Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Personal disclosure statement from the author

I know that a lot of the material that one can find on the web that takes an anti-psychiatry stance originates from the Church of Scientology or that organization's followers. I am not a Scientologist, and I have no personal or financial ties to any Scientologist or the Church of Scientology. A Scientologist celebrant did conduct our wedding ceremony, but we declined his offer to do a Scientologist ceremony. My family seems to be a magnet for unusual people. It's an interesting life. Neither myself nor my husband nor anyone in our families have ever been Scientologists.

I am in fact an atheist. I hope that won't alienate too many of my readers. I respect other people's right to believe, to believe in ridiculous, mean-spirited, sexist and ethno-centric nonsense, but I might not have a lot of respect for your actual beliefs.

Lili Marlene is not my real name. I am a mother and housewife living in Australia. I know that I'm a synaesthete and there are many indications that I'm on the autistic spectrum, but I do not consider myself disabled. I have always been a loner, but there are a select few people whose company I enjoy.

I have no financial interest in anything related to the autistic spectrum or synaesthesia or psychiatry. I have no sponsors nor any work or study-related conflicts of interest regarding the subject matter of this blog. For many years I have used the Blogger service for free to make and publish this blog, so that could be seen as a sponsorship. I am not flogging a new book or quack remedies. Why the hell am I doing this?

5 comments:

Usethebrains Godgiveyou said...

I feel like a scientologist, and the only connection I have is an undying love for Tom Cruise.

Justthisguy said...

Well, you know what they say about Aspies; sometimes they Just Won't Shut Up when they get started talking...

Snork!

Lili Marlene said...

I do love to talk about myself. One of my favourite subjects.

WhatCauses said...

Hi Ms M,

I understand the importance of clarifying affiliations.

I've got a site that amongst other viewpoints presents critiques of psychiatry and alternatives, and I too have felt the need to establish with whom I'm NOT associated.
One of my FAQs starts "You're just another Scientology flunky aren't you?"

Of course, because my site also accepts info on the other side I also have a FAQ called "You are just a flunky of Big Pharma aren't you?"!


Myself, I tend to sit on the sceptical side of the fence, but the site's designed to collect evidence on both sides and let people make their minds up. If you really fairly stack up the real evidence on both sides I believe I know which would be the bigger pile.


However I wanted to attract people who have only ever heard the official party line on the 'chemical imbalance' and might be shy of a site which starts with 'Psychiatry's theory and evidence base is rather dodgy'

And i think it's that General Public we need to reach.

By the way I've linked to you site as I think it presents some valuable viewpoints.

I wonder, Ms M if you could perhpas have a look at my site
http://www.WhatCausesMentalIllness.com
and see if it's suitable for your links list?

Anyway, again, congrats on the great blogs!

W

Lili Marlene said...

Hello W

I blog under an assumed name, so I can't criticise anyone for blogging behind a pseudonym, but there doesn't seem to be a lot about you at your web site. You have been inside the mental heath system?

I've had a look around your web site. You do cover the controversy between McGorry and Frances, but I found no mention of the not declaring conflicts of interest issue that affects a number of high profile Australian psychiatrists, which is I believe an important matter. The often-hidden influence of drug companies is most definitely the elephant in the room.

The title of your website is "What causes mental illness?" There's a very obvious answer to that question. Look up the Wikipedia article about psychosis. You'll find a list a mile long of different diseases and situations that can cause psychosis, or to put it another way, which has psychosis as one of their symptoms. I'm sure if you looked you could also find many uncontroversial physical ilnesses that have depression, mania or agitation as possible symptoms. What causes mental ilness? Undiagnosed and/or untreated physical illness. That is my hypothesis. I challenge any psychiatrist to disprove it, and to justify the existence of their own medical specialty.

My interests are different to yours. I am primarily interested in non-mentally-ill people being incorrectly drawn into the mental health system, which happens to autistic people and on the odd occasion to synaesthetes. I think you are interested in the rights of the mentally ill, which is a good thing. I'm keeping an eye on your website. Looks interesting.