I am a college student, who is with a mental illness. I have been reading and studying my diagnosis. I also have told many different diagnosis. I was even “black balled” by a mental center because I stood for the first in my life. I was told that I graduated from any community mental health center. It is sad to hear that we are considered more of a case study than a human being. I may have to study a lot hard than an “average” person, but I am going to make it in my recovery of my diagnosis. I am in a community college, and in one of my classes I am doing graduate research. What does that you tell about a human being?

Re: Victim Selection study from documentary “I, Psychopath”
To view the “Victim Selection” portion of the documentary “I, Psychopath” (in my opinion the most worthwhile part of this documentary) you can use the following Youtube link:
“I,Psychopath – Sam Vaknin – Documentary – [part 5]”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXcg0Tas9co&feature=related

For those interested in viewing the entire documentary you can use the following link:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/i-psychopath/

Sadly for the client, because the system deemed the client’s expressive vocal behaviour dangerous or something to be feared they moved the client on into the ‘too hard’ basked. Thus setting them up for failure & unplugging the client from the very program help that this client needed.

What was even more telling about stigma & discrimination was each time any range of descriptive words using terminology like rage or murderous thoughts or violent fantasy or retribution scenarios-discipline & panic by the system would ensue for the client-All help would be suspended & staff protected but client segregated.

The disciplinary board was controlling, patronizing & almost army like. They were derogatory and focused only on lectures on the hospital’s zero tolerance poster advertising. There was no accountability of the trigger actions of any of the incompetent treating therapist or DBT team.

Sadly at the end of it all the client was dumped & back outside with no network by themselves once again. This from a program who’s skills training is supposedly founded in the ethos of distress tolerance, mindfulness, taking a non-judgmental stance,separating fact from feeling.

Yet when it came down to it the mental health professionals themselves participated in the counter transference of non-crisis management skills.

It seems more evident that in the face of tricky aggressive feature symptoms,the clients have more insight & compassion inspite of it all. Even if the professionals have the labels of Masters or PhDs.

Yours is probably the most insightful, most lucid, most intelligent, most helpful summation I’ve ever read anywhere in regards to how human beings treat each other and, in particular, how the psychology industry treats patients as scapegoats.

Your post should be #1 required reading for every doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist and client everywhere.

(Speaking as someone who has under and post graduate quals in psychology, I left the industry a long while ago for the reasons you outline and the sheer them/us prejudices that the industry heaps on patients which it scapegoats for all society’s ills. I am also impressed by the work of psychiatrist Dr Hew Len, who healed a whole ward full of ‘criminally insane’ patients by meditating to himself ‘I am sorry, I love you’ over and over. http://hooponoponoworks.blogspot.com/2008/01/interview-with-dr-hew-len.html

If the client doesn’t fit the kinds of diagnosis that they are used to, the therapist panics & make incompetent knee-jerk decisions & reactions. Therapist are at a loss outside their protective system of rules & regulation.Its understandable when clients take retribution on therapist to even up the humiliation & violation the therapist has cast.

Some therapists should be struck off and de-registered for the pain the have caused from their lack of skills.Too many go into the profession to remedy their own unhealed unhinged chaos.

I worked with therapists for many years: social workers, GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc… Some of them gave me short term relief, but none of them provided me any assistance that worked for the long term. In fact, most of the guidance they gave me was detrimental in the long term. None of them ever identified the real problem, even though I’m sure many, if not most, could have identified it.

A serious illness left me off work with time on my hands to do my own research. Researching corruption in my field of work (financial services industry) led me to the book “Snakes in Suits”, which introduced me to the term “psychopath” (which I, like most people, had always associated with “serial killer”). My world started to shift, and what for years had been inexplicable re: my family of origin suddenly started making sense. Predictable behaviour and situational patterns emerged and everything started to line up and become clear. From there I eventually found my way to the term “sadism” (which, again I had only associated with de Sade and sexuality). And there, finally illuminated, was my mother – in all her “glory”. Luckily for me, my father, paternal grandparents, and maternal grandmother were loving, kind and caring, which provided a good deal of ‘immunization’ against my mother’s influence (but not, unfortunately, from her harm). I have classic PTSD type problems, but I am an honest, loving, hard-working person. No thanks to the many many therapists I saw who always made any mention of my mother’s problems verboten, and made my therapy “all about you and your behaviour choices”. What’s really turned things around for me in the ‘home stretch’ of my self-therapy is an understanding of victim selection, and how growing up with a sadist/psychopath sets you up to be the world’s perennial prey unless you get the right kind of help. And in this regard is where all of my past therapy was the most dangerous: it trained me to convince myself I was exaggerating fear instead of clearly and accurately learning WHAT to be genuinely fearful of, or that as a former victim, most particularly as the former victim of a sadist, my vulnerability is heightened.

What I’ve finally learned to conclude is that most mental “health” professionals, like most of society, have neither the skills, training, inclination, nor courage to understand what is involved in the most severe interpersonal violations. Most of society is truly afraid and prefers to deny its existence, which then leads to patronizing its victims. You, sir, are an extremely rare exception. Kudos to you!

For most of those victims, the only ‘diagnosis’ that is required is naming the situation – not the individual! And from THAT diagnosis, giving them sympathy, compassion, and then appropriate skills to recognize and deal with it (which requires putting yourself in their shoes and seeing them as equals) is really all that’s needed. If, after THAT, the individual remains disordered, THEN you might look at diagnosis of the individual.

For the uninitiated I would highly recommend:
1) read about the Greyson/Stein study;
2) find the documentary “I, Psychopath” available for free download on the net and review the work of Professor Angela Book (starts at 34 minutes into the doc);
3) teach your clients how to recognize interpersonal violation and victim selection, and what to do about it
e.g. http://www.protectivestrategies.com/victim-selection.html

Sorry about the rant… What you said touched a nerve – in a good way! And thank you most especially for the following comment:

As to objectivity: why would it be desirable to regard another as an object?