Welcome to From Insults to Respect.
Regular readers know that from time to time I will discuss some famous person’s experience with depression. 
The experiences of Joni Mitchell (see HERE), U.S. Grant (see HERE), and Leo Tolstoy (see HERE) are the most recent examples. All of them, despite their mighty struggles with depression, still managed to earn the respect of millions.
To continue this series on the experiences of famous persons who dealt with depression, I just finished reading a wonderful book titled, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, by Joshua Wolf Shenk.
I actually began discussing the book in my last post, which has the title, “I’m Sorry For The Tears.” There we discussed some reasons why so many of us are embarrassed when we cry and find ourselves, if we release tears in front of others, apologizing. I gave, as one example of this, Lincoln trying to hide his tears when he heard from some neighbors that his sister had died. As we will now see, there is far more to be learned about Lincoln’s experience with sadness, anguish, and tears.
Lincoln’s First Clear Evidence of Depression
Lincoln, up till his mid-twenties, was not viewed as being a melancholy kind of guy. Friends and neighbors saw him as sunny and persisting tirelessly. For example, during the Black Hawk War, a fellow soldier said of him, “I never saw Mr Lincoln angry or desponding, but always cheerful… the whole company, even amid trouble and suffering, received strength and fortitude, by his buoyancy and elasticity.” Also typical of comments made of him, a neighbor said, “He was the best natured man I ever got acquainted with.”
Oh, there is evidence of cracks in his sunny disposition during his early years, but they occurred during times of great disappointments, which is pretty typical of most people. For example, after he and a partner opened a store and it soon failed, as we might expect, some described him as moping around, and one person reported hearing him say he might “let the whole thing go.”
Although these observations might have been signs of an emerging tendency to experience deeper forms of depression, it wasn’t until he reached the age of 26 in the summer of 1835 when this tendency became obvious to all that knew him. As Mr. Shenk describes this period,
The first sign of trouble came with his intense study of law. He “read hard — Day and night — terribly hard,” remembered Isaac Condal, a stone mason. At times, Lincoln seemed oblivious to his friends and surroundings. “He became emaciated,” said Henry McHenry, a farmer in the area, “and his best friends were afraid that he would craze himself — make himself deranged.”
When a female friend of his, Miss Ann Rutledge, died during a plague, Abe fell into an even deeper state of despair. As Mr. McHenry described it,
…after that event he seemed quite changed, he seemed retired, and loved solitude, he seemed wrapped in profound thought, indifferent, to transpiring events, had little to say, but would take his gun and wander off in the woods by himself, away from associations of even those most esteemed, this gloom seemed to deepen for some time, so as to give anxiety to friends in regard to his mind.
Another person reported that Lincoln “told me that he felt like committing suicide often.” Friends felt compelled to watch and ward over him, and for a time he was locked up to prevent derangement or suicide. “That was the time the community said he was crazy,” remembered Elizabeth Abell.
Even after he began to appear outwardly improved, he continued to grapple with desperate thoughts. Robert L. Wilson, who joined Lincoln as a candidate for the state legislature in 1836, reported that Lincoln once confided in him “that although he appeared to enjoy life rapturously, still he was the victim of terrible melancholy… and he was so overcome with mental depression, that he never dare carry a knife in his pocket.”
The Second Intense Wave
The next period in which people who knew Abe clearly saw he was very depressed began at the beginning of January of 1841. Letters reveal how concerned people became. “We have been very much distressed on Lincoln’s account,” wrote one person. “Lincoln you know was desponding & melancholy when you left,” wrote another. “He has grown much worse and is now confined to his bed sick in body & mind,” wrote another.
Again, it is hard to say for certain if there was some event or series of events that led to what Abe was experiencing at the time. The possible factors that Mr. Shenk mentions are,
All at once, he faced the prospect that his political career was sunk; that he might be inextricably bound to a woman he didn’t love; that his best friend was going to either move to Kentucky or stay in Illinois and marry the woman Lincoln really wanted.
What ever the actual reason, Abe decided to submit to the care of a doctor, who provided a number of brutal treatments. He bled Abe, gave him substances that made him puke and have diarrhea, as well as opium and morphine. The doctor concluded that his aggressive treatments failed to help; it added to his problem.
The doctor’s treatment for depression was not an odd exception to how these types of conditions are dealt with by the medical profession.
The preeminent physician of that time was Dr. Benjamin Rush, who wrote Medical Inquires and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind. Dr. Rush advocated the types of drastic approaches that Abe’s doctor used in an effort to stimulate and reinvigorate the patient’s constitution. Later medical approaches include lobotomies, which gouged out the front part of a person’s brain, and today, electroconvulsive shock treatments and drugs well known to cause serious side effects are employed.
A close look at events shows that Abe was far from healed by what the doctor put him through. As Mr. Shenk described them;
Before, he was depressed, agitated, and “crazy.” After his treatment he looked beaten down, weak, almost inhuman. “Poor L.” wrote James Conkling, a young lawyer in town, on January 24, “How are the mighty fallen! He was confined about a week, but though he now appears again he is reduced and emaciated in appearance and seems scarcely to possess strength enough to speak above a whisper. His case at present is truly deplorable but what prospect there may be for ultimate relief I cannot pretend to say.”
At one point, Abe wrote to a correspondent,
For not giving you a general summary of news, you must pardon me, it is not in my power to do so. I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.
Lincoln’s Case of Depression Was Never “Cured”
Some people experience depression, and then they have a “breakthrough” or “turning point,” and it goes away. This is what happened to Leo Tolstoy.
Abe’s depression experience provides us an example of someone who never really got over depression, but rather, he learned to deal with it in a productive manner. 
He spent an increasing amount of time alone, which can be profoundly important as people come to terms with loss, and sort out their ideas. Crucially important for him is that he found a cause that provided him a reason to live.
Perhaps because of his awful experience with medical treatment, Abe came to put no stock in conventional medical therapy. One of the attractions to the medical model is that it avoids blaming the patient for the depression experience by viewing it as a no-fault disease. Abe managed to avoid blaming people and himself for such experiences by viewing them as “misfortunes.” Depression to him was not a non-fault disease, a crime, or even a disgrace. To him, misfortunes are unhappy circumstances that has happened to a blameless good person.
Abe used a great deal of humor to try to cheer himself up, and he became famous for his delightful stories. In fact this characteristic of Abe’s led to a story in a newspaper that told of two ladies talking about the Civil War. One said, “I think Jefferson Davis will succeed because he is a praying man.” The other replied, “But so is Lincoln.” The first responded, “Yes, but when Abraham prays, the Lord will think he’s joking.” Abe loved that story and told it often.
Although spending significant time alone, finding something meaningful to strive for, not blaming himself for his misfortune, and humor were the major helpful approaches he used to deal with his melancholy, nothing ever ended his experience of depression for long. As Mr. Shenk aptly described Abe’s lifelong depression,
He yoked his feelings to a style…of melancholy that was, more than anything, philosophical. He saw the world as a sad, difficult place from which he expected considerable suffering. “There was a strong tinge of sadness in Mr Lincoln composition,” said his friend Joseph Gillespie. “He felt very strongly that there was more of discomfort than real happiness in human existence under the most favorable circumstances and the general current of his reflections was in that channel.”
Could it be that this philosophical approach played an essential role of Abe’s great work? In the early days of psychology, people who were depressed were viewed as drawing conclusions about themselves and their experiences that were unrealistically distorted toward the negative, and therefore pathological. A more recent body of psychological research suggests that those who are depressed are often judging themselves and the world more accurately than non-depressed people. This provides opportunities to be sadder but wiser.
For those who are depressed, it is more encouraging to view their experience as potentially helpful, rather than an illness caused by having defective genes. Thus, perhaps Abe’s philosophy is more hopeful.
As Mr. Shenk’s fine book draws to an end, he writes,
The hope is not that suffering will go away, for with Lincoln it did not ever go away. The hope is that suffering, plainly acknowledged and endured, can fit us for the surprising challenges that awaits.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
When Abraham Lincoln was 19, several neighbors were assigned to inform him of the heart wrenching news that his sister had died. As one of them described the incident, “We went out and told Abe. I never will forget the scene. He sat down in the door of the smokehouse and buried his face in his hands. The tears slowly trickled from between his boney fingers and his giant frame shook with sobs.”
Crying is as Natural as a Smile On a Baby’s Face
In Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, the author, Joshua Wolf Shenk, tells us that when Abe was particularly sad, his friends’ reactions are insightful. They didn’t merely seek to help him, they vied with each other for the pleasure or honor of assisting him.
So far, I provided arguments that crying is natural because it encourages others to help and it is an important part of the creative process. If this is true, how can we explain why people become embarrassed about crying and frequently apologize for doing so?
Using this line of reasoning, it makes sense that although the usual characteristic of human beings is to feel sympathy for someone who is crying, nevertheless, there is some variation around this central tendency. Thus, some people are less sympathetic, and some may be so unsympathetic that they treat people who cry very disrespectfully. They might call the person a “cry baby,” or “immature,” or a “wimp,” or if the person is a male, “unmanly.”
Add to this that in our society, a new trend has added fuel to the idea that people who cry have something wrong with them. A billion dollar industry that sells antidepressants have enormous resources to saturate the media with sales pitches that seek to convince people that crying is a symptom of a serious mental illness that urgently needs to be treated with some drug.
You gotta accent-u-ate the positive,
Squashing the tears, rushing through the insulting scripts with words like, “wimp,” “momma’s boy,” “weakling,” “mentally ill,” etc., along with all of the negative emotions that accompany these words, leave us with far less of the energy that we would otherwise be able to call upon to address the cause of our sadness. Moreover, feeling like there is something wrong with us when we experience sensitive feelings results in millions of us turning to alcohol and drugs, which typically results in a number of unhealthy side effects.
At such times, as soon as you can, go to a place where you can have some alone time, preferably in a pleasant place out in nature, but even a bathroom will do in a pinch.
Observe them like you were a scientist objectively observing a flock of birds flying by, off in a distant sky.
Here’s another great exercise that I recommend. Over the course of four days, write for a minimum of 15 minutes at each sitting about something that has led you to experience sadness. As you do so, make sure you include not only what happened, but also what you felt when it happened, and how you now feel about what happened. Include your deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred. Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. As you do so, recall the sensory experience of these feelings, not just the words that define the experience. After you finish the day’s writing assignment, read it over, and if you had called yourself any unkind names, cross them out, and read, once again, what you had written without any of the nasty name calling.
This assignment, like the other, does not cost any money, and by the time you finish this assignment, you will probably find you have made friends with your sad experiences. However some people may feel they have a few steps left to go before fully embracing sadness.
As I explained in another post about ruminating on certain anger experiences, meditation can be very helpful in dealing with any distressing ruminating experiences. You can learn how to meditate for free by clicking 
Welcome to From Insults To Respect. As regular readers well know, from time to time I present discussions about the value of dealing with criticism in a manner that can enhance the respect people have for us. I began these discussions by describing how I made a lot of TV shows with a variety of actors displaying different styles of responding to criticism. 
Then I asked a wide range of people over several years to watch the shows and discuss their reactions.
To familiarize readers with the five levels, from time to time, I provide real life examples of people dealing with criticism and then ask readers to rate how the criticism had been handled. This week, while thinking about what my next example might be, a new real life example arose as I watched a tennis match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. The two stars were playing at the U.S. Open to determine which would be the women’s national champion.
Before providing the five levels, I want to make sure that readers understand that they are not to be viewed as items written in stone. There may be some situations that might alter someone’s view of what is an ideal response. And individuals are of course entitled to make their own personal set of levels. Nevertheless, the levels are useful because they are generally viewed by a wide range of people in a variety of situations to match their own perceptions of what is a respected response to criticism. Thus, it provides us a way to debate its flaws and strengths, and in the end, we come away having deepened our thinking about important issues.
In the first set, Naomi looked impressive, beating the enormously talented Serena, 6-2.
Serena, upon hearing that a warning had been issued, approached chair umpire Ramos and, from her comments, it became apparent she believed Mr. Ramos had criticized her for cheating. Thus she said assertively, “You may have thought that was coaching, but I’m telling you it was not. I don’t cheat to win. I’d rather lose. I’m just letting you know.”
Throwing a racket is an automatic code violation, and because it was Serena’s second violation, Naomi gained a point for the next game. Ramos had clearly announced, “Code violation, racket abuse, point penalty, Mrs. Williams.”
When Ramos explained that Serena had a point penalty for smashing her racket, she calmly said, “Yeah, that’s a warning.” Then chair umpire Ramos explained that she already had a warning for the coaching violation, and here Serena raised her voice, and looking exasperated, cried out, “I didn’t get coaching! I didn’t get coaching! I didn’t get coaching! You need to make an announcement that I didn’t get coaching. I don’t cheat. I didn’t get coaching!”
Finally, returning to play, Serena loses the next game, and the game after that, handing the lead over to Naomi, 4-3.
Ramos said something I couldn’t make out, and then Serena yelled, “You will never, ever, be on the same court as me as long as you live!” She then called Ramos a liar as he is looking squarely at her, and leaning his body to her, clearly listening to what she had to say.
Ramos can then be seen in video recordings complying with this request, turning his body and eyes to face a direction away from Serena.
She didn’t seem to understand this, so Ramos called both players over to his chair and clearly explained what the situation is. Serena responded by laughing, and asked, “Are you kidding me?”
Serena now began to make her case to the highest official at the U.S. Open, during which she began to cry. “You know my character,” she said, “and this is not right. This has happened too many times, this is not fair. To lose a game for saying that, this is not fair. Do you know how many men do much worse than that, this is not fair. Because I’m a woman, you are going to take this away from me. You know it, and I know you can’t admit it, but I know you know it.”
When Serena returned to play, it was Naomi’s turn to serve. Naomi easily won that game, and, consequently, the match and the U.S. Open Championship.
After the final point, Serena, graciously walked over to Naomi and gave her a hug.
Moments later, the master of ceremony announced it was time to present the trophies, and another round of boos were heard. Naomi once again began to cry. Serena put her arms around Naomi, smiled, and said she was proud of her and that she should know that the crowd wasn’t booing at her. Naomi returned a genuine smile.
When it was Serena’s turn to say something during the awards ceremony, she graciously said, while choking back tears, “She played well, and this is her first grand slam, and I know that you guys were rooting, and I was rooting too, but let’s make this the best moment that we can. We’ll get through this, but, let’s give everyone the credit where credit is due, and let’s not boo anymore, we’re going to get through this and let’s be positive. Congratulations Naomi. No more booing. Thank you to my team, you guys are amazing.” Serena, begins to wipe away her tears, which were streaming from her eyes. She manages to continue, saying, “Thank you to the crowd, you guys are the best in the world. Thank you so much, and I really hope to go again to continue to play here again. We’ll see. It was a tough year for me, but thank you so much.”
Mr. Ramos listened attentively, and nodded his head. Serena then went back to the game.
If there was less pressure to proceed with the game, I would have liked her to have said to Ramos something like, “I think that the coaching code violation means you are accusing me of being a cheater. Is that right?” I say this, because the phrase in the level 4 description which states, “make it clear that they fully understand what was said,” means that the person criticized would first restate the criticism, as he or she understands it, and then ask if this restatement is correct. If Serena had done so, I think Ramos would have said something like, “I’m not accusing you of cheating. I’m saying your coach has violated, in my opinion, the code that says there is to be no coaching during a U.S. Open match. It was entirely on this basis that I issued you a warning.”
The next such act occurred when Serena hit a backhand into the net for an unforced error, allowing Naomi to win her second game of the second set. At this point, Serena was still in the lead, 3-2. Nevertheless, her response to losing that game was to fling her racket into the ground, breaking it. Thus, it seems to me, that she had criticized herself for her unforced error, and responded by destroying her property. This is clearly a level one response. Ramos penalized Serena one point for the next game.
This example of dealing with criticism provides us a fine example in which people, when criticized, are not just upset because of the criticism, but also the consequences of receiving the criticism. Oftentimes the consequences are not as obvious as in this case. Here we plainly see that Serena received a warning, which was, at the time, reasonably assumed to be of little consequence. However, when she broke her racket, because she already had a warning, she now had lost a point. When she called Ramos a thief, the clear consequence was losing an entire game, and, consequently dramatically increased the chances of losing the entire match. She was also subsequently docked by the tournament referee’s office $17,000 ($10,000 for “verbal abuse” of chair umpire Carlos Ramos, $4,000 for being warned for coaching, and $3,000 for breaking her racket).
“I was at a family birthday party, we were all eating together at this long table with all sorts of wonderful foods laid out. I was thoroughly enjoying my plate along with my mom and sister. Then this little girl who was probably a year or two younger than me looks at me and says ‘Why are you so fat?’
To address this question, I’m going to present a little scenario that kinda describes what I have done over the years when I found myself providing counseling to someone dealing with this issue. In saying the scenario “kinda” describes what I have done I mean to indicate that it really is, by necessity, a shortened description of what actually occurs in my actual counseling sessions. More specifically, in real life sessions I spend distinctly more intervals of time listening in a caring way than we will see in the scenario. I ask more questions to clarify what specifically occurred in any event being described. I am more likely to slightly rephrase what the person had said so they see that I understand what I have been listening to, thus reassuring them I’m really deeply listening. A full rendition of such a counseling session would be a fifty-minute read, way too long for our purposes.
She played parts in numerous movies such as ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘Show Boat.’ It wasn’t just me who delighted in her character portrayals, many producers must have liked her too because they selected her to play in over 300 movies, and her peers selected her to win an Academy Award. She wasn’t just a movie actress, she also was a singer and song writer as well. The United States honored her with a U.S. postage stamp for her contributions to the arts.
They also had faces that can lead one to drift into a dream. As it turned out, there were not a whole lot of such women around my neighborhood, and yet I did start to date. On some scales, those that I dated did not match the perfect Hollywood type here or there but I found I was still attracted to them. In time I got to know things about them that transcended mere looks. When I met my wife, she was wearing braces on her teeth, hardly a classic Hollywood look.
“And judging from my observations, most women that I knew during my dating days were willing to go out with guys who didn’t look exactly like Cary Grant or Robert Redford. After a while they found someone that had looks that fell short of what some might think of as perfect in every way, and nevertheless, they fell in love and got married.
“I see.” I pause here for a few seconds, just experiencing within me strong empathy for what Heather has been going through, and also seeking a way toward some peace with it.
“The exercise comes from several ancient wisdom traditions. It is part of what has been called ‘mindfulness.’ There is a theory that it deepens our stressful experiences in a way that perhaps leads us to take some positive actions to deal better with them.”
“If you like, we could work on that together. I think we would want to include not only eating less, but also eating healthy foods and getting sufficient exercise.”
In any case, may you all find someone who will show you kindness as you meet up with all of your challenging experiences.
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. On this blog, from time to time, we have been discussing depression. To help us better understand this deeply troubling experience, we have looked at the biographies of several individuals who, despite their mighty struggles with depression, still managed to earn the respect of millions. Today, we quickly review three of these biographies, that of the brilliant psychologist and philosopher William James, the remarkable musical performer Joni Mitchell, and the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
Finally, in an earlier post (see 
Wrenshall Smith encountered him returning from the battle and depicted him as “much depressed. He dismounted and took a seat on the stone. What is the situation, I asked? Bad–very bad, he replied.” Samuel Beckwith noticed that after Cold Harbor Grant’s face developed “a careworn expression that indicated sleepless nights and fearsome days.” When he delivered a message to the general’s tent, he found him sunk in thought. After absorbing the telegram, Grant sighed, “Beckwith,” he said, “the hardest part of this General business is the responsibility for the loss of one’s men. I can see no other way out of it, however; we’ve got to keep at them. But it is hard, very hard, to see all these brave fellows killed and wounded. It means aching hearts back home.”
The doctors’ statements about this imply that if treated with “antidepressants” this can decrease the risk of suicide enough so that the depressed patient, by taking the drug, is better off than facing the risk of any adverse effects of the drug. But the doctors don’t know what the long term effects of taking the drugs are. What’s more, the scientific evidence currently available indicates that these drugs do not reduce the risk of suicide, and may actually increase it by as much as 8 percent (see 
This alternative is uplifting, less stigmatizing, and conducive to a recovery point of view. It is a view that posits that depression has the potential to open our eyes to the fullness of truth. The suffering that goes along with the experience is a natural part of life, a view held by Nietzsche, as well as Buddhists and many other wisdom traditions. Additionally, it is an enormous source for creativity, and as we go through it, it can lead to one insight after another.
This is an important lesson for so many of us who were brought up being taught to feel embarrassed and guilty when experiencing deeply sad emotions. In fact, for those who were brought up this way, they often believe that it is proper to lose respect for people who experience such emotions. They often end up having, each time they, personally, experience depression, a double depression. That is, not only do they at times begin to become depressed because of the reasons that would normally lead to feelings of melancholy, but they are additionally depressed about feeling that there is something terribly wrong with them, that they have bad genes and a stigmatizing illness requiring medication with all kinds of negative side-effects.
Giving up this tendency to feel a double depression for those who learned it throughout their childhood and well into their adult life often requires a relationship with someone providing quality social ties and social support. Substantial evidence (see 
Although it is least expensive to receive this kind of support from warm, close friends and family members, sometimes those whom we are most close to hold the very same pathologizing beliefs that is holding one back from real recovery. At such times, finding a professional personal counselor who does not hold to the pathologizing point of view can be enormously helpful if the financial situation can be reasonably worked out. Discussions with the professional who typically responds in a very supportive manner, models for the person receiving counseling the type of skills that is helpful when we look within as we experience melancholy. Instead of berating ourselves for acting pathological, we come to learn to be kind to ourselves and to nurse hope that something positive will come from what we are going through.
Some non-pathologizing counselors will also encourage you to learn to meditate and utilize other mindfulness techniques. Here you practice observing your physical sensations when you are dealing with the disrespectful perceptions. In time, the disrespectful words that you tend to direct at yourself come to lose their disturbing nature. For a period of time these words still come, but you end up smiling at them as you realize they are not matching reality. In time, they may completely fade away as you embrace the physical sensations that come with melancholy.
Now, I understand that many people will find it hard to find in their community the type of counseling services I am describing. This may be because many professional counselors have adopted the same pathologizing approaches as psychiatrists, although they do believe counseling services, when combined with drug treatment, can be beneficial. For those who would like to work with a non-pathologizing personal counselor but find it difficult to find one within a convenient distance from home, I highly recommend two who can work with you individually via Skype–my son, Jack Star Rubin, and his lovely wife, Emily Whyte Rubin (see 
Many people have come to feel that the psychiatric profession has failed to treat them respectfully. Several issues have inflamed them, arguably the most emotional being involuntary drug treatment which, to them, is often viewed as torture.
“(a) Review the anti-torture framework in relation to persons with disabilities in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as authoritative guidance regarding their rights in the context of health-care;
Involuntary psychiatric interventions are legitimized under national laws, and may enjoy wide public support as being in the alleged “best interest” of the person concerned, or because it protects people in the community from the violence that some people labelled mentally ill will carry out. Nevertheless, according to the UN report, “…to the extent that they inflict severe pain and suffering, they violate the absolute prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
When people are forced to take psychiatric drugs, it often feels like torture because of a number of their side effects. For example, akathisia makes it hard to stay still. It causes an urge to move that you can’t control. You might need to fidget all the time, walk in place, or cross and uncross your legs. Akathisia is often hard to describe, and it can take over a person’s life and feel awful.
Tardive dyskinesia occurs at a cumulative rate of 4-7% per year in otherwise healthy, relatively young patients treated with many of the so-called antipsychotic drugs. After only a few years, 20% or more of those treated will be afflicted with tardive dyskinesia. Older patients have an even higher risk.
According to the 
Individuals who are male teenagers or young adults are also more at risk of violence than the average person in a given population. Thankfully, for my two sons, our society does not require that all of these at risk individuals be placed on psychiatric drugs.
The best scientific analysis that looks at whether or not the drugs significantly reduce violence when involuntarily administered has been provided by the nonprofit group called Cochrane (see 
The best predictors of future violence are a history of past violent crime, victimization, involvement with illegal drugs and drug markets, poverty, life trauma exposure, and ambient neighborhood crime. When these factors are not present for an individual, being classified as mentally ill is not related to violence. Rather than the vague notion of mental illness, it appears that these are the real factors that lead to the statistically modest increased risk of violence among those labelled as mentally ill because such labelled individuals are more likely to be exposed to these risk factors (see 
Clearly, people in our communities have justification to want to keep people from harming themselves or others. I know I don’t want violent people running around my neighborhood. However, the use of psychiatric drugs too often lead people to think that the mental health professionals did what was needed, and thus reduces the necessary motivation to advocate for more helpful action. In my view, there are far better ways to address these concerns without any need for involuntary treatment or torturing anyone.
First of all, we already have laws for someone who commits a violent crime. I support these laws because without them many people who might otherwise act violently find that to avoid prison time they can choose a nonviolent alternative, thus making our communities safer. For those who fail to choose nonviolent ways to deal with life challenges, the law requires that they serve time in prison. Removing them from our communities for a period of time leads to our communities being safer, and gives the person who committed the crime an opportunity to consider better alternatives to deal with the type of situation that led to their incarceration. Moreover, as they serve time in prison, they become older, thus they enter an age range that leads to more thoughtful considerations and a much lower likelihood of choosing violent options.
Now, I hasten to point out that many prison officials believe that when people serve time they should be punished in degrading ways. But most people placed in prison, whether they are displaying behavior that often leads one to receive a mental illness label or not, are best treated with respect and dignity. The vast majority will eventually return to our neighborhoods and to traumatize them with abusive actions while they are in prison increases the risk that they will become less than ideal citizens. There are a number of countries that have been trying out more humanistic approaches to treating prisoners and the results have been very promising.
For those people who are at risk of violence, we can incentivize them to learn nonviolent ways to deal with the kinds of anger arousing situations that they may potentially face. For example, people who have been convicted of a violent crime and are serving out their sentence can be incentivized to learn prosocial skills by reducing their sentence a month if they demonstrate mastery of the skills. People at risk who are not incarcerated may be offered some other incentives such as access to better housing, or even be provided a monetary incentive that is about the same amount as the combined cost of a drug management program. Drug management typically includes the cost for the drugs plus the time for professionals to assess, prescribe, and monitor the patient. Monitoring the patient includes regular meetings to assess drug side-effects, readjust the medication dose, prescribe a different or additional drug, and sending out a social worker or nurse to remind patients to take their prescriptions. These costs are significant and if redirected to incentivizing people at risk, it would lead to a significant level of voluntary participation.
What would a program that teaches nonviolent ways to deal with anger arousing situations look like? Teachers would identify their student’s pattern of anger expression and the situations in which the student typically experiences anger. Responding to criticism and providing criticism are particularly hot spots, so they would be the focus of early lessons (see 
In a 
In a second 
Negative criticism is coming our way whether we like it or not. And within a relationship, providing it can be essential. If one of the parties is doing something that is bugging the other, keeping silent could unnecessarily lead to the relationship coming to a premature end when a constructive discussion might have easily settled the matter.
That said, there are times when someone is providing one criticism after another and it becomes too much to process all at once. At other times, someone might provide criticism that is in a style that uses a tone of voice that is hard to bear. 
Sometimes we have been recently bombarded by some type of stress, and as a result, we may not be in any mood to hear any criticism for a while. Under these sets of circumstances, it makes perfectly good sense to briefly let the person who is seeking to provide criticism know that usually we are very open to hearing criticism, but for right now, we need a little break (see blog posts 
So, Sarah and Bob in the past had agreed with me about all of this. And then at dinner one evening they revealed to me that within their relationship they have come to an agreement that when either one of them wants to provide some constructive criticism to the other they first ask for permission. They also prefer others who want to provide criticism to them do likewise. Let’s take a close look at this approach.
When Sarah finds that Bob has done something that she would like him to consider changing, rather than hoping Bob will at some point invite her to provide some criticism to him about that issue, she could, herself, bring the issue up to him uninvited when she thinks he might be in a receptive mood. More specifically, Sarah, before providing feedback, first checks in with herself to see if she has sufficiently calmed herself from any anger or annoyance that she has been experiencing. This is important because if she seeks to provide feedback to Bob when she is angry or annoyed, either at him, or at someone else, her tone of voice might inadvertently provoke a level of defensiveness within Bob that would be counterproductive.
Bob also uses the same approach as Sarah when he wants to provide her some feedback. Both agree that this approach has been very helpful to them. Sarah explained that upon hearing the phrase, “Are you open to my giving you some feedback about something?” it gives her a few moments to check in with herself. “Am I up to having a criticism type discussion right now, or would it be better to wait for a more apt time? If I am up for hearing it, I can take a moment to prepare myself.” Bob agreed.
At this point in the conversation, I recalled that just prior to this conversation I had mentioned to Bob that his eye glass lenses looked like they had some smudges on them. He seemed to find some value in what I had said, as he looked the lenses over and cleaned them. So, I asked him if he would have preferred, when I mentioned the smudges, that I first had asked him if he was open for some feedback. He smiled, and said that in that type of situation there was no need for asking for permission.
The conversation about this topic ended at this point, but a day or two later, we got back into it. In attempting to clarify in my own mind how the Sarah and Bob approach would work in a variety of situations, I asked Bob, “If you accidentally left your fly open, would it be okay if I just whispered to you in private that you needed to zipper up, or would you prefer that in that kind of situation I first ask if you were open to hearing some feedback?” He said that with that type of situation coming right to the issue would be fine, though it would be helpful if I said it in a non-putdown manner, perhaps pointing out that we all goof up like that from time to time.
Yes, there are times when I do feel within me some sensitive feelings upon hearing some negative feedback. Nevertheless, I’d rather deal with that than discourage anyone from letting me know, straight out, what they think I can do to improve. Moreover, I am confident that I have the skills to use those sensitive feelings in a constructive, creative manner. I also wonder if people might respect me more for being the type of person they can be straight and honest with, who gracefully welcomes criticism, and really takes the time to seriously consider what someone has to say.
Samantha Bee, who, on her cable comedy TV show “Full Frontal,” called first daughter Ivanka Trump a “feckless c*nt,”using a vulgar reference to the female anatomy. Samantha tore into Ivanka after the first daughter had posted a beautiful photo depicting her and her child treasuring their mother-child relationship. This post occurred at the same time the press was showing disturbing images of children of illegal immigrants being torn from their mother’s arms and then sent to separate places, perhaps permanently.
Like Roseanne, Samantha quickly apologized, saying, “I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night. It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.”
Many have expressed anger believing that it’s not fair that Roseanne got fired while Samantha didn’t. These people tend to support this position by saying that both did the same thing, insulting a political figure in a vile manner and using discriminatory language.
First of all, I don’t watch a great deal of TV, so I’m not all that familiar with either Roseanne or Samantha’s various performances. Whenever I have had glimpses of Roseanne doing her shtick, I occasionally found it pleasantly humorous.
Upon hearing that she was going to star in an updated version of her old show, many were hopeful because it was going to depict family and friends with different political views interacting. If the discussions on the show were done in a loving thoughtful manner it might prove to be a great opportunity for Americans to positively self reflect. As it sadly turned out, I feel for the many fine people who were engaged in creating the show who themselves had done nothing wrong. They now must face the incredible turmoil that the kind of hateful language that Roseanne used tends to breed.
As for Samantha, there were times I caught her performances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and found her satire insightful, but she too often came across as just being mean to those whom she was being critical of. My wife, who has been watching her since she has had her own show, tells me that her commentaries are often spot on.
As a parent myself, I found myself imagining how he might have felt upon hearing someone use such language against his daughter. But then it came to my attention that from his lips not a single word was uttered opposing what Roseanne had said that denigrated so many. Where was his outrage over how their parents felt upon hearing Roseanne’s hateful comments? It occurred to me that Roseanne is a high profile person who supports him.
When Megan Kelly, during one of the last presidential debates, had asked Trump some challenging questions, he attacked her, saying she must have had blood coming out of…wherever. This struck me and many others as obviously sexist. Trump apparently had no sympathy for Megan or her father.
As I thought more about this, it seemed to me that most of the people who felt Samantha should have been fired are supporters of Trump. These are the same people that had heard how he had bragged about grabbing women, heard women testifying that he had done so, and heard his comment about Megan Kelly. They, nevertheless, have not been calling for his firing, and instead, they went out and voted for him, thereby recommending that rather than be fired, he be hired to serve as the president of the United States. So, their arguments for why Samantha should be fired ended up ringing off key to my ears.
As I questioned him, it became clear that in his opinion both of the performers’ comments were equally bad because they were very insulting. Moreover, both were discriminatory–Roseanne’s comment being discriminatory in it being racist and anti-muslim; Samantha’s comment being sexist.
In contrast, Samantha, who is a woman, made a sexist comment that offends women. She had not done anything similar in the past. Moreover, she made it clear that she was seeking to insult just one person and for something specifically not being done by that person. Unlike what Roseanne had done, Samantha’s comment did not directly insult her boss; in fact, her boss very likely agreed with the point Samantha had tried to make. These are very clear differences to me.
This is not to say that there isn’t a very helpful place for providing criticism to those with whom we disagree. But to me there are destructive and constructive ways to go about this.
Welcome to From Insults to Respect.
A mock funeral mourning those lost to psychiatry or who have had their spirits broken and struggle to survive is to be held as protesters deliver a public message to psychiatrists at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association on Sunday, May 6, 2018. “First, Do No Harm” is the message that protesters hope will go viral and get people to think twice before getting involved with psychiatry.
I became interested in the conflict about the use of psychiatric drugs very early in my career as a psychologist. I began to discuss the issues with psychiatrists as well as those who objected to this form of treatment. A broad outline of what I heard follows:
In contrast, critics of psychiatric drugs have made the following counter claims: The use of psychiatric drugs has unleashed the worst medically induced disaster in history. They have caused millions of people to become addicted to them, suffering debilitating, life threatening side effects. Rather than promoting mental health, these drugs are being used to promote social control and conformity. Reduction in hospitalization, moreover, occurred not because of the use of these drugs, but because of a deinstitutionalization policy that became known as “dumping.” Problems now being handled with psychiatric drugs can be more effectively, safely, and humanely handled with a variety of social support systems, counseling, mindfulness, healthy diet, and physical exercise techniques.
As I heard these conflicting claims, I initially thought that psychiatrists had principles of science on their side. With my graduate training in research methods and statistics, I thought that by doing a thorough job finding out the scientific research that backs up the psychiatric drug supporters I could explain in an easy to understand language why psychiatric drugs are necessary. With such an explanation, perhaps the conflict would be resolved.
I began with researching Ritalin because I was working in Rochester, NY’s school system. This was from 1974 to 1979. It was a time when drugs were just beginning to be prescribed more and more to treat students who had teachers dissatisfied with their activity level or ability to pay attention. I had witnessed a time when schools managed to deal with such problems without the use of this drug and life went on reasonably well. With the rise in its use, some thought it was a wonderful advancement, while others were expressing great discomfort at this new trend.
Not all of the findings were supportive. At the time I initially did my research, there was only one study that looked at the long-term results of Ritalin use. It compared children placed on methylphenidate, the generic version of Ritalin, with those who received no treatment. The children in the two groups were matched with respect to age, IQ, socioeconomic class and sex. After 3 to 5 years, no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups on the following outcome measures: emotion maladjustment, delinquency, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Bender gestalt visual-motor test, and academic performance.
Perhaps most troubling of all was the recognition that the safety of long term use of Ritalin had not been established despite many students being treated for years.
In the end, I discovered that although the approval process of the FDA had in its documents the available scientific evidence in making its decision to approve Ritalin, the reviewers’ decision nevertheless relied more on their personal values. It seemed to me, and it still does, that different people looking over the same scientific evidence could, depending on their values, come to completely different conclusions about whether or not the drug should be approved.
For example, Marcia Angell, M.D., is a former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, and now is a member of Harvard’s Medical School. In her insightful book, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, she writes, “Is there some way companies can rig clinical trials to make their drugs look better than they are? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Trials can be rigged in a dozen ways, and it happens all the time” (p. 95).
Civil rights activists worked for generations to make some progress in achieving their goals. Among the most successful of these advocates was Martin Luther King, Jr. When advocating for civil rights, he avoided throwing insults at those who resisted the changes he was after. Instead, he focussed on painting his dream in beautiful, hopeful phrases and demonstrating in nonviolent, but impossible to ignore, peaceful resistance.
Welcome to
More people indicated they dislike the new tax plan than like it for three basic reasons: They think the new law favors the wealthy over the middle and working class. They’re suspicious that tax cuts for businesses are permanent but tax cuts for individuals are temporary. And they think it’s irresponsible to finance the tax cuts with debt that future workers will have to shoulder.
There is an estimated 1 trillion dollars per year of new debt the US government will have due to the tax cuts. “The small amount most get,” said one concerned citizen, “will be eaten up by the massive debt we’re adding but not benefitting from.”
“The new tax policy would deliver more than 50 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent, according to an 
For example, the fracking industry utilizes such heavy equipment that transporting it breaks down the highways in the areas that they operate more quickly than average utilizers. The added cost to maintain the highways would be paid for by a fee.
The US government has long supported a tax plan that encourages its citizens to purchase their own home by offering a reduction in taxes for those who have a mortgage. To continue this encouragement of home ownership, the tax proposal I am advocating for would make the first $100,000 of a home purchase tax free.
What are the benefits of this plan’s elimination of taxes on earnings of businesses and corporations? To begin with, as soon as a government begins to seek taxes from the earnings of organizations such as businesses and corporations, the organizations’ self interests lead to actions taken by incredibly well financed lobbyists. This consumes an enormous amount of our government representatives’ time. The plan I support would free up our representatives so they can work directly on doing what’s right for we, the people.
In manipulating the system, corporate lobbyists manage to embed incredibly complex formulas into the tax code to hide the various benefits to their organizations. Manipulations, such as establishing offshore companies, manage to successfully hide from the tax collectors. Savvy tax lawyers find one loophole after another. All of these efforts are financially costly to corporations and other businesses, wasting their resources, while having a negative effect on our economy as a whole.
Let me add that many people are under the misconception that corporations pay a huge percentage of the needed federal revenues. With that impression, these people think that if we end taxes on corporate profits, individual citizens’ taxes would have to skyrocket. However, as the chart on the right indicates, prior to the new tax overhaul, corporate taxes covered about ten percent of all federal revenues. Now that that overall has been passed, it’s percent of all federal revenues is significantly less. Because my tax plan would have corporations paying a new federal sales tax on the goods and services that they purchase, plus the rich paying an increase in their income tax, there would be no loss in federal revenues from the elimination of taxing corporate profits.
Another benefit of my proposed tax plan is that the majority of citizens would find that figuring out their income tax burden would be enormously simplified. Once a year they would merely add up their income, notify the IRS what that amount is, and as long as it is not more than $100,000, they would be done. No more hiring a tax preparer, or spending hours pouring over tax receipts to figure out what can be written off and what can’t.
Well, first I was influenced to some degree by Warren Buffett’s rule. The Buffett Rule is named after American investor 
After considering what Buffett has said on this topic, I then read Capital in the Twenty-First Century by economist
Piketty”s careful analysis argues that a progressive tax on both income and inheritance reaching a maximum of 80% would be required to adequately reduce inequality. At the same time, he recognizes the political difficulties of achieving this. I chose 50% as a number that perhaps is more reasonably achievable in the not too distant future.
Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize–winning economist, disagrees with Ryan’s assessment. Thus, he stated that “the economic record certainly doesn’t support the notion that [the current] superlow taxes on the superrich are the key to prosperity.” He backs this up with evidence like the fact that the U.S. economy added 11.5 million jobs during President Bill Clinton’s first term, when the capital gains tax rate was over 29 percent.
Moving on, what about the concern expressed in the Yahoo poll about the new tax overhaul increasing the national debt? In my proposal, the sales tax would be set at a level that would be just high enough so all of the current government programs would be adequately funded while slowly reducing the national debt. How high a sales tax would that be?
As long as there is real competition in the marketplace, corporations will be forced to pass on at least some of their 21% savings in taxes to their customers, thereby leading to citizens ending up paying a total amount that is less per sale even with an 8% sales tax.
And many middle class folks have, because of the resentment they feel, been talking about the rich in the most disrespectful manner, while passing around on the internet images of them being big fat greedy folks.