A Critique of Nihilism

"Freedom is the freedom to believe that two and two are four" George Orwell (Taken from 1984)

Whilst ideologies and beliefs can be said to be dangerous, the freedom to hold beliefs other than the state or mass public opinion are very important.  Most people will say that they don't believe in anything, and these days nihilism is very fashionable, and which is why it's hard to say whether nihilism stems from genuine dissent and scepticism, or whether it is just conforming to mass public opinion.  Such mass public opinion may be simply the hegemony of ideas passed down by the ruling classes to the middle and working classes, justifying ones own dissolution, ignorance, and oppression.

Whilst nihilism seeks to deny all social beliefs and values, in the process of denying it may set up its own personal ideology and dogma, and thus seek to impose this upon others, restricting personal or collective freedom and freedom of thought.  Nihilism denies social beliefs and values, but often doesn't take into account things which are related to beliefs and values, but which are also not synonymous and are separate aspects - things such as faith, creative imagination, integrity, conviction, solidarity, and mutual trust and love.

Nihilism is therefore is a form of egocentrism.  Such individualism or egocentrism could be the basis of libertarian and democratic thinking, but it could also be the basis for right-wing views such as Thatcherism or even Nazism.  Personally, I think that whilst it's foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water, and because there is some truth in everything, there are also contradictions in everything - including nihilism.  To be a thorough nihilist, one also has to be self-critical, but most nihilists are not prepared to do this.

So rather than rejecting everything and hypocritically setting personal belief systems up in the process, I'd rather focus on the positive side of nihilism, and which is about finding truths in all systems, whilst realising and taking into account social, political, and personal contradictions.

One critique of nihilism is that it is a bourgeois consciousness, and embodies the anti-values of the ruling classes, that there is no such thing as society and so on.  The ruling classes and those who support them don't have to have shared values and beliefs in order to organise and change society, because they are content with the system staying as it is to keep them in power.

Also, because nihilism supposedly elevates the individual above all social and shared values, and because it sets up its own dogma and lacks the corresponding self-criticism to be a thorough nihilist, it can very easily lead to being destructive, and very easily lead to being self-opinionated and to personal bigotry.

Nihilism can be conditioned or influenced by social, political, and psychological factors.  I'm also interested in where nihilism stands in terms of freewill and determinism.  On the basis on freewill everything is a choice, and so therefore even not choosing, or rejecting, is still a belief and a choice.  This is somewhat reductionist, as nihilism doesn't have to be destructive, and it can be a form of genuine and moderate scepticism; but I would also add that nihilism ends up becoming deterministic in its personal dogma and ideology, and so again, it ends up becoming the very thing that it is rejecting, albeit in a personalised form.

 

Olfactory Hallucinations

Emotions that burn and smolder through the nose and brow

Olfactory hallucinations are hallucinated smells, and in some ways are similar to hearing voices hallucinations, except they function or are experienced as smells or nasty smells, and are therefore called olfactory, which means the sense of smell.  Like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) olfactory hallucinations are a very neglected area of therapy, and there seems to be no specific therapy treatment for these things in the Thanet area on the mental health NHS.

When I had an acute breakdown about nine years ago, I experienced amongst anxiety and the unreality-feelings of very severe depression, some olfactory hallucinations.  The olfactory hallucinations were very disturbing and painful to me, partly because nothing about them was ever addressed in any therapy context, and I had no idea what it was I was really experiencing.  I managed to self-manage these experiences whilst I was in psychiatric hospital for nearly two weeks as a so-called voluntary patient, and about five years ago, by re-experiencing olfactory hallucinations with a new understanding, I was able to realize what olfactory hallucinations really were, and how to deal with it.

When I was in psychiatric hospital, along with olfactory hallucinations went a severe burning-sensation in the center of my forehead, which was my suppressed passion and anger coming out, and I had some identity disturbance as well, where I couldn't see my reflection in the mirror, it didn't look like me, or I looked physically distorted.  To be ourselves, and not to have our social, sexual, human, and personal struggles distorted and twisted by psychiatry and mental and social health professionals, is a huge struggle we all face in society as users and survivors of services.

I had a breakthrough in understanding what olfactory hallucinations really were about five years ago, after considering the views of the American psychiatrists Peter Breggin, and especially of Thomas Szasz, who are both critical of their own psychiatric professions.  Peter Breggin prefers to say that people have unusual or strange ideas, rather than the more derogatory description of "bizarre ideation" used by psychiatrists, and I think that psychiatric definitions of mental ill-health symptoms are often collusive and unhelpful to a greater understanding of what those things really are. Drugs that blot out these experiences completely, are not helpful or constructive to cure or healing.

Thomas Szasz has a semantic method of therapy that he uses as a private therapist, which I think is an excellent and socially constructive approach, if used with intelligence, candour, and sensitivity.  This semantic method is about understanding that language is the sea in which we swim, and if you take us out of that sea, we are often lost, because we get into a habit of applying fixed-meanings to what symptoms we are experiencing or describing, and in return, those descriptions get attached to influence how we re-experience those symptoms, and how we interpret and respond to them.

So in effect, we adopt certain psychiatric or personal definitions and terms for our symptoms or experiences, which have sometimes been passed down to us, and which need to be challenged or explored with many other terms considered, for what symptoms we are experiencing.  This might also mean as Wilhelm Reich and others believed, to explore our feelings and emotions, and to realize how they become blocked and repressed by our political and social conditioning.  So a combination of these methods, plus my own unique overview and understanding, are the way I go about understanding and healing myself and others who have so-called mental health problems.

So about five years ago now, I was getting some mild olfactory hallucinations, and I very gently but deeply focused on what I was actually feeling, discarding the surface descriptions and experience of it as a hallucinated smell, and trying to work my way towards the root of what it was I was actually feeling, and what emotions had been suppressed.  What emotions had been blocked, suppressed, and repressed, were anger, revulsion, and disgust, and I was then able to address those feelings in a more positive light without suppressing them.

When I did this, the experience of those things displaced as a nasty smell decreased, and I was able to nip it in the bud before I perpetuated the negative cycle of false or limited descriptions and responses.  This is how I deal with my olfactory hallucinations now, and as with my OCD and auditory hallucinations, I have had to be my own therapist, although this has also helped me to help my friends who have mental ill-health symptoms, to have a greater understanding and healing of themselves.

Synaesthesia means a positive mixing or muddling of the senses, and there's some connection between olfactory hallucinations and synaesthesia on one level.  People who experience synaesthesia, often experience sounds of music as certain shapes, patterns, or colours (and colours that can be visualised, tasted, or smelt), and as a very blissful and beautifully creative experience, many classical composers like Scriabin were synaesthesiacs.

I experience a form of synaesthesia when I listen to jazz, classical, and rock music, and as a musician I play guitar and bass, and what I produce is both created from, and experienced as, certain combinations of shapes and patterns.  These shapes and patterns of chords, rhythms, musical keys and notations, have an abstract logic, and there is a freely constructed creative method to it.

So there is a creative connection with olfactory hallucinations and synaesthesia, although olfactory hallucinations unlike synaesthesia, are on the whole not a pleasant experience.  Literal comparisons between creativity and mental health problems can be dangerous and misleading, although there are some similarities which can add to our healing and understanding.

 

Violence and Creative Blocks

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm interested in to what extent creativity is violent, and how much a high level of creativity uses or requires force.  Some people who appear to be very creative are also very violent.  This is due to creative blocks.  A creative block can occur, when the mind becomes fixated on a feeling or an idea, and what occurs to me is that violence is very deterministic, because it believes that determined actions of violence will come from predicted and determined violent results.

It is much better to focus on freedom, liberty, and equality or democracy, rather than focus on violence and force, whilst it is understandable for people to defend themselves physically if they are under physical attack.

A creative block occurs, when the mind cannot think of new ideas, and when the randomness aspect of creativity takes over the receptiveness and reordering, filtering, and restructuring.  Randomness then becomes fixed and turns into repetition and a suppressed flow of energy, feelings, or ideas, and which can then lead to frustration, aggression, and violence.  This is also how many mental health problems can occur too.  Negative thinking and cynicism can also lead to violence, as people can see no positive way out of a situation, or positive ways to change themselves, a situation, or society.

Some of the films of the director Peter Greenaway are very creative, but also very violent.  However, mental violence, anxiety, and stress, are not conducive to creativity, and the violence in Peter Greenaway's films are coincidental to the creative aspect of them.  One thing his films do show though, is how creative blocks occur, within the context of so-called crimes of passion, oppression, and exploitation.

As people with diagnosed mental health problems, many of us have suffered from bullying and abuse.  We need government polices to tackle these problems, otherwise they will continue, destroying self esteem, creativity, and individual and human potential.  It is important that we don't act out the oppression and violence which has been done upon us, and learn how to overthrow the creative blocks which can lead to aggression and violence, and ruin our own and other people's lives.

 

Hearing Voices with Intimacy and Acknowledging Thoughts

I have got to the stage where I regularly talk with, debate, and negotiate with my voices, and which I have been doing for some years now.  Even though I am male, my voices are very female: nurturing, sensitive, and caring, and they talk like women.  Maybe I am a very feminine man, although I think that we all have both masculine and feminine character traits, and that it's unhealthy to have too much of either gender trait.

Like women, my voices like to talk a lot, and very rarely do they let me have any silence.  They sometimes protest if they think I am ignoring them, and they demand some sort of attention or response.  Ignoring the voices is not an option really, as they just get louder if I ignore them.  The voices sometimes ask me if I want some silence, and when I say yes, they then say OK, but then start talking again.  However, I have found some ways of silencing them.

As I have conversed with my voices for a long time, I think that I have achieved a degree of intimacy with them.  This can only be achieved after a person develops a close relationship with the voices.  By intimacy, I mean that I am very close to the voices, and I know when they will say something and can predict what they will say before they have said it.  This usually means, that by doing this, I am more closely having a conversation with my own conscious thoughts, rather than having thoughts which are independent of my consciousness.

Another way of silencing the voices, is by acknowledging my own thoughts which were otherwise to become voices.  This means that I can identify the thoughts as my own before they become voices.  When I think a thought that could become a voice, I say yes to myself out loud and acknowledge my own thought.  Maybe I need to do this affirmation because my thoughts and emotions were not acknowledged by others when I was a child.

I hope this, and my other articles, will help others to understand their own voices.  By developing a close relationship with the voices, and then analysing and understanding the thought patterns and processes behind them, I am slowly but surely getting closer to having more and more control over the voices, or of possibly curing myself of them.  I don't think I want to be cured of the voices entirely though, because if I was entirely cured of the voices I would miss them.  It's better that I develop coping mechanisms and strategies for controlling and silencing them though when the need arises.

Reality Testing and Reality Assumption

 There are many reasons why I am critical of the term and label "psychotic". Firstly, because it is a term, or similar term, sometimes referred to in an argument to invalidate or suppress another persons point of view or perspective.  The term or label of "psychotic", could therefore be being used simply to deny and suppress the other persons valid point of view or perspective, personally, interpersonally, socially, politically, and so on.

The label of "psychotic" is therefore a perspective controlling machine, and like a machine, it often operates mechanically, and without it's own true or unique perspective or consciousness.

I am also in some ways critical of the meaning of the term and label "psychotic", which means, "out of touch with and not corresponding to reality".

There are many different philosophical, political, and theological interpretations of reality, but where psychiatric social and mental health is concerned, anything which differs from the professional medical psychiatric and social or mental health perspective, can therefore be deemed to be out of touch with and not corresponding to reality, and therefore "psychotic".

In fact, this mentalist labelling of "psychotic", is in itself exclusive, and is in itself out of touch with other interpretations of reality - which are just as corresponding to reality - and just as realistic.  Thus, the absence of the knowledge of the mentalism of the term, process, and label "psychosis", could itself be said to be "psychotic" in some ways.  It is "psychotic" in the sense that it is trying to suppress another point of view or perspective, as in this way, it is out of touch with and not corresponding to another person's living reality.

The other main reason why I am critical of the term "psychotic", is that whilst I accept that a person can be hallucinating and having delusions of people, things, and forces which are unreal and untrue, on some deeper level of social interpretation their ideas might fit reality in a different way, and their ideas might make a lot of sense, in context to the person's past and present social and life-experiences, and in context to the voices social and cultural meaning.

Reality testing, can also often make assumptions about another person's grasp of reality, in order to feel superior and to feel more in touch with reality.  The main assumption this makes, is to assume that just because in some part of the person's brain, the person is hallucinating voices or whatever, then to assume that whole person's brain and consciousness must be out of touch with reality and therefore hallucinating.

From personal experience, I know that is possible to be both hallucinating voices, and agreeing or colluding with some of the delusions of those voices, and yet to still to be in touch with reality, and still be in touch with the knowledge and awareness that the voices and their content are not real.  This complex configuration is very difficult for psychiatrists to grasp and understand, partly because medical psychiatry - and which is a very linear thinking - fails to grasp or understand dialectical thinking, and which can operate differently, and somewhat paradoxically, on many different levels.

In order to understand madness, it helps if you have experienced it, or experienced something similar to it.  There is indeed a point which the delusions of hearing voices, can take over completely, as in the throes of a mental breakdown, but otherwise it is quite possible to experience both delusion and reality at the same time.

This dialectical thinking is in some ways much better than the exclusive reality perspective, because it can grasp reality and have a firm grip on real people and things, and yet it still has the creativity and imagination to receive other interpersonal, social, and cultural meanings of things. The voice hearer can therefore sometimes be an interpersonal, social, and cultural filter, which takes interpersonal, social, and cultural meanings, and places them together in different patterns, in order to have a much wider dialogue and understanding of society and reality.

My responses to Peter the Buddhist's Question

After sending my latest article on Socialisation and the Spirit of Internet Mental Health Chat Rooms to a Buddhist acquaintance of mine, he wrote back saying that he was left wondering what my impression might be of group therapy, face to face.  I wrote back saying that this was a very good question, but also a subtle and complex one.

To answer his question in very simple terms, yes I am in favour of group therapy face-to-face.  I did say in my article that Internet chat wasn't as good as face-to-face social interaction, but I just thought that Internet mental health chat rooms have a uniqueness and spirituality to them, and which is what I was trying to say about it.  I'm in favour of mutual aid, and my impression of free and equal group therapy face-to-face, is that it is a very good thing, and conducive to spirituality and well-being.

It also all depends on what he meant by group therapy, because there are two types of group therapy - psychiatric and non-psychiatric.  As Thomas Szasz points out, there are also two different types of psychiatry - coercion, and psychiatry between consenting adults.  I'm all in favour of non-psychiatric group therapy and psychiatric group therapy between consenting adults, but not coercion.  I found the group socialisation interesting and therapeutic in the Shoshu Buddhist group meetings, because people actually talk about and learn from their own and other people's experiences, but this is not the nature of most psychiatric group therapy.

On the more complex matters, I believe that a person can have a unique perception and awareness of things from being within a group, and because I'm a socialist, I believe in some collectivism and solidarity.  On the other hand, I'm also a libertarian, and I believe that a person can have a unique perception and awareness as being an outsider of a group, and sometimes outsiders can have a better and much more imaginative and clearer vision and understanding of things.  Nichiren Daishonin was such an outsider in his time and society as I understand it, as was Jesus Christ, and as are most very creative people.

I don't believe that all so-called delusions are merely individual, because there can also be mass delusion and mass deception, and which are even more dangerous than the occasional dictator who comes along (R. D. Laing in The Self and Others, and Noam Chomsky, talk about this).

The trouble is with outright capitalist society, is that it tends to use and exploit people as non-participants in the system, but I believe that it's beneficial to have a society that doesn't create marginalisation, and which tries to socially integrate everyone, and with respect to the persons privacy and solitude as well.

I've always been very interested in Buddhism, chanting, and meditation.  I used to meditate a lot, and I found it necessary to completely empty my mind in order to be mentally and emotionally free of all forced information and indoctrination, and I could then think and feel for myself.  Maybe if I was in a Buddhist monastery then I could meditate successfully, but a lot of ignorant people in society don't want an individual to have a free heart and mind.  It's the education system which makes people ignorant, and it forces an overload of information upon the mind, without acknowledging the need for a much more calmer or higher and creative awareness.

As Shoshu Buddhism says, I also found the world of Tranquility in traditional Buddhist meditation to be a very fragile state of mind, and one which was very vulnerable to stress and could easily turn into chaos and Hell, although it also gave me a lot of inner strength, even though I couldn't maintain it in the face of the threat of violence, state terrorism, and oppression.  This is why I think that chanting is better, and because it is a form of what some traditional Buddhists call "mindfulness" (meditating on thoughts, sounds, and actual activity).  Music is also a form of mindfulness for me.

Shoshu Buddhism is also less monastic and more socially integrative.  Group therapy is the main therapy used in psychiatric hospitals to treat patients, but from both knowledge and experience, I know that it can often be used to reinforce the prevalent ideas and ideology of society and those in power, and used for oppression, repression, and social control, whilst at the same time any protest about the type of neglect or bad treatment that exists within the psychiatric and mental health system, is suppressed and dismissed by those in psychiatric authority and power.  The film One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest shows some good examples of this.

Group therapy should be there for democracy, and to enable diagnosed patients and people to assert their rights for better and more humane treatment.  I also think that therapy should be interpersonal, as well as a purely individual or group thing, and that one-to-one counselling and therapy are very important.  Just ask yourself why there are no counsellors or psychotherapists in psychiatric hospitals, and why the staff hardly ever actually talk to the patients.  Psychiatric hospitals are not places of therapy, but places of medicalisation and control.

I have been in a situation in psychiatric hospital where I knew exactly what another patient was experiencing, and knew exactly how to help her, yet I was prevented from doing so by psychiatric nurses, just because the woman was very desperate for help and was holding my arm.  I had spoken to her previously, and knew that she was suffering from the agony of severe depersonalisation (something which most psychiatrists still don't acknowledge or understand), and all she really wanted to do was talk to me. She also needed a sense of physical contact to hold onto the idea of the physical and material world, and which was why she was clinging onto my arm.

 

Socialisation and the Spirit of Internet Mental Health Chat Rooms

I find that living in my local area I am somewhat socially isolated, and I sometimes think that I would have been better off living in London where I was born, where I lived the first five years of my life, and where there are more people, and the people are much more sociable and friendly.  Still, not everyone in Thanet are cold and unfriendly, and I have met and befriended some very nice, progressive, friendly, and sociable people here. 

Up until a year ago, I also made some friends with some other people with mental health problems in another town thrity miles away, most of whom were intellectuals such as myself, but due to my agoraphobia playing up again, and because I have concentrated on my local friends more, I have not been to this other town for over a year. 

Amongst my friends in this other town, were Bob, Jerry, and Jon, all of whom are very friendly and sociable people with a mutual interest in books, films, and writing.  I met Bob, Jerry, and Jon through thier local mental health service users forumForum, and after receiving psychotherapy twice from their local day-centre, organised by a female Forum worker, I used the cafe where Bob and the crew all meet up and socialise.  The cafe was a great place to meet up, have a good meal, socialise, and chat.  We met in the cafe once a week, and I must at some stage get back into meeting up in Canterbury with these friends, because I like this other town as a place, and I like the people there. 

When I was in my early teens I had a CB (Citizens Band) Radio, and through chatting on CB Radio I made some friends with some older boys at my secondary school, who I would not usually have befriended and socialised with.  One person that I met and befriended on CB Radio was Paul, who was a couple of years older than me, but he was very good at organising us all and getting us all together, and we used to socialise and meet up in pubs with his other four friends who I also befriended.  This meant that I was a drinker at an early age, and which later led to an alcohol addiction, but which I am now cured of, thanks to therapy, and to personal strength and will power that has led me into much more moderate drinking. 

Whilst Paul was very friendly and good at organising and getting us all together, I also found him a bit petty, bossy and domineering, and our friendship drifted apart over the years.  I stopped seeing these normal or non-diagnosed friends, and through my friend Steve I was introduced to Bill and Luke, who also have mental health problems, and who have remained close and dear friends of mine. 

I find it hard to find places to socialise and make friends, partly because I am an intellectual and seek mutual intellectual friendships, although I also like ordinary people and ordinary conversation.  I have checked out my local day centre, and whilst the workers there who also had mental health problems, were very nice, warm, and friendly people, there was no actual organised activities going on there, and the people were all sitting around drinking tea or coffee or watching TV. 

I now socialise with my friends Luke and Bill, and with their friends too, but another place I go to now for my socialisation are Internet mental health chat rooms.  These chat rooms are not as good as face-to-face social interaction and friendships, but they have a unique ethereal quality, and are places where I find I can find some solace and friendship with others, and places where I can talk about my problems without being misunderstood or judged for it.  I can talk about my mental health problems there and receive sympathy, understanding, and empathy from others who have similar problems. 

The conversation in mental health chat rooms can sometimes be a bit fragmented, but at the best of times it's like stream-of-consciousness communication, I have got to know people in mental health chat, and there most definitely is a kind of non-material love and friendship between us. Internet chat is much more ethereal and spiritual, because you can't see hear or see the person, and it all goes on in cyberspace, and so it's much more of a mental and in some ways a creative thing.  Also, because the conversation in mental health chat rooms is very disorganised and fragmented, it still can have a comprehensible stream, flow, and exchange of communication, and the nature and spirit of it can help one understand and interact with diagnosed madness. 

In some ways, CB Radio was a lot better because you actually hear the persons voice, and talk to local people who you could meet up with, but mental health chat is also different and better in a way because it's more international, not restricted by distance, and many people can talk at once without interrupting each other or blotting each other out.  Mental health chat is much more of a group experience than CB Radio, because you get more than two or three people talking, and the words are written down and don't overlap like they would do in spoken conversation.  Many people can be in the room and all talking at once with one another, and which is another thing that makes it unique. 

One problem with mental health chat rooms, is that most of the chat - however creative - is small talk, and I don't really get any intellectual or very interesting conversations.  (I found one chat room for intellectuals which was also a conservative chat room, but I found that many of the people there were racist, very nationalistic, and illiberal, and I am not a conservative by nature or by experience, creativity, and learning).  Still mental health chat is creative and unique, and it is paradoxically a part of my privacy with others that I share and socialise with as a safe haven, and a place of ordinary and unusual conversation. 

One thing that occurs to me about mental health chat, is that it helps a person be more attentive and fluid in ordinary mundane everyday conversation, and it can help improve ones sense of humour and mood, because the abbreviation 'lol' (and which means 'laugh out loud') can be used more easily and spontaneously, thus making it easier to share and interact with humourous remarks and realisations.  At first this may manifest just as a written abbreviation and idea, but can after a while lead to smiles, happiness, or laughter.  This doesn't improve wit, but it can improve a sense of an everyday ordinary sense of humour, happiness, and well being.