Have Boys an Open, Loving Personality? Have Girls?

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Saturday September 04, 2004 18:36

by Sean Crudden - impero

sean at impero dot iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

087 9739945

The Effect of Psychiatry on Human Development.

Are the received ideas on child development and the standards of practice in Irish schools in harmony with the needs of the growing child or the young adult?

An article written by Louise Geaney headed "Plea to address problem of self-harm among youth" appeared in this morning’s edition of The Irish Times. The article tells us that a "National Symposium on Young People’s Mental Health" will take place on 21 October 2004 in Jury’s Hotel, Cork. She elaborates, "The symposium will initiate discussion and workshops around the area of mental health for young people." This is the principle point of an article which is devoted mainly to a discussion of suicide and para-suicide among young people in Ireland.

The connection in the article (unspoken) is that suicide is a medical issue and this is a connection which is frequently made in informal and formal discussion of the topic nowadays. Like disability the "medicalisation" of the problem seems to bring some kind of rationality and the promise of control into the area. But I wonder how valid this medical "model" is in the case of suicide any more than it is in the case of disability.

When young people are introduced to the area of mental heath in these discussions will they be given a true picture of the de-sensitisation, obesity, stigma, depression, isolation, relative poverty and dependency that, to the most obtuse observer, seem to be the inevitable companions of "help" and "treatment" in the area of mental health where young people are concerned?

Is this the kind of help that the suicidal young need to pull themselves back from the brink? On the contrary, it seems to me, that these inevitabilities are the principal probable cause for suicide (and the rate is very high) among mental patients.

There are too many small minds in education and politics in this country that seek to impose discipline, control, compliance and submission on young people in systems and pursuits which are meaningless in the wider context of things in general and militate against harmony, happiness, and humanity in families, schools, on the street.

The ideas that motivate the received expertise in these areas ("psychology" and "education") percolate down into the very nursery and wreak terrible damage on fragile and developing personalities everywhere they go.

The "army" school of thought may produce silence in the classroom. However it can only stunt the development of open, loving personality (in girls as well as boys) and it will fail to produce real development and learning in anyone. Pythagoras’ theorem can be proved, to anyone who can multiply, in a fairly satisfactory way in ten minutes but while it is great to know it (and it is one of the most useful theorems in all of mathematics) it will do little by itself to keep a suicidal person out of the River Boyne.

No. It is important to consider issues of personal development and personal capacity which are not going to be properly developed by force and oppression. Children may have to cope with bereavement, poverty, loss, crime, peer-pressure and much more - Shakespeare refers to "the thousand ills that flesh is heir to." The prescription and didacticism of the psychiatrist is no help. It is merely one more threat that hangs over the child (and society in general).

save preference

Comments (2 of 2)

school is where the harm is

by Order of St Martin

Sun Sep 05, 2004 00:43

Self harm is often a sign of autism in children. Dyslexia, ADHD and other learning disabilities fall within the Autistic spectrum.

Excluding external environmental trauma, an undiganosed autistic/ADHD/dyslexic child placed within a normal school environment will have great difficulty coping socially within a normal classroom setting, nevermind having to learn at the same time as adjusting to the school environment. Many self harm as a release from the educational and social pressure they are placed under when having to perform in a competitive educational environment. without the appropriate educational support and recognition of their learning disabilities.

Many of these children are dismissed as troublesome educational failures, because our educational system cannot financially afford to recognise their learning disabilities and alter,incorporate or provide educational resources within mainstream education to support these children's educational progress.

It is widely assumed that children with special needs are socially maladjusted, stupid, lazy, slow and backward.

Many dyslexic children are in fact very clever, and use highly tuned cognitive senses to compensate for specific spelling, reading and writing difficulties.

Well to do, competitive parents of high achieving normal children with no disability, wrongly and ignorantly assume that adjusting educational resources to be inclusive and cater for the needs of high ability children with learning disabilities, will somehow hold back the educational progress of their normal high achieving offspring.

What hope have children with learning disabilities got to go on to suceed, be happy and confident when they are failed in their formative years by an uncaring ignorant, non inclusive and backward educational system.

"Medicalising" Shakespeare!

by Sean Crudden

Tue Sep 07, 2004 08:58

"To be or not to be, that is the question:-
Whether `tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune:
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? - To die, - to sleep,
No more:- and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, - `t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, - to sleep:-
To sleep! Perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressors wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life
But that the dread of something after death, -
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d."

When I was writing the article at the head of this thread I quoted Shakespeare (inaccurately) from memory. Ironically if you look at the full text of Hamlet’s soliloquy you will see that I was, in a way, "medicalising" Shakespeare’s famous words.

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

The Saker

Public Inquiry

Have Boys an Open, Loving Personality? Have Girls?

Comments (2 of 2)