Sociopsychopath
29 02 2008I was recently assessed by some counsellor-type people who decided that they “didn’t want me on their books” - I’m not mentally ill; success!
They were quite flattering overall, telling me my interpersonal skills were “highly developed, if in the wrong direction” (highly developed? Hmm…) and I think I realised during the course of the thing just how much psychology, psychiatry and philosophy I actually knew from reading, despite not reading enough. I felt a pang of bitterness that most of my insights (which have recently turned out to be true in many cases but I shan’t go into this for ego-inflating reasons) are ignored by peers who believe they know better*, I think I am beginning to realise that things are going to fall into place, although they may take a long, long time.
This should be interesting.
From the Wikipedia article on psychosis:
Thomas Szasz focused on the social implications of labelling people as psychotic; a label he argues unjustly medicalises different views of reality so such unorthodox people can be controlled by society. Psychoanalysis has a detailed account of psychosis which differs markedly from Psychiatry. Freud and Lacan outlined their perspective on the structure of psychosis in a number of works.
Pax
* There is definitely such a thing as a mixed state in bipolar disorder, Will, and I’m sure Stephen Fry knows it… 
I know that there is a thing called mixed state which is associated with bipolar disorder but it is certainly not the main case with bipolar disorder. The whole point about bipolar generally is that it is polar and therefore you switch sometimes very quickly from being very high to very low and these are normally separate and it is only in certain cases that these two states occur simultaneously.
I’m not contesting that bipolar is characterised by bipolarity. However, the mixed state is highly significant - it has the greatest suicide risk! The reason most people suffer from bipolar for ages is that a) They don’t kill themselves for a long time because of rapid cycling b) The cycling loses them credibility when they ask for help.
Bipolar II has a higher risk because of the increased frequency of mixed state.
Anyway, you implied strongly that you didn’t know there was a mixed state:
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Of course, you know NOW but are holding onto your own argument which is something I once did - I wouldn’t recommend it.