- Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann found that voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the United States, the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful. This may have clinical implications for how to treat people with schizophrenia, she suggests.
This is fascinating to me, and it makes me wonder if the presence of these voices can in some ways be beneficial to people living in cultures in which they have more positive messages. This also brings to mind a certain Terence McKenna talk in which he discusses schizophrenia and how it might be useful to cultures in which shamanism is practiced. How much is mental illness due to biomechanical malfunctioning of the brain, and how much does it arise due to an inability of certain personality types to function in a society that simply isn't designed to accommodate their existence? I'm curious if it'll ever be possible to draw a clear line here.
I wonder what kind of input (if any) theadvancedapes has to offer on this matter. I'm going to read this in the immediate future and come back with some worth discussing.
Well, from reading the article I'm not really sure what to conclude. The study sample was relatively small. I'm not sure whether the participants in India, Ghana, and United States were representative of citizens from those countries, or whether they lived in urban/rural settings, etc. These are all factors to consider. Furthermore, it doesn't seem like the differences between participants were all that significant, other than the fact that people from the United States reported no positive emotions/feelings towards the voices. Overall, I wouldn't be too surprised if her conclusion is proven validated with further research. Seems like a good start but also very preliminary.
Ok that is straight up 'stare into the void' stuff. I'm a 4chan vet, and I've seensomeshit.jpg. But that is terrifying. That's straight up encouragement of the development of alternate personalities, and I can see how this shit could lead someone to a psychotic episode/break.
Yeah, honestly I think it's mostly a community of "talk big, do little". Look around for a while and it seems that people are more keen on saying "i'm trying this" than "i have this accomplished" It's only the ones that come in crazy that keep that way.
Sounds awfully like that "headmates" crap that Tumblr is the shitting ground of. For fear of getting sucked into the crazy click if you have nothing else better do to * EDIT: THE TULPAS THING! Not this post. This post actually seems quite interesting.