The Standard Review

Medicine for Social Anxiety

In order to market a product a desire for the product needs to be developed. Business today is much more about either establishing that desire or following the already established trend. Marketing practical products by appealing to people's need to have basic security is more difficult and less profitable.

The market driven unhealthy competition encouraged in most social situations creates anxiety that can be very advantageous to the industry that provides the products to help with that anxiety but most people are ultimately hurt by these enterprises. Their welfare is of little concern to these businesses because they worry about money now rather than long term security. What they have now gives them leverage for creating a future and marketing trends are difficult to anticipate.

A commercial on television for psychiatric drugs so clearly describes to me the creation of social anxiety, which then provides the product for the relief. The commercial targets people who are alone and yet not wanting to be by showing the pleasant social interaction in contrast. The voice at some point during the advertisement becomes more monotone as they describe the side effects of these drugs. They of course say nothing about the population of people using the drugs having a 25 year less life expectancy, the lack of research and efforts to make the drugs safer, nor do they mention how the drugs are tested first on the people who are least able afford them.

Using drugs, which lighten the physical and mental distress of social situations that are not directly controlled the FDA are considered by psychologists to be self-medicating drugs. Psychology is an industry who works together with the pharmaceutical industry to define normal vs. abnormal and then treats the deficits they define.

The drug industry, however, is showing no responsibility in association with this control.

This is a very interesting article: The Truth About the Drug Companies

Concerning US health care it says:

Drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill—which itself is rising at an alarming rate. The increase in drug spending reflects, in almost equal parts, the facts that people are taking a lot more drugs than they used to, that those drugs are more likely to be expensive new ones instead of older, cheaper ones, and that the prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year.

AND later it says this:


Furthermore, in one of the more perverse of the pharmaceutical industry's practices, prices are much higher for precisely the people who most need the drugs and can least afford them. The industry charges Medicare recipients without supplementary insurance much more than it does favored customers, such as large HMOs or the Veterans Affairs (VA) system. Because the latter buy in bulk, they can bargain for steep discounts or rebates. People without insurance have no bargaining power; and so they pay the highest prices.

AND:

But while the rhetoric is stirring, it has very little to do with reality. First, research and development (R&D) is a relatively small part of the budgets of the big drug companies—dwarfed by their vast expenditures on marketing and administration, and smaller even than profits. In fact, year after year, for over two decades, this industry has been far and away the most profitable in the United States. (In 2003, for the first time, the industry lost its first-place position, coming in third, behind "mining, crude oil production," and "commercial banks.") The prices drug companies charge have little relationship to the costs of making the drugs and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening R&D.

Second, the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The great majority of "new" drugs are not new at all but merely variations of older drugs already on the market. These are called "me-too" drugs. The idea is to grab a share of an established, lucrative market by producing something very similar to a top-selling drug. For instance, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, and the newest, Crestor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first. As Dr. Sharon Levine, associate executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, put it,

   


             "If I'm a manufacturer and I can change one molecule and get           another twenty years of patent rights, and convince physicians to prescribe and consumers to demand the next form of Prilosec, or weekly Prozac instead of daily Prozac, just as my patent expires, then why would I be spending money on a lot less certain endeavor, which is looking for brand-new drugs?[4] "





The me-too market would collapse virtually overnight if the FDA made approval of new drugs contingent on their being better in some important way than older drugs already on the market. Probably very few new drugs could meet that test. By default, then, drug companies would have to concentrate on finding truly innovative drugs, and we would finally find out whether this much-vaunted industry is turning out better drugs. A welcome by-product of this reform is that it would also reduce the incessant and enormously expensive marketing necessary to jockey for position in the me-too market. Genuinely important new drugs do not need much promotion (imagine having to advertise a cure for cancer).

A second important reform would be to require drug companies to open their books. Drug companies reveal very little about the most crucial aspects of their business. We know next to nothing about how much they spend to bring each drug to market or what they spend it on. (We know that it is not $802 million, as some industry apologists have recently claimed.) Nor do we know what their gigantic "marketing and administration" budgets cover. We don't even know the prices they charge their various customers. Perhaps most important, we do not know the results of the clinical trials they sponsor—only those they choose to make public, which tend to be the most favorable findings. (The FDA is not allowed to reveal the results it has.) The industry claims all of this is "proprietary" information. Yet, unlike other businesses, drug companies are dependent on the public for a host of special favors—including the rights to NIH-funded research, long periods of market monopoly, and multiple tax breaks that almost guarantee a profit. Because of these special favors and the importance of its products to public health, as well as the fact that the government is a major purchaser of its products, the pharmaceutical industry should be regarded much as a public utility.

Autism Speaks is an excellent example of how industry is making decisions about autistics without autistics. The charity Autism Speak's demands are consistent with how the drug industry creates profits. However, with what I am reminded of in this article, the drug industry that is tied to psychology industry is not only deciding who we are and how we should act (along with how we are acting wrong), but they are designing what and how we think in ways that serve the industry's welfare.

Of course allowing industry to design and implement a behavioral modification program such as ABA/PBS in public schools and other institutions where people have been diagnosed as behaviorally unfit would give a great deal of authority to that industry. People need to be very careful before allowing that industry to assume such authority.

We all aren't going to be politicians and political policy is decided by industry profits in ways that will lesson our rights. Autistic people aren't being heard and our exclusion is based on the same standards that have always excluded us. It's impossible to judge each other by mainstream standards that ultimately exclude us and rise above those standards at the same time. Either we change the standards, or we won't fit. The compromises aren't practical.

Conflict of Interest

One myth that causes a lot of confusion and upset is that people are either competitive or lazy, or they are instead being passive/aggressive. Such motivations can only be attributed to people based on their behaviors and behaviors are too often narrowly judged by too few comparisons.

Once these judgments have been made in error they are too often accompanied by undue punishment. This is one reason that behavioral therapy can be so destructive even when it is described as constructive.

Due to the way that society is taught to chase trends based on emotion and impulse, independent thinking and the liberation it encourages is greatly discouraged. The ways we are taught to be consumers is heavily influenced by behavior modification methods.


Once people who for whatever reason are otherwise unable to determine their circumstances has their motivation judged by a narrow set of standards the ways they can be controlled and manipulated have few limitations.

It is very inconvenient to not be chasing what someone else claims that the majority wants (which is typically motivated by commercialism) or to want something so extravagant as safety and individual expression. It is typically fine for people to join in and advocate with others to attain something so that everyone can be judged by the same standard but to individually express what no one else seems to be in control of, even an expression that is an essential need such as safety or human rights, it is seen as aberrant and dangerous.

At the same time, evidence is growing to show the mental health industry as serving as the protectors of the public rather than wanting to provide therapy and rehabilitation to the population they label. The education that psychology provides is also meant to provide a standard of normal behavior that they know will exclude many people who society wants to dispose of. What are described as learning disorders can exclude people for racing thoughts, attention deficit, being overly excitable, and for generally not being able follow directions.

Thinking in specific ways and the ability to chase trends is very important in today's society. It not only determines what we buy and when we buy it, but it also impacts what products are chosen for international trade, what employers are looking for, and therefore, how we judge intelligence and even character.

The combination of quick prejudicial and unreasonable judgments about what people think along with a growing demand for a mainstream consciousness allows autistic people to be very vulnerable to abuse and neglect along with warehousing for the disenfranchised or for when all else seems to fail.

The best way I know for including more people and changing the thinking that leads to so much oppression is encouraging people to think independently and express independent thoughts. The narrower our judgments become about what people want and what their motivations are the more dependent we are on people who can make our decisions for us. Including more people who think different things or think in different ways is an important part of what will turn that around.

Incomplete Assignment

The judgment of how people think as in good vs. bad and smart vs. not smart is how the terms high vs. low functioning are justified.

When it comes to types of thinking (in three divisions of intelligence, pathology, and neurology) all labels are assigned in terms of severity by the amount which is determined that someone's thinking deviates from the norm.There is no diversity but instead only hierarchy.

People who are with the least resources will ultimately have all these divisions disappear and will be classified as simply having their thinking to be wrong and bad. The only reason the divisions exist in the first place is so that supposedly there will be therapy and/or accommodations but once someone has reached a level of convenient isolation from the public, they are all placed in one group who are simply seen as bad and a drain on public resources.

Sometimes that includes warehousing with walls and sometimes the warehousing that is isolating and abusive by the same institutional methods is without the walls.

Advocates often dismiss this population in the same way as public programs do. People who have attempted to create advocacy movements or a culture who speaks on a behalf of a group that includes this population have been every bit as exclusive.

Debates are held within a realm that discounts every statement made by them and demeans them as much and sometimes more than those who were considered their oppressors.

One of the ways people in the United States declare a democracy is by those who have the power to do so assigning a false label of power to oppress populations so that they will seem justified in further oppressing them.

It's sort of like planting a weapon on someone after they've been killed by someone else with a weapon. The weapon really never did them any good, but now it can be seen as though the killers aggression was justified by needing to protect themselves.

This is the largest group of people and yet those who claim to be helping them never encourage them to have independent thoughts or to share what they have learned from their experience.

For whatever reason they have become isolated, they are now seen as the craziest, the dumbest, or those with the greatest impairment in thinking for whatever reason in order to justify the original false hierarchy of judgments that divided them in the first place. My experience is that these judgments are due only to their circumstances and resources and serve only to "protect" the public from having to acknowledge their existence by conveniently making them invisible.

The moral justification for excluding this group has no basis in fact. Yet they are further labeled as having rights and being empowered in places where they are not. The claim is that the standards are the same for everyone, but it is not factored in how most people who have no way of determining our fate do not have anything like the level of resources as those who speak on our behalf.

The claims I have seen of creating an autistic community have not accepted any responsibility for avoiding this injustice as they move forward. Instead I see political pragmatism as being a guide for all decisions made on behalf of the autistic population. I sincerely hope this will change.

I have never seen a political effort to liberate this group. I have never seen a culture who aspired to include them. Many who are part of this group at this point will tell you that they don't care. Many are also accepting of the value judgments of others who see them as unworthy of encouragement. For this group to be encouraged the standards that exclude them need to be reviewed. The walls created by privileged peoples attitudes need to be torn down and then people will see this otherwise invisible group and hear from them as to what they want and need for true inclusion to occur.

Disabling Attitudes

Around 1980 the mood and attitude toward civil rights changed quite drastically in the US.

Along with more incentives and less regulations on business came a resurgence of the idea that better enabling the best and the brightest would also allow resources to trickle down to those who were really in need.

The ideals of unregulated capitalism support the old ideas of how charitable organizations pity disabled people rather than getting involved and accepting their difference in how that requires support.

The slogan of the disability community "nothing about us without us" is meant to help in the battle against the hierarchical notions that exclude disabled people. This means that a disability is not simply similar to a characteristic of our appearance but instead is something that defines how we need to be equally enabled like the rest of society. You can't truly be respectful of disabled people by showing their strengths in the way that they would commonly be revered in typical society at the expense of the people who are truly in need in of what are now considered atypical supports. You can't overcome ugly stereotypes of people by supporting values that encourage those people to be seen as ugly.

It is insulting to disabled people to focus on how some people can overcome the unrealistic typical standards that other disabled people do or how they are simply not the ugly stereotype. Doing that supports the standard rather than changing it. It makes disability advocates less unified and more competitive rather than encouraging and supporting people right where they are.

In the early 1980s the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) which has been shown to receive more than half of its funding from the pharmaceutic industry stole the independence from the population they claim to serve along with many of their opportunities to personally fight for their civil rights.

The majority of the participants in this so-called advocacy organization where parents of those affected rather than the people themselves. As the result of the parents domination within this organization NAMI was enabled to be highly instrumental in government decisions that were not in the best interest of those who are most affected by the laws.

Kendra's Law is an excellent example of this. Kendra's Law is based on the claim that schizophrenic episodes are likely to result in violence. The claim goes to support a law that allows family members, spouses, friends, and mental health workers to demand that someone be admitted to a psychiatric facility (which can begin with out patient care and forced medication)without their consent.

The people who are allowed to make these decisions are not the ones who have an understanding of what these facilities are like as a result of having been there. They would also not have the same understanding of how the police and mental health workers would be likely to abuse this law in ways that would justify their abuse.

The majority of people who understand how these laws directly affect this population would not support this law. The fact that most of these people don't vote is part of how they are further exploited. Supporting standards that give the best and the brightest the right to make all the decisions that affect them is extremely disabling.

This is Mental Illness Awareness Week and I would like to remind people that there is little power that this population has to influence decisions that are made about their lives. It is a perfect example of everything "about us without us".

People who advocate for the rights of autistic people need to be very cautious and remember how historical events have exposed our disabling attitudes and exposed what are methods of advocacy that have harmed rather than helped those whom they claimed they were serving.

When I hear people use the term "with autism" rather than autistic (and at the same time claim that they are neurodiversity advocates) in order to have their message more broadly heard and accepted it causes me to question their sincerity or at least their judgment. Jim Sinclair as shown the importance for using first-person language very clearly. To claim that it is more reasonable to join the majority is a way that people show their support for personalities and personal messengers and getting any message across rather than support for the real message and disrespects the experiences that have taught people why this is important. Ultimately disrespects and even exploits the people themselves.

It is not reasonable to support standards that glorify the pursuit of what is unattainable for most people. Neurodiversity advocates need to be careful of how they dilute what is important about the message at the expense of those whom it is important to.

I am often reminded of the following message and its importance in the struggle for human rights. It shows why we should be most concerned with not promoting exclusive standards. Supporting exclusive standards is simply exploitation. Someone's rights are protected at the expense of someone else's.


When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Responsibility and Sanity

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, the way that modern society demands conformity serves as a reminder to some people of the need for neurodiversity.

The quick and simple way that modern psychology often defines insanity is by the claim that repeating an action and expecting a different result is insane. This broad simplistic view supports the demand for the public to adhere to many unreasonable conventions.

With each unreasonable demand of the public comes an equally hostile revolt from the public. This leads to the public demanding harsher treatments of oppressed populations by showing the hostility in people who have fewer opportunities to make planned responses. Their rush to judgment is described by those who  judge them as irresponsibility.

The commercial view of autism is geared toward generating charitable funds for research. The goal is to promote impulse buying (or impulsive contributions to charity and impulsively looking for ways to "treat" autistics). An impulse buy is what you see closest to the cash register at the supermarket. The products there are meant to encourage intense emotion that will override the customer's rational sensibilities.

The same type of emotional marketing is used to sell extreme autism treatments and build dramatic autism organizations. Due to some people's relationship to how autism is marketed, they encourage the dramatic market itself and their dramatic role in the market. Acceptance of autism makes life much less dramatic and therefore, autistics who are accepting, and their accepting families are excluded from the popular realm where autism is defined. Acceptance just isn't as marketable.

An autistic speaking or writing about civil rights is treated by this public as someone frivolously ranting who doesn't know the "real" problem. Keeping these autistics silent about the way they are treated allows for even worse treatment by those who are promoting the popular marketing campaign.

The statistics that describe how many autistics are being diagnosed clearly shows that civil rights is a major issue but again the mainstream marketing campaign falsely uses those statistics to redirect the focus.

To further complicate the problem this campaign includes having schools focus more of their attention on behavior by demanding statewide PBS in all schools. This program places the most intense focus on those described as having a behavioral disorder (which of course includes autistics).

Unfortunately, within the political environment this creates, autistic rights advocates and the disability rights advocates who support autistic rights are not able to hold a position that is contrary to the political campaign that promotes the negative stereotypes which are causing the problem.

Even when the mainstream media reports on how an autistic person has been abused, instead of focusing on the social factors that promote this abuse, the story is used to promote more funding for extreme treatments and/or research funding for "disease" cures.

As a resident of the United States I am well aware of how finance obstructs justice. I am aware of how marketing campaigns don't need to be practical or even responsible for how they conduct business.

Just as politicians are promoting normalizing ABA treatments by describing them as medically necessary, the pharmaceutical industry has redefined psychology as the treatment of medical disorders so that psychiatric medicine can be further used to restrain and subdue this population.

In the same way that psychology can teach a person more rational responses to inappropriate situations, the furthering of the agenda to make autism a medical disorder or to try to normalize behavior using inappropriate and irrational means of doing that is irresponsible. The psychology/psychiatry industry isn't being held accountable for these misdeeds as they should be.

The elimination of disability is impractical. Unrealistic expectations lead people to chase dragons. Once their expectation is not met in the way or in the time frame that they expect they feel betrayed. The feeling of betrayal leads to hostility and hostility promotes more irrational and impractical behavior.

There is a worldwide campaign to eliminate disability, which has and does lead to the elimination of disabled people. Many people outside of the disability community as well as those who are attempting to eliminate autism or normalize autistics seem to be unaware of the dangers of these unrealistic ideals.

People whose responses are seen to be the result of a learning disability, a mental disorder, or a neurological malfunction are often mistreated in the same way. The inappropriate ways that people respond to this combined population remind me that responses that are glorified as "appropriate" are often only described that way because the people who have the power to do so are involved in this as a means of self promotion.

Insanity defined as doing the same thing over and expecting different results cannot be effectively treated with insane methods. Being irresponsible will cancel someone's ability to teach responsibility. The groups that are involved in creating impulsive emotions to aid autistics need to step away from the commercial drama they are involved with in order to find creative practical methods for making their life better along with the lives of those around them.

Where Everybody Knows their Place

One of the themes I often write about is how the U.S. mental health care system is too often misinterpreted. This system was designed to protect the public rather than aid the recipient of the care.

The attitude that has been developed from this original design still compliments the goals of many of the enterprises that provide this care and that continues to greatly influence how that care is given.

Many modern Americans who got involved in attempting to change the government at one time or another were misled (or rather betrayed) because they were raised to believe in an unattainable status of middle class citizenship that they hoped to secure. In such a world of unattainable ideals there will be chaos, which demands uncreative minds to seek better methods of control. The more chaos they see the stricter they make their methods of control.

A corrupted system causes people to feel betrayed. Feeling betrayed leads to more erratic emotions and chaotic situations, which can again lead to the lack of inspiration and creative thinking where people again seek inappropriate methods of control. Of course inappropriate methods of control are how people again feel betrayed and how systems are further corrupted.

Psychiatric medications are advancing at a much slower rate than other medications with the same high level of demand due to how the population of people who take these medications are respected (or rather disrespected) in society.

The number of people receiving these medications is increasing and the age at which they begin taking these medications is decreasing.

The health problems these medications causes which are described as side effects are revealed in how the lifespan is shortened (this study says by 25 years) in mental health patients.

You will also find many school systems now describing a type of restraint known as chemical restraints. This is of course psychiatric medication.

One of the safety measures that is used for these medications is known as a "therapeutic dose." While such a therapeutic dose is written on the labels of medication bottles these standards do not apply when authorized by a physician in a mental health facility as a type of restraint.

Furthermore, in a mental institution a patient is given more privileges due to their lack of what is considered by the staff to be misbehavior. Of course not only are these privileges taken away when someone is seen to be misbehaving but force that is justified by the claim of needing to restrain is often nothing more than physical punishment.

With more children being diagnosed with psychological problems at earlier ages, more police officers being used in classrooms, and children being tried as adults at earlier ages, the public school systems are merging with mental health systems and corrective institutions.

As I said earlier in this post, the mental health system in the United States was designed for the safety of the public rather than the aid of the client/patient. (the term mental health consumer which is often used indicates choice where there isn't any) In addition to this influence today more than ever we have industries that are dependent on the misbehavior of children as well as adults.

Practically all commercial developments related to autism depends on the mainstream media negative stereotype of autistic people. A public institution will grow to rely on the demand for the services they provide and corporations align themselves with public institutions so that both entities are strengthened. With such alliances all programs involved are given even fewer incentives to change their policies that don't work.

No revisions to the medicare and medicaid programs will be made until the abuses are correctly attributed to the medical profession rather than continuing with the false accusation that the problem is due to the recipients.

Placing the blame on those who don't obtain an education or vocational training justifies a lack of new standards set for the public systems that claim to be providing that.

The reasons mental institutions provide control rather than aid for the patients is because that's what they are designed for.

NAMI (National Alliance for Mentally Ill) describes itself as:

For three decades, NAMI has established itself as the most formidable grassroots mental health advocacy organization in the country.

Over half (56%) of the funding for NAMI comes from the pharmaceutical industry who of course expects them in return to promote their political agenda.

NAMI supports Kendra's Law, which provides more power to parents as well as state and federal authorities to force someone into a mental institution against their will.

They also support this:


A major concern is forced outpatient drugging, which is legal today in 37 states.  Last summer, a similar bill in California, AB1800, was defeated through the help and work of a coalition of human rights organizations and people against forced psychiatry.   Under these laws, a person can be court-ordered to take psychiatric medications, and in fact in 6 of these states it is enforced through dose drop-in visits to verify that the person takes his meds.   This program, named the Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT), has been supported by NAMI, something that many local NAMI groups, and this reporter, object to. The National Empowerment Center has put together a program called PACE to promote the recovery model and provide an alternative to PACT.  The approach of forced drugging has also been introduced in prisons, where the prisoner can be both physically and chemically restrained, creating a chemical prison.


Their reasons for not supporting deinstitutionalization are described here:

*    failure to properly invest in community-based housing and services,
*    lack of accountability in ensuring that public mental health agencies focused limited resources on people with the most severe illnesses
*    inability of states and communities to follow and adopt best evidence-based practices in their public mental health systems, and
*    legal barriers that prevent the most severely ill individuals from accessing needed treatment.

Each of these reasons is the result of pushing for other agenda's. The wording doesn't clearly state what those agendas are at all. The needs that are expressed for this population can't be based on a broad set of ideals. Instead laws must reflect the acceptance of the type of system that is already in place in order to be passed.

Of course NAMI also endorses statewide PBS (Positive Behavioral Supports) in public schools.

Ten Best Practices for Mental Health and Schools by NAMI states this for #2

2. Training school professionals in effective research-based teaching methods and behavioral interventions including positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS).

The need for this PBS in schools is based on the misbehavior of students that is now out of control. Someone who is seen to be misbehaving is labeled as having a behavioral disorder. Once labeled a person is in a category where misbehavior is suspected.

Public institutions want stricter authority on a wider group of people with a staff trained to control behavior. They would claim that this is in the best interest of education. However, in cases where such programs have been implemented an increase in the participants becoming more educated and better trained for vocations has not been shown.

What the US government does not want to admit is that it uses public institutions to label and warehouse misfits. Whenever training is seen as a priority the type of thinking that goes with typical labeling and warehousing becomes a method of exclusion rather than inclusion.

If the United States was truly interested in including a broader majority of the people into the society that is respected, the employment rates would go up, the population of educated people would increase, and the public systems that are already in place would show how they are empowering more people.

Since all the indications are that this is not a government priority it must be understood that government officials will not favor any program that radically shows that any previous inappropriate motivations.

At this point, it is too important for the government to show that the fault with the programs is in those who were receiving them rather than in the providers. This is why when you see the support of government officials for more training in public programs you will see how that training provides more control rather than more motivation and empowerment for a broader group of people.

If it were just a matter of people not doing enough to alter the systems that are already in place you would already see a majority of people benefiting from them. If the majority of people aren't benefiting (which is now the case) you can expect that the public who is being served are those within the minority who have the most influence on public policies and laws.

If a policy or program is introduced to make the system better and doesn't demand a radical change in the attitude that created the faulty system in the first place, you can expect that the goal is to hang on to the old system in a way that the unsuspecting public still views what's happening as improvement.

Inside the Elephant's Cage

The elephant in the living room is used as a metaphor for how a large problem can present itself in a family or social group and yet be ignored and gone around rather than dealt with.

In a similar way we have issues (an elephant) within a broader society based on people not meeting social expectations. The belief is encouraged that we need to expect certain social behaviors from people and they must meet those expectations in order for them to be considered productive and worthy of respect. This restraint is unnecessary.

 

Once an appetite for a product or service has been defined as an economic staple, that which provides the feeding of the appetite is often seen as an absolute bonding agent that society cannot live without.

Unfortunately, when we fail to find ways to encourage people to follow the paths necessary for their security or when people don't all fit in our narrow definitions that preserve the validity of our expectations, the goal becomes the search for a method to encourage  people's efforts and ability in an isolated way in order to preserve our commercialism.

To justify preserving the economy first, it is said that what will ultimately trickle down from opulent banquets this philosophy creates will then in turn feed those who get labeled as unnecessary and obsolete.

Of course the problem is that this sort of limited pragmatism only addresses an immediate goal and doesn't account for how the societal attitudes affect individuals self-respect which inspires them to see how they have valuable assets and can attain them in order to provide for others.

Once a person or group of people has been stripped of their dignity and described as a category of insignificant societal elements which add to the greater burden on society, the problems they present are often fed with more ignorance so that the elephant (metaphorically speaking) grows larger and more inconvenient.

In the United States I have seen how a label of being deficited in one way or another is encouraged as a method to attain commercial provisions for that deficit. The possible problem with this of course is that if the deficited label often brings more exclusion from negative stereotypes than it does the kind of aid that would accommodate them and encourage their inclusion, then the label was nothing more than a trap.

Until we find a way to provide for each according to their need, many so-called methods for attaining "treatment" or "help" can become a massive inconvenient set of traps.

There are many ways to encourage the potential of someone without first defining what they can't do or will never become. The same is true for how we approach behavior problems. An over emphasis on rewards and punishments for how people act (often in ways that are benevolent) leads to an over emphasis on determining the worth of the individual by the nebulous ever-changing standards of behavioral leaders.

The United States has a long and ugly history of warehousing people. People are warehoused due to their behavior or perceived behavior based on what is seen as their impairment. The government institutions called public schools will best serve as a means to encourage children to be creative and strong as well as helping them to have an education, so they can serve the interests of their community in their own way.

No school system has best achieved those goals by first focusing on behavior in order to achieve academic success. If our school system has worse behavior, creating a one-size-fits-all behavioral program in academic settings will teach us to pass or fail at an earlier age and by narrower judgments and will ultimately exclude people's creativity along with the people who have the potential to create.

In regard to spending, it can easily be seen that we spend more money on ways that ultimately exclude and hide the less than welcome people and their undesirable traits than we do on accommodating and encouraging this group in ways that will ultimately motivate and encourage everyone else as well. All this leads to a larger deficit of resources and a detrimental taxing of our humans which is our greatest resource.

Governing the Reaction To Reform

The means to control behavior can produce more defiance than the intended goal in what is considered our progressive society. This allows for expedience to be the deciding factor in issues that require futuristic and rational decisions.

It is natural for someone to want to follow a system where they can make decisions based on their personal perspective rather than be coerced to react due to being unfairly governed.

The belief that transportation was a key element to the growth and prosperity of the United States has led to many valuable inventions, but it has also fed an insatiable need for speed that often impairs our ability to make sound judgments.

There was a time that railroads were seen as a key element to the progress of the United States and our government forced people off their land which they bought for pennies on the dollar in order to expand those railroads. Fighting against the government was sometimes seen as noble for much of the impoverished population who was expected to tolerate this injustice.

Sometimes having a corrupt enemy is seen as a justifiable reason for fighting oppression. Some train robbers were revered because of stories about them which focused on the of risks they took which seemed exciting to rural Americans.  Their enemy could be seen by others in similar situations as a corrupt government.

Too often quick decisions are made without the acceptance of the public who will then be defiant under an oppressive rule.

Quality in the production of substance and service can be overlooked under strict authority. In the United States where capital is king, a monopoly will create just such an environment.

Many will never develop an immunity to the inappropriate and false methods for a leadership they are deceived into trusting . It can cause a rash of righteous indignation for the members of the public who are taught something and later learn it was presented falsely with insincere and inappropriate motivations.

If anyone's behavior should be scrutinized it should be the leadership who does not choose to revise its oppressive demands.

The trend for the role of government is easily corrupted by unearned power. Individual humans have the capacity and even the need to be generous and compassionate.

When the separation a government encourages continues to provide for and support power structures which have already been established even when they have been corrupted, it discourages an individual competitive nature for doing what's right.

This lack of proper motivation creates stagnant and indignant followers for greedy and insensitive leaders. It creates separation between those who have resources and those who do not.

Once the need for the Internet was established and already formed capital giants found someone who could create and defend a mass-market, the Gates foundation was allowed to make many of the rules that would govern our railroad-like Internet. We are now likely to face regulations for the internet by one of two forms corruption which will be similar to earlier failed governments such as socialism or fascism. While one may win over the other, neither will lead to a more creative and independent public.

The insistence on sameness and comfort is how people's vision becomes dull.

Just as the criminal justice system is becoming less tolerant of the behavior of younger people, so are our public institutions including more people who have been excluded due to an ever expanding rationalization for exclusion.

This was written here about behaviorism according to B.F. Skinner:

Skinner claims that, if we want to produce a society where everyone is happy (read: gets lots of positive reinforcement), then we ought to concern ourselves with the unflinching and straightforward control of behavior. Skinner likens his approach to a technology of behavior -- a clear tool for the scientist to design a culture that is positively reinforcing. He claims that if only we follow this technology, laying aside foolish notions of freedom and dignity, we will then be on the road to creating a society where people will feel free and feel dignified (though they will know their behavior is controlled)..

Unfortunately, societal factors have led to quicker and more convenient labeling of behaviors and more expedient methods of extinguishing them. This contributes to dangerous behaviors rather than preventing them.

There have been many attempts over the past years to align the criminal justice system with offenders of less definitive and less violent behavior which opens the door for social discomforts to be criminalized.

Just as terrorism and the threat of terrorism can create an unimaginative government, so can the demands for unstructured governing and adding to the types of inappropriate behaviorists who comply with corporate interests and governmental power be unleashed.

How can treatment of behaviors change much if the way behaviors are seen hasn't changed much?

By its very definition, a relationship must require the responsibility of those who were involved it. When the public needs are dictated by the government, and their desires are overly encouraged by a narrow set of ever-changing rules, a dangerous and difficult cycle can occur.

Before a set of rules and regulations are created and mandated for masses of people, the corporate influences and otherwise unaccountable government which is involved needs to be critically scrutinized in order to see that their direction is productive and encourages more creativity rather than fewer freedoms.

What Will We Do with "Them"?

If inclusion into a group is based on a standard that society has already decided is exclusive due to race, religion, or gender, that standard is more easily recognized as prejudiced. It has already been discovered how when you separate people due to these categorizations, that can be used in exclusive ways with the goal of oppression.

It's easy to claim that there are too many variables within every individual to claim that anyone is "normal" beyond the statistics which typically make overly ambitious claims.

  What we have done in the name of progress has led to what we call landfills which we use to flatten the earth with the indisposable remains of what we needlessly consume.

Our attitudes due to, and the result of, attempting to hide the indisposable remains of our needless physical consumption are similar to how we attempt to dispose of the results of our needless and ugly attitudes rather than revise them.

NIMH will study this:               

Intervention Helps Reduce Risky Sexual Behavior Among Homeless HIV-positive Adults

The degree of success for programs that evolve from such studies need to be weighed along with the stereotypes they encourage. The significance for the study says:

In the United States, HIV infection is more commonly found among populations with significant life stressors, such as homelessness and drug use.

When the population of the homeless is no longer blamed and is instead provided ways to reduce their stressors, studies for how to make them safer from HIV won't need to be questioned as to their negative motives or results. Otherwise the studies need to be defined as how to prevent homeless people from socially infecting society with their reckless unhealthy habits.

This study by NIH is entitled:

Exposure to violence and parenting as mediators between poverty and psychological symptoms in urban African American adolescents.

The question I have for such a study are, " Will the results of this study result in African American  parents of adolescents being less impoverished, becoming more like parents of other races, fewer African American births, or will the study instead mainly do more to encourage more negative stereotypes for the African American community.

Attitudes toward the mentally ill are clearly shown in the treatment they receive.

This describes the criteria for admissions into mental institutions:

"The case records of all patients admitted involuntarily to the psychiatric unit of a teaching general hospital between May 1, 1985, and Apr. 30, 1986, were examined to assess the criteria used for admission in relation to several patient characteristics. Of the 55 patients 42 were admitted under the terms of form 1 (application for psychiatric assessment) and 13 under the terms of form 3 (certificate of involuntary admission). All of the former patients and 70% of the latter were admitted under the criteria for dangerousness; however, one-third of these patients had failed to show any evidence of violent or suicidal behaviour. Most of the patients admitted because of their dangerousness had a nonpsychotic disorder, whereas 83% of those admitted because of lack of competence had a psychotic disorder. These findings are discussed in relation to the criteria for involuntary admission in the 1980 Mental Health Act of Ontario. The difficulties encountered in the admission process by physicians appear to be the result of a lack of clinical considerations and a predominant emphasis on dangerousness."

The U.S. mental health industry is also mainly defined as based on the claim that consumers are dangerous when the dangerous label is really for the protecting the mental health industry from legal suits by the family's of consumers. This further encourages the definition of consumers as violent for purposes of crowd control and behavior modifications being justified based on the claim that they are used on people with dangerous behaviors.

This would tie into how the "new" ABA is being introduced using statewide PBS programs. Once these programs relate to more people, it will seem more acceptable to the public that the guidelines will be adjusted to meet the growing concerns of the public who are afraid of the growing population which the programs are designed to treat.

At The Kansas Institute for Positive Behavior Support (KIPBS) at the University of Kansas says this about how PBS may be used in relation to PCP (Person Centered Planning):

"The goal of PBS is to improve quality of life, not only for a child or adult with a disability, but for all of the individuals within a social network. PBS is now used in many different situations and contexts and with different types of problem behavior such as aggression, property destruction, and self injury. Children with and without disabilities can benefit from the PBS process across home, school, and community settings."

Back in 2003 the DDSN in South Carolina described here how they would like to implement ABA programs with disabled people using A PBS model by first educating their staff for using the programs.

Are the pressures on children the payment for progress or are we failing to revise how older people behave which affects children's behavior?

These are  some guidelines  for how anti-psychotic medication is best used for children in the state of Florida.

The Daytona Beach News Journal writes here:

"The number of children in the Florida Medicaid program prescribed the powerful drugs has nearly doubled from 9,364 kids in 2000 to 18,137 in 2006, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported in January.

Among those children, the most common primary diagnosis was attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — an ailment not approved for treatment with antipsychotics by the Food and Drug Administration or by experts on the disease. "

Another article  desribes this:

  "While doctors are free to prescribe any FDA-approved drug they see fit, some panel members raised concerns that doctors are going too far, and on far too little data supporting their safety in children.

AUTISM, ADHD TREATMENT

Children and teens now make up nearly 25 percent of all patients who fill a prescription for Risperdal.

Last year, nearly 400,000 children and teens used the drug, and almost 240,000 were aged 12 or younger. For those under age 17, the most common diagnoses were autism and ADHD."

It says here that:

"Results  In the United States, the estimated number of office-based visits by youth that included antipsychotic treatment increased from approximately 201 000 in 1993 to 1 224 000 in 2002. From 2000 to 2002, the number of visits that included antipsychotic treatment was significantly higher for male youth (1913 visits per 100 000 population) than for female youth (739 visits per 100 000 population), and for white non-Hispanic youth (1515 visits per 100 000 population) than for youth of other racial or ethnic groups (426 visits per 100 000 population). Overall, 9.2% of mental health visits and 18.3% of visits to psychiatrists included antipsychotic treatment. From 2000 to 2002, 92.3% of visits with prescription of an antipsychotic included a second-generation medication. Mental health visits with prescription of an antipsychotic included patients with diagnoses of disruptive behavior disorders (37.8%), mood disorders (31.8%), pervasive developmental disorders or mental retardation (17.3%), and psychotic disorders (14.2%)."

This is describes how : Comparison of Schizophrenia Drugs Often Favors Firm Funding Study

"In fact, when psychiatrist John Davis analyzed every publicly available trial funded by the pharmaceutical industry pitting five new antipsychotic drugs against one another, nine in 10 showed that the best drug was the one made by the company funding the study.

On the basis of these contrasting findings in head-to-head trials, it appears that whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug," Davis and others wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry."

Such studies make up the bulk of the evidence that American doctors rely on to prescribe $10 billion worth of antipsychotic medications each year. Davis pointed out the potential biases in design and interpretation that produced such contradictory results. Other experts note that industry studies invariably seek to boost the image of expensive drugs that are still under patent. Moreover, they say, the trials are relatively brief and test drugs on patients with simpler problems than doctors typically encounter in daily practice."

AND:

"Reliance on industry-sponsored studies is not limited to psychiatry, but experts say the problem is exacerbated in areas of medicine where the goal of trials is not to demonstrate cures but to measure symptomatic relief, which allows more latitude in how the results are interpreted and marketed."

Behavior modifications now often include what are called chemical restraints which come in the form of psychotropic medication. Unfortunately, much behavior being seen as uncontrollable is allowing for new methods of monopoly-based quick fixes which have in the past created worse problems and solved nothing for many people.

I wonder how much can we can identify these "symptoms" of behavior as needing to be treated by the loudest most powerful corporate voice without analyzing and treating the corperataions unethical behavior. By not doing this we suggest that might is right and that only the most vulnerable members of society (whom we consider them or "those people") carry the weight of having their behaviors adjusted.