effects.

If that doesn't work and the person is doing even worse, the shrink ups the violence and sends 120 volts of electricity through their head to CAUSE a grand mal seizure (something everyone else in the medical profession tries to avoid).

If that doesn't work and the person is even worse off, the shrink might stick the guy in restraints.

And, for the really bad off, the shrink decides it's time to really get serious and permanently maim the person (as if the electric shock didn?t already accomplish that) by cutting out portions of the brain.

It is so absurd, it doesn't compute. It doesn't line up with obvious, common experience.

I think the major mistake the rest of us make is deciding "there must be something I don't know because they are obviously an expert at this" instead of facing up to the obvious which is "these shrinks are so insane that they do the opposite of what any rational human being would do and they do it to the most vulnerable amongst us -- they must be criminally insane themselves."

And, guess what? If we took that second attitude some kindness, gentleness and, yes, even sanity, might enter into the field of mental health and we might start to see success rates as were being achieved in the 1800's when that type of approach WAS used with the mentally ill.

Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace?

What a novel thought - treating those who are having a rough time of it with some kindness!