Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?

Although some mental heath practitioners may not agree, I believe that free thinking is obviously not a mental illness.

I can understand where they are coming from though. We humans are social animals, and by obeying the social norms we can strengthen and re-enforce societies beliefs. This is not not to say it a good thing.

Free will suggests 'thinking outside of the box' and it may degrade a traditional society. I have seen this first hand.

But what is worse - a free thinking person segraged from the main society (as happens often) who is still able to contribute, or a society where the very notion of free thinking is judged to be a disease?

I know I am not ill. And any healthcare professional that would try to impose such a diagnosis on me would face a rather spirited debate

Sincerely,
Serenity

Don't make laugh. At the end of the day, its all about being against free thinkers and what they stand for. I'm sure it will be very dangerous if it were to catch on at a global scale! Oh on, this cannot happen!

What's next...if you watch less than half an hour of brain-numbing TV everyday you'll next a course of mental correction tablets?

reply to post by Brad-H

What's next...if you watch less than half an hour of brain-numbing TV everyday you'll next a course of mental correction tablets?

Perhaps if it judged to be 'normal' thing to do then yes

I feel sorry for anyone thinking that they must be 'normal' or else draw suspicion from people they view as having authority over them.

Sincerely,
Serenity

Great thread -

You couldn't make this stuff up!

LINK TO BBC ARTICLE

I found this article a couple of weeks ago "It's good to think - but not too much, scientists say"..."thinking a lot about your own thoughts may not be all good"

reply to post by whatukno


That may actually be a genuine behavior disorder, but the misuse of the label especially by school systems and the government is what is worrying.

"I was wrongly diagnosed as delusional by the psychiatric staff of Ward 7 at Northland Base Hospital in Whangarei and held against my will for 11 days in mid-2006, because I maintained the attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by criminal elements inside the US Administration" Georgette Orwell click


Reply: August 31st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
This happens far more often than most people imagine. I am an outpatient therapist at a community mental health clinic, and believe me, I’ve witnessed more involuntary commitments than I can count simply because a patient verbalized “delusions” such as “9/11 was an inside job,” mentioned FEMA camps, or discussed health concerns related to chemtrails, fluoridated water or genetically modified foods. If my patients mentioned these things, I have to be extremely careful how I document my treatment notes to avoid a trip to the local funny farm. Sadly though, most of my patients also see staff psychiatrists for their meds. Should any of them mention such things, they are immediately tagged with an incorrect and lifelong diagnosis, typically paranoid schizophrenic or delusional disorder NOS, and more often than not, considered actively psychotic and thus hospitalized against their will.
Lesson: be careful what you say to your shrink, or even to your family physician.
click

Notice that "creativity" is also listed as a "Vice" This type of thinking on the part of educators is understandable once you know its origins. It also explains why government education has been continually degraded over the years.

"For 10 years, William Schmidt, a statistics professor at Michigan State University, has looked at how U.S. students stack up against students in other countries in math and science. "In fourth-grade, we start out pretty well, near the top of the distribution among countries; by eighth-grade, we're around average, and by 12th-grade, we're at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa."
Source

After twenty-five years of research, I can state with complete confidence that the prime mover in all of this was none other than John Dewey who is usually characterized as the father of progressive education. Yet the change of the teaching of reading is probably Dewey's greatest contribution to the transformation of American education from an academically oriented process to a social one.

The progressives were a new breed of educator that came on the scene around the turn of the century. These rejected the religion of the Bible and placed their new faith in science, evolution and psychology. Indeed, men like G. Stanley Hall, James McKeen Cattell, Charles Judd, James Earl Russell traveled to Germany to study the new psychology under Prof. Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig. It was these men who later imposed the new psychology on American education and transformed it permanently from its academic function to one dedicated to behavioral change....

Dewey's philosophy had evolved from Hegelian idealism to socialist materialism, and the purpose of the school was to show how education could be changed to produce little socialists and collectivists instead of little capitalists and individualists. It was expected that these little socialists, when they became voting adults, would dutifully change the American economic system into a socialist one.

In order to do so he analyzed the traditional curriculum that sustained the capitalist, individualistic system and found what he believed was the sustaining linchpin -- that is, the key element that held the entire system together: high literacy. To Dewey, the greatest obstacle to socialism was the private mind that seeks knowledge in order to exercise its own private judgment and intellectual authority. High literacy gave the individual the means to seek knowledge independently. It gave individuals the means to stand on their own two feet and think for themselves. This was detrimental to the "social spirit" needed to bring about a collectivist society. Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education, published in 1916:

When knowledge is regarded as originating and developing within an individual, the ties which bind the mental life of one to that of his fellows are ignored and denied.

When the social quality of individualized mental operations is denied, it becomes a problem to find connections which will unite an individual with his fellows. Moral individualism is set up by the conscious separation of different centers of life. It has its roots in the notion that the consciousness of each person is wholly private, a self-enclosed continent. intrinsically independent of the ideas, wishes, purposes of everybody else.
Dumbing Down America

reply to post by PETROLCOIN


I couldn't agree more. I have been afflicted with ODD and I have always felt odd throughout out my life. I suffer regularly with extreme optimism. This can be very uplifting for those around me which is clearly a problem.

I have found ways to manage the disease. Fast food, television and sky news are heavy duty remedies for this disorder. Magazines and pornography can keep the symptoms at bay. BUt I would dearly like to try some pharmaceeautical medication for this ongoing happiness which irritates me and others so much.

Personally if this is a disease then i love it. For me it is the most sophisticated way of rational thinking, sort of like having multiple personality's giving there opinions in your mind.

For instance I could watch boxing and think if that was me i would have ducked then jabbed but another thought says look at what round it is, your stamina would be low and another would be he could have strained his arm or he's playing a strategy game. With this sort of thinking i can look at one thing and view it from many different angles without trying. You can end up having conversations with your self or even try figure out what reply some one would give you if you asked them a question without even asking it (you need to know the persons personality most times)
You can figure out what reactions will occur following you actions.

The list can go on but to me iv lived with it all my life so its nature and no I AM NOT MENTAL

safe

Here is an idea... Lets all try to make "free thinking" normal so everyone who is not a free thinker is labeled mentally ill.

If freethinking actually was classed as a disease, which it has not been, most of the respondents to this thread would be safe.

Like good little sheep you've believed the misrepresentations in the OP's article, not even thinking of doing some research yourselves to check up on what's been said.

And when PETROLCOIN poted about his experiences of actually living with this disorder, his message was ignored because it was not what folks here wanted to hear.

This is a real problem, as people living with it know. Trying to pass it off as a government scam to do away with free thinkers is insulting to those who have to deal with the actual disorder. Thanks to having this diagnosis, many children nowadays who would previously have just been labeled "bad," or "unmanagable," are now able to get help from people who have a better understanding of them.

The diagnosis is a tool and, like every other tool, can be misused.
But how many of us want to have every misusable tool taken from us?
Instead, we need to watch those in authority and make sure our freedom to use these tools correctly is protected.

As I stated in the other topic on this article, this is a propagandist piece similar to something you would read on Natural News. First off, the DSM IV has been out since 1994 and the DSM IV-TR has been out since 2000. Why are they acting like these disorders are newly created. They've been around for years and they haven't affected you. Why? Because they are much more complex than this article would lead you to believe. A disorder is not diagnosed by a single symptom, but by a multitude of symptoms that work together to prevent someone from living life as they desire. There is no disorder in the DSM called Arrogance or Creativity. Arrogance is a symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, something that is much more debilitating than someone being vain. As for creativity, I have no idea where that claim came from, unless they read the studies that said people with schizophrenia may display higher levels of creativity and then made the illogical jump that creativity is not only a symptom of schizophrenia, but the only symptom. As for Oppositional Defiant Disorder, here is the diagnostic criteria directly from the DSM IV-TR:

A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or re f uses to comply with adults' requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive
Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

B. The disturbance in behavior causes cl inically significant impairment in social, academic. or occupational functioning.
C The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder.
D. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.

This disorder is more serious than the joke you are turning it into. If this behavior persists past ones 18th birthday the patient is usually given a new diagnosis, antisocial personality disorder, otherwise known as psychopathy. While not every kid who was diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder grows up to become a serial killer, you would be hard pressed to find a serial killer that did not exhibit these behaviors when they were a child. I implore you all to go out and check what the DSM actually says. Your local library will most likely have a copy. I guarantee that this article paints a different picture than the actual reality of the situation.

reply to post by suziwong

I found this article a couple of weeks ago "It's good to think - but not too much, scientists say"..."thinking a lot about your own thoughts may not be all good"

Good catch.

So lets apply that "above-average creativity" and "freethinking" and figure out what is actually going on.

A BIT OF RECENT HISTORY
First we know that people like "John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and President Barack Obama’s top science adviser" and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich advocated de-developing the USA in In their 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,”

He also co-authored a passage that said: “The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect.”

We know that Big Oil Mogul Maurice Strong who is very active in the UN, the Commission on Global Governance is a senior Adviser to the World Bank and a trustee of the Rockefeller foundation gave a big boost to the environmental movement" in 1972 at the First Earth Summit. He is also thought to have come up with the idea for the UN lead NGOs thanks to his work with the international YMCA.

So what is this powerful world leader's take on population control?

In 1972, as Strong organized the first environmental conference for the UN, he granted an interview to the BBC. "I am convinced the prophets of doom have to be taken seriously," he said.

The only way to avoid doomsday, said Strong, was if "man, in light of this evidence, is going to be wise enough and enlightened enough to subject himself to this kind of discipline and control."

That discipline and control, of course, would be meted out by supernational organizations such as the UN. Just like his interview at Davos, Strong warmed to his topic.

The BBC reporter asked him what discipline and control people could expect - would it include legal limits on the number of children that a family could have?

Strong explained: "Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child."

But, if the world didn't follow his instructions - if governments didn't heed the warnings of the doomsayers - then "this is one of the possible courses that society would have to seriously consider." Strong himself has five children.

He knows how he is viewed by opponents to his radical environmentalism, or his promotion of a UN government with taxation and enforcement powers that trump national governments. And he seems to rather enjoy being described as a man at the centre of secretive power-brokering. Source

Next we know that the sterilization/Eugenics movement has never really gone away. I give a listing of that information in my post here.

It includes things like:

U.S. Court Battle Over Forced Sterilization In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of Virginia's sterilization law. This was followed by a swift rise in the number of forced sterilizations in the United States. www.commondreams.org...

And Forced Sterilization of women in the USA continued into the 1970's

No one even today knows exactly how many Native American women were sterilized during the 1970s. One base for calculation is provided by the General Accounting Office, whose study covered only four of twelve IHS regions over four years (1973 through 1976). Within those limits, 3,406 Indian women were sterilized, according to the GAO. www.ratical.com...

And today: USDA funds Spermicidal Corn in 2001

A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto. noblelie.com...

Now couple that with your article on the physical differences in brain development and the prevasive DNA testing of babies: Parents Outraged at Warehousing of DNA Saved from Newborn Baby Screening Programs and Used for Clinical Laboratory Testing

After Laboratory Tests are Conducted, Newborn Screening Cards are Saved for Research For decades, pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists have been part of a seemingly innocuous public health practice begun in the 1960s: newborn blood testing.

Now, because of recent advances in genetic tests and molecular diagnostics, growing numbers of parents are concerned about how the government handles the DNA of their newborn babies....

These cards contain the samples used to perform laboratory tests required by law to screen newborn infants for a number of devastating genetic diseases...

The DNA of virtually every newborn in the United States is collected, usually via a blood sample taken from a prick to the baby’s heel, and tested for certain genetic and other disorders. Many states view this newborn screening as so important, they don’t require medical personnel to get parents’ express permission before carrying it out... www.momsrising.org...

Isn't it nice to know that psychiatrists and schools will be labeling kids for various "anti-social behaviors" such as creativity and stubbornness and genetic researchers may then link those behaviors to certain genetic traits. Meanwhile others work on mass sterilization procedures and our kids in school are brainwashed into thinking "population control" is necessary to "save" mother earth, excuse me GAIA. ---- Can you say human worker bees?

You can see the plan in this "Wildlands Project" MAP It just missed becoming law by ONE HOUR

The Wildlands Project would set up to one-half of America into core wilderness reserves and interconnecting corridors (red), all surrounded by interconnecting buffer zones (yellow). No human activity would be permitted in the red, and only highly regulated activity would be permitted in the yellow areas. Four concerned conservative activists who now make up the board of Sovereignty International were able to find UN documentation that proved the Wildlands Project concept was to provide the basis for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. They used this information and this map produced by Dr. Michael Coffman, editor of Discerning the Times Digest and NewsBytes and CEO of Sovereignty International, to stop the ratification of the treaty an hour before its scheduled cloture and ratification vote. (See Congressional Record S13790)
Source

reply to post by suziwong


Once again this article is being horribly misconstrued. The researchers don't warn against thinking in general, but ruminating. This is the practice in focusing on what you've done in the past to the extent that you may even ignore what's occurring in the present. It also is common to see in people suffering from depression and helps prolong the depressive episode. What this study shows is that rumination may also contribute to causing depression in the first place, or at least to negative affect. We also know that negative affect is connected with worse memory and slower thinking. That is what this research says, not what you and other conspiracy theorists are misconstrued it to say.

It's the most dangerous thing there is.

Free-thinkers are terrorists.

Go to hell, free-thinking.

If free-thinking was outlawed only criminals would be free-thinkers.

I recall my girlfriends dad saying that his brother was sent to a mental asylum many years ago.

His psychiatric illness?

As a young lad he stole a bicyle, got warned by the police and then later did it again. The judge said that there was obviously something wrong with him as he had done this twice, despite advice from the law.

So he was commited and there he stayed until well into his adult life i believe.

I think that one we will all have a label....if you let them give you one.

CX.

reply to post by Xcalibur254


I am 22 years old and when i was a youngster I had "from your list" 1,2,3,5,6,7,8. i was a bad child, nothing would make me happy all i did was want want want. By the time i got to about 17 I learnt to to be indipendant ant thats when my thought patterns changed. It was as if i could hear my actions before i did them as in " im going to go kick that car window" Then i would question the action and ask myself why am i going to do that, thus being able to control all my actions befor they happend.

Need to head out but more 2 add

safe.

reply to post by mcrom901

Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness?

It all depends on whose brand of conformity is being resisted.

We are fast becoming a politically dominated culture where nonconformity is not going to be tolerated. But it won't be called tyranny or a violation of personal borders. It will have to be explained away as something like... mental illness. So, if you disagree with this political concept or that president, you can be removed from the equation before your illness can spread..

reply to post by DeepestOne


That's because the frontal cortex is the last part of the brain to develop. It is the site responsible for impulse control and throughout most of a person's teens it lags behind the rest of the brain. However, there are people whose frontal cortex never fully develops. These are the people who act like they're 15 when they're 40 and at work.

Errr I work in mental health in the UK, I would like to see the diagnostic literature and what criteria needs to be met before a diagnosis of ODD is given.

Most mental illness tends to be diagnosed when the person cannot provide logical reasoning behind thier belief or when an individuals belief may cause themselves or other harm.

I personally wont panic unless sound logical reasoning is ignored.

I do however twitch when TPTB start diagnosing children, to me that is plain wrong unless there is some MAJOR inccidents - abuse, violence, etc

reply to post by mcrom901


Its funny how ironic the statement is...

They must have a mental illness expressing their opinion on the matter!

Originally posted by whatukno
I am not sure that this article understands this disorder correctly.

Actively does not follow adults' requests
Angry and resentful of others
Argues with adults
Blames others for own mistakes
Has few or no friends or has lost friends
Is in constant trouble in school
Loses temper
Spiteful or seeks revenge
Touchy or easily annoyed

To fit this diagnosis, the pattern must last for at least 6 months and must be more than normal childhood misbehavior.

health.google.com...

mayoclinic.com

This is a childhood disorder and not a condition of people who ACTUALLY think for themselves. Might I suggest that people independently verify what anything tells you instead of just trusting it because it comes from a website called offthegridnews. Independent thought is not a mental health condition, but if you are a child and the above list of symptoms apply to you, well, you might have oppositional defiant disorder.

edit on 10/13/2010 by whatukno because: fixed link

i also noticed that not many people actually searched for their own info and just went with OP.

This has nothing to do with being a "free thinker", and well to jump to conclusions means, thinking was not really used at all LOL