Discussions of ethics as applied to mental health issues.
I am a logical person. I also am pretty well informed. When it comes to helping other people, I am usually right on the money with my analysis of the problems of other people and suggested solutions; solutions that makes perfect sense to me. Mystery I am flummoxed by the fact that no matter how […]
I just started reading The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen, the autism researcher who also wrote Mindblindness. The subtitle of the Science of Evil is, On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. Baron-Cohen’s thesis is: cruelty exists when empathy fails. Baron-Cohen’s definition of empathy First part of definition: “Empathy occurs when we suspend our single-minded […]
In yesterday’s post I began with definitions of the what it means to be human. Does the definition of humanness matter? Yes. It matters because many human beings feel free to mistreat others they deem non-human or less than human. Worldview One’s worldview has an influence on one’s view of humanness. There seem to be two […]
What does it mean to be human? On the surface, this may seem a frivolous question. Isn’t the answer obvious? Here are a few definitions: Dictionary definition – The Oxford Dictionary defines a human being as a “man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power […]
I am trying to understand what it was like in the 1950s for families who had severely mentally ill members to take care of. My family was among that number. I can speak for my own experience as a younger sibling, as my older brother Michael, was very low functioning, autistic and nonverbal. He was […]
Why throw away interesting stuff? In preparing to move, I am sorting out my stuff. I always save little tidbits of interesting items. For instance, there was a short article about some man who just won a settlement against a tattoo parlor. The tattoo depicted a man stabbing someone in the back with a knife, […]
For Immediate Release Contact: CDC Media Relations Monday, August 19, 2013 (404) 639-3286 CDC provides estimate of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year Preliminary estimates […]
This was the original name for my post several days ago, when I discussed Socrates’ aphorism, “An unexamined life is a life not worth living, for a human being”. [1] I was thinking of the process of examining my own life, which seems to be a never-ending process. So, would Socrates be proud, or relegate […]
Almost as soon as I scheduled yesterday’s post, a musing about Socrates’ quotation, “An unexamined life is not worth living,” I had second thoughts. My premise was to accept this aphorism and analyze it with respect to the phases of life, from childhood to old age. I concluded that it is not the examination of […]
Dear Readers, I am a member of a mail list called Microbes and Mental Illness (MMI). Dr. Robert Bransfield and colleagues established this list after the 1999 American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, to create a forum to continue the informal discussions about the link between microbes and mental illness. Dr. Bransfield describes the relationship between […]
