Blog Archives

It's Important to be an idiot and ask some tough questions of mental health

10/24/2022

Val's Note: Simon Sinek's video to the right is a dangerous video for me to post because I think often people don't know what I'm trying to say -- or if they do --- they're not open to it.

I am open to QUESTIONS. I'm open to HARD QUESTIONS.

Having said that, part of what I'm trying to say is that the need for CERTAINTY has to be BALANCED against the NEED FOR REASONABLENESS --- and that is a MOVING TARGET BASED ON CURRENT KNOWLEDGE.

That KNOWLEDGE is experiencing a MAJOR FLOOD of INFORMATION --- I'm not aware of anyone who is "COMPLETELY ON TOP OF IT."

What are the RAMIFICATIONS of this for VICTIMS, DEFENDANTS and PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS in the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

To me, you prioritize SAFETY and then you work on improving that PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH to CRIMINAL JUSTICE ---
Olmstead Planning could be a big help with that.

Dr. Thomas Insel led the National Institute of Mental Health from 2002-2015.

"The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure.

"In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever.

"Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.

"Patients with mental disorders deserve better.

NIMH has launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project to transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system."

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml

THE REAL WORLD

Unfortunately, Criminal Justice and the rest of Society cannot wait for the National Institute of Mental Health to complete RDoC (NIMH'S seemingly responsible and reasonable response to a scientifically invalid DSM.)

BUT those QUESTIONS about a scientifically invalid DSM ---- HAVEN'T GONE AWAY.

Simon Sinek
It's Important to be an Idiot

Great Flood --- Noah & the Ark

Today we are facing a FLOOD OF INFORMATION.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health (2002-2008 Bush Administration); Served as a Presidential Science Envoy under the Obama Administration.

Neuroinformatics

Celebrating a Decade of Neuroscience Databases: Looking to the Future of High-Throughput Data Analysis, Data Integration, and Discovery Neuroscience (2004)

“The explosion of data about the brain is overwhelming conventional ways of making sense of it," said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health.

"Like the Human Genome Project, the Human Brain Project is building shared databases in standardized digital form, integrating information from the level of the gene to the level of behavior. These resources will ultimately help us better understand the connection between brain function and human health.”

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26354128/
Information overload in healthcare: too much of a good thing?

The rapidly growing production of healthcare information - both scientific and popular - increasingly leads to a situation of information overload affecting all actors of the healthcare system and threatening to impede the adoption of evidence-based practice.

Interim Procedures

Lawyers and the rest of the Society need to start asking some HARD QUESTIONS about how a scientifically invalid DSM is playing out in the Criminal Justice System.

Mens Rea & A Messy Reality

10/23/2022

In many ways the Criminal Law seems designed to address the ADHD/NEURO-DIVERSE INDIVIDUAL whose emotion or intent is NORMAL IN EVERY WAY EXCEPT INTENSITY.

Further, we need more AWARENESS of these EMOTIONAL REGULATION ISSUES that often seem to come with SYSTEMIC DEVELOPMENTAL INFLAMMATION.

We also need more awareness of EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING ISSUES.

We are a SOCIETY marked by LARGE SCALE low grade, medium grade and high grade inflammation --- these issues are really throughout the population --- even as the EXTREMES may be easier to see in CRIMINAL JUSTICE.

If we start to get a handle on these issues involving:

DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMIC INFLAMMATION
Emotional Regulation Issues (that may be the result of Hyper-Connected Brains), and
Executive Functioning Issues

We might also see a lot fewer "COVER UPS" by authority figures and lifestyles that are more tailored to the REAL STRENGTHS and CHALLENGES of DIVERSE INDIVIDUALS.

I think it is hard to recognize that many of these "EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING CHALLENGES" are not just in one segment of the Society.

Assessment of ADHD for the Criminal Justice System (2010)

Imperial College London, King's College London

"There is an important relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and antisocial behaviour, and experts are increasingly being asked to advise the courts about the psychological vulnerabilities
and management of defendants with ADHD."

Concept of Mens Rea: Meaning and its judicial interpretation

thefactfactor.com/facts/law/legal_concepts/criminology/mens-rea/16644/

Currans 290, F. 2 d 751 (3rd Cir. 1961) case, Biggs, Chief Justice observed:

“The Concept of Mens Rea, guilty mind, is based on the assumption that a person has the capacity to control his behaviour and to choose between alternative courses of conduct."

The explanation of "mens rea" above contains a pretty nice, neat ASSUMPTION --- it doesn't mesh well with a MESSY REALITY.

Further, it is really a PREDICATE for PUNISHMENT --- NOT SAFETY.

Crap Justice & Crap Services --- They Often Go Together

Mens Rea: The Criminal State of Mind

Transitional/ Translational Justice Monday

It's Important to be an idiot and ask some tough questions of mental health

Mens Rea & A Messy Reality

Archives

Categories