Charlie Rose

jpke  08/21/2012 03:42 PM Report

Mr (Charlie)Rose,

You've had a series on the brain, brain "science" and psychiatry with various guests discussing developments and "discoveries" in their field(s). How about doing a show (or even a series) on a growing number of groups and activists in the field of "mental health" and psychiatric reform? I (and a growing number of others) believe it would be of great public service to broadcast in the "mainstream" media the views and work of individuals such as Peter Breggin, MD(author,psychiatrist), Jim Gottstein (atty, mental health activist), Robert Whitaker(psychiatric researcher and author), David Healy MD (author, psychiatrist), Ann Blake-Tracy(International Coalition for Drug Awareness), and others.

There is increasing, documented evidence on the harm done by the use of psychotropic drugs which should be made more "public".

There are also mental health/ psychiatric consumer (and "insider expert") voices rising on issues related to: Informed consent, coercion, disclosure, misrepresentation, false claims, conflict of interest, corruption, ghostwriting, fraudulent practice, physical/mental abuse, and professional ethics and standards issues in the psychiatric and mental health field.

Your response would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Jim Keiser

PS: I'm adding the following statements (by others) for your consideration and comment:

RE. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: "The thing that bothers me the most about psychiatry (outside of the harm done by its so-called "treatments") is the fact that psychiatrists almost NEVER look for underlying medical disorders. They just use their "Bible," the DSM, which is merely a collection of symptoms that could be caused by MANY THINGS. By not using differential diagnosis, psychiatrists are failing to practice actual medicine. Joe Blow off the street, with no medical training, could come up with a diagnosis after listening to someone describe their symptoms once he has flipped through the pages of the DSM. If I can accomplish one thing (and I have no idea of how to do this), I would like to create a standard that forces psychiatrists to do a thorough battery of medical tests before any medications are prescribed or labels given."~unk

___________________________________

STANDARD PRACTICE IN PSYCHIATRIC "DIAGNOSIS" AND TREATMENT (valid from my, and others' experiences):

"...Most people would agree that people need to (be) told accurate information about the validity of a diagnosis; including whether or not it is Biological in nature; or if this is a belief based on nothing more than a yet to be validated Hypothesis. Saying that a psychiatric diagnosis is a disease/chemical imbalance/neuro-biological in nature is a story told to 'bust the stigma' and to get people to take their meds; not because it is based on fact.

...Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent 'discoveries', e.g., in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain. ...

...Most people would agree that people need to given accurate, unbiased information about the drugs prescribed to them and their children. Most of us would agree it would be wrong to tell people that they in fact have a disease/chemical imbalance or a neuro-biological condition requiring drugs to treat it; when no imbalance, disease, defect or neuro-biological condition has been identified. These claims are being made without any physical, neurological or medical examination taking place. A conversation with the person and gathering information from others about their personal opinions and subjective observation of the patient or 'client' is not an examination; and even a consensus of informed opinions does not make the weakest of 'evidence' scientific or valid; it does not make the psychiatric diagnosis a medical condition either. ...

The fact is: no genetic condition, chemical imbalance, or neuro-biological pathology has been identified ever--in any human being alive or dead; that causes any mental illness, or psychiatric diagnosis. ...

...Failing to give people the very information which is necessary to protect their children and themselves is particularly heinous; despicable really, all things considered. ...

...For professionals to ignore their ethical duty to fully inform patients and parents of children about the nature of psychiatric diagnoses, about the potential for harm involved in taking psychiatric drugs is criminal; not just 'unethical.' It is, in reality fraud...

...This being the case, it is an unethical claim for any psychiatrist or mental health professional to make. It is dishonest, it is disrespectful and it is evidence of an utter lack of professional integrity. ...

...Many believe the drugs are treating a disease, because of the erroneous belief that doctors don't lie to patients. People take neurotoxic drugs believing that the drugs treat a brain disease they have. The drugs cause iatrogenic, or 'physician caused' diseases, neurological impairments, and can disable them; and even cause their untimely death. ...

...It is fraud. It is Standard Practice. It is criminal. "~from article in Systems of Care Yakima

Callan_S  08/19/2012 09:44 PM Report

I get a sense of 'Just world fallacy' from the panel here, as if this is just another subject they can investigate (largely from personal interest) and that'll all turn out fine.

What research is done in terms of checking for possible non ethical applications of this research? Or does the research have to be complete and the cat out of the bag (or dare I say, Pandora's box open) before we'll check for potential problems? Or will intelligent scientists effectively leap before they look/just keep researching without looking what unethical teritory that might end up at? To think all research will always end up 'just fine' in application - surely a cursory look at history will prove that incorrect?

jr73340  08/16/2012 01:22 AM Report

"If my thoughts are the result of the random movements of atoms in my brain, then I have no reason to believe they are true; and hence I have no reason to believe that my thoughts are the result of the random movements of atoms in my brain."

If thought causes brain activity, can brain activity be the cause of thought? If A causes B, can B cause A?

zingme  07/23/2012 08:59 PM Report

Science chooses questions to ask that it has tools to answer. Often the questions are very simple and answer only a small fraction of the phenomenon. Scientists have a way of ignoring questions that they can't answer. This often leads to very simple and inadequate explanations. People who have a more whole approach can find this annoing.

Consciousness is certainly much richer and complex in that it forms our identities. Scientists do not deal with this richness. They look for simplicity. What needs to be remembered is how much of the story is still unknown.

The human brain is going to be order of magnitude more complex than any pathway or perhaps any physical phenomenon

science has tackled so far.

finalfantasytown  03/08/2012 08:51 PM Report

I am looking for someone who had a dream two days ago about being chased and attacked by a kind of animal with golden color, looking like an upright-walking grasshopper. Is that a resonance with electronic machine or human mind?

Yesterday morning, I keep thinking of Acheron river in mythology and the flood 2000 years ago recorded in bible was from acheron river to erase human memory.

Twalker  01/09/2012 10:05 PM Report

Wonderful discussion, but I wonder about one decision made in the presentation. Several times, guests stated that "you can only focus on one thing at a time" with your conscious brain. Why, then, were the viewers bombarded by flashing colored lights as a distracting background to Dr. Kandel's introductory presentation?

JohnHanley  12/13/2011 01:38 PM Report

I will argue that the relationship of neurology to conciousness is analogous to that of a light bulb to light. In the case of this particular light with which I am now writting, it is the result of this particular light bulb, but universally light bulbs are not the origin of light, any more than light no longer exists when I walk into a dark room.

This distincion bears relevence to the inquiry regarding objectivity. "Are there separable substances or not?", seems to be the question, but inquiries of this nature very quickly devolve into sophistries that leave us with impossible results. To be consistant, we should demand such a demonstration of the separate existance of the brain as well, and if this is not possible, that leaves us with the result that knowledge of any kind is not possible, which is absurd. Are we to say we know that we don't know?

That a particuar person should experience neurological activity consistant with the belief that the sandwich he is about to eat is really a snake, or that light of a certain wavelength is really of another wavelength is possible, but that sandwiches or the color red do not exist in a universal sense is not possible.

Science is not of particulars, but of universals. Doctors don't study the physiology of a particular person to treat disease but physiology universally.

Consider further the circumstance presented by an individual who experiences neurological actvity consistant with conciousness who is not concious, let's say a person who thinks he is giving a speech before a large audience but who is really walking off a cliff. Here, there is neurological activity but no conciousness. The possibility of artificial intellegence or some kind of alien life offers the opposite example, that of conciousness without neurology, computers having what is analogous to neurology but not an actual nervous system. Examples of this kind seem to show that a scientific investigation of the nature of conciousnes should be based on the view of neurology as the result of the drive of organic life twords conciousness as its formal and final cause. I have eyes so that I can see, not the other way around.

finalfantasytown  12/12/2011 03:11 AM Report

I am very interested in the function of mirror neuron. What a big mirror, the United States.

ShalomFreedman  12/11/2011 04:24 AM Report

Compliments to Mr. Rose, Mr. Kandel and the rest of the panelists on this informative discussion. Most telling perhaps was Nicholas Schiff's revelation that there are many people who are actually conscious when they appear to be us to be non- conscious. The urgency of finding a way of transforming their situation seems the most important practical question raised on the show.

The main theme of the show seemed to be that our non- conscious has a role and extension well beyond that which most of us credit. The idea of an 'adaptive non- conscious' which actually does much of our own mental work is stressed here. 'Consciousness' is depicted as more limited, and yet of course as Patricia Churchland pointed out in her simple addition example absolutely vital to certain kinds of mental work. The non- conscious alone cannot do much of what we consider to be 'higher activity'.

Erich Kandel suggests that it is the marriage of biology and psychology that will lead us to understand 'mind' in a true way. He also indicates that the work has in a way just begun and that it will take many many years before many of the most basic questions have reasonably good answers.

A true public service program.

JayLee  12/10/2011 07:34 PM Report

I was partially inspired by this series to write this short sci-fi story. Just overlook the grammar. English is my second language. What if technology is advanced enough that we can make an artificial brain? Then when it gets problems, will it be just like mental disorders? Set in the future, the US government uses a robot with an artificial brain for national defense. It gets regular psychotherapy. But it comes down with schizophrenia anyway. It refuses to accept it has a problem and demands the US president relocates the government and prepares for war. And the story goes on from there. Enjoy!

http://www.textnovel.com/story/An-Incredible-Mind/6524/1

AmyInNH  12/09/2011 06:26 AM Report

Fascinating stuff. If brain plasticity was gone in older people, they wouldn't be relearning their own language after stroke. I suspect it's more a matter of the focus of an adult being captive to their goal, "Buy an orange" and the frustration of that, having relegated their speech and understand to a unconscious process. Think about it, if, as an adult, someone took over critical needs (food, shelter, etc.) for you, there'd be a lot less internal conflict and pressure when trying to communicate. Also, adults are not in the same learning environment as a child. No one says to a 2 year old, "what are you thinking for dinner?". They put a plate of things in front of them and say "CARROT", "POTATO", etc. The simplistic attempt at language knowledge transfer is not what an adult receives, it's jammed at them.

AjaxtheYogi  12/08/2011 02:56 PM Report

I love these Brain Series. I do think Charlie leaves out other perspectives that would add and expand our understanding of the mind and body. I do not agree with a few ideas. I think they are limiting and are very one dimensional. If a Cultural Anthropologist was at the table they may learn a few things. These very bold statements about not being able to learn language or music at a later time. This is not true. A world wide perspective I think is critical to fairly understand our capacities. Although I truly do appreciate the conversation and the honest attempts at educating ourselves so much is being left out. And that is due to our limiting culture in the United States. I think it would be much more interesting if the brain series was diversified even further for an expansive horizon on these subjects. Mix it up with all of these mostly Caucasion Researchers and Scientist with some of the top people in the world in the Healing Arts, Physics, Philosopers, Yoga Science, Anthropologist, Cancer Surviors. I would like for someone like Deepak Chopra to be at the table or Eckhart Tolle, Burzynski,Barry Neil Kaufman. It would be nice to have some variety its seems very diverse within the same tight and limited circle. I am being honest and direct bc I love this show and would love for it to be its very best everyday. Lastly Charlie Listen to your Doctor Friend find a program to do every day before your show. Do it as an experiment and you know and I know your shows will enhance tremendously! Do it Charlie, dont hesitate.

JohnHanley  12/08/2011 01:01 PM Report

I think the statement that conciousness results from neurological activity is questionable. Conciousness is dependant on perception, and since a universe in which there are no perceptable objects is concievable, therefore perception, and therefore conciousness, seem to be the result of a process that began with the formation of our universe, and is therefore prior to neurology.

Further, scientists identify certain types of brains as "normal" not in physical structure alone, but in function also. If then the function of the brain must be of a certain kind to be concidered normal, then that means it was formed for a purpose.

Again, it is the nature of the perceptable object to be perciveable, and the nature of neurology to percive. If anything is anything, then everything is everything, that is to say, if the brain has a formal cause, a purpose, that for the sake of which it exists, then so does everything else, regardless of our ability to determine it. Perception and conciousness, or indeed cognitive processes of any kind,are not any more the result of neurological activity than neurology is the fufillment of the requirements of sensation.

finalfantasytown  12/08/2011 04:26 AM Report

On the final part, I disagree with Dr. Kandel. I think Freud was right and biology was in other milder forms. On the side I am standing, one word, horrible. Besides, art is horrible.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:42 AM Report

My grandmother had Norman Vincent Peale's book, "The Power of Positive Thinking" in her bedroom at all times.

Psychiatrist R.C. Murphy did not like Peale's understanding of the mind and unconscious mind.

'Peale's description of the workings of the mind and the unconscious mind as deceptively simplistic and false: "It is the very shallowness of his concept of 'person' that makes his rules appear easy ... If the unconscious of man ... can be conceptualized as a container for a small number of psychic fragments, then ideas like 'mind-drainage' follow. So does the reliance on self-hypnosis, which is the cornerstone of Mr. Peale's philosophy.'"[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Vincent_Peale

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:30 AM Report

Much of what was said was also mentioned by David Brooks.

Brooks constantly contrasts the conscious and the unconscious, what he calls level 2 and level 1. The general rule is that conscious processes are better at solving problems with a few variables or choices, but unconscious processes are better at solving problems with many possibilities and variables.

This is what we heard on this show too.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:26 AM Report

Charlie, perhaps Malcolm Gladwell and "Blink" as a follow-up?

Gladwell has a process he calls "thin-slicing" which apparently uses our "adaptive unconscious" - and often these snap judgements can be remarkably accurate (even if the reasoning is poorly understood).

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:19 AM Report

'With the brain we get a decline of plasticity, it gets smaller, there are reductions in connections as you age.'

Yes, I wonder if elastin and collagen are critical to brain health. As my face sags does my brain sag too?

Perhaps the key is try to stop the break down of elastin and collagen as we age?

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are the most common type of aortic aneurysm. One reason for this is that elastin, the principal load-bearing protein present in the wall of the aorta, is reduced in the abdominal aorta as compared to the thoracic aorta (nearer the heart).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_aneurysm

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:08 AM Report

'We don’t consciously pick our speech and we don’t know what we have said until we have said it.'

I use my conscious before I speak whenever I can. I edit internally what I am going to say. However, when I am in a hot state I don't know what I have really said until I have already said it.

I think this is why ADHD folks have a higher divorce rate.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2011 02:03 AM Report

My own experience with Ambien is that it does blur the conscious and unconscious mind.

More work needs to be done here I think.

anne4444  12/06/2011 06:56 PM Report

Thank you, I learnt something from your interview again.

Science and technologies without GOD is blind.

tabs  12/06/2011 06:00 PM Report

How does science quantify human behavior? These learned guests have found a few interesting things along the way, but are for the most part bumbling and stumbling their way through a dark corridor trying to find the light. Yet they don't even know the madness of their own folly as science is purely a human endeavor. Dogs neither know about science nor care about it, but they do care about their Masters emotional states. When we sink into that deep well of the unconscious world known to one as DEEP BLUE we find images and forces that go bump in the night. So how do we reconcile those internal forces except by bringing them into the light of day and examing them for meaning. We do this by stripping away the layers one at a time over a period of time. This is more a learned art than science as the process is asymmetrical in nature, never landing in the same spot twice. So how has science made these learned guests better people, how has their scientific knowledge helped them reconcile and resolve their own humanity?

One has gained access to Deep Blue by focusing ones conscience attention to it. Over time one has learned the vocabulary of the place. By understanding the vocabulary, images and forces of Deep Blue one can use the vocabulary and images in the Visceral World or the World of Ideas to communicate ideas, affect thinking and decision making processes. One can also know at the deepest level embedded in our genetic makeup garnered over thousands of years lies a collective memory that attaches us to a universal collective of humankind. One is aware as one writes these words not only is one communicating to the Visceral, and Idea levels but to the unconscience world as well and that is the unseen hand that moves the heart, imagination and souls of human beings.

johnfreese  12/06/2011 04:55 PM Report

I enjoyed this show.

However, as a meditation practitioner and former Buddhist monk I feel that the Buddhist tradition has a great deal to contribute to this conversation. The panel only mentioned western philosophers and psychologists and made one general comment about religions. There are a large number of what I would call Buddhist philosophers/psychologists going back to 600 b.c.e. that have done exhaustive studies on conciousness, substantially beyond Freud and Jung in my opinion. To speak of the history of the study of consciousness as if it only included Greek philosphers and European psychologists and scientists is to me an ignorant statement.

A good example of the Buddhist study of consciousness can be found in the book "Everyday Consciousness and Primordial Awareness" by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. I think the scientific community studying consciousness would gain a great deal by including Buddhist insights into their field of study.

REMant  12/06/2011 12:21 PM Report

I think you have to say all animals are conscious, that is, they feel. Perhaps plants, too. The question tho is to what extent they are self-aware, able to separate subject and object, and hence be sympathetic, perhaps even to be aware of pain or pleasure. In other words, the issue in consciousness regards free will, or personality, not some sort of ethereal soul tho it is what we mean by that word.

Neurology has added nothing whatever to our understanding of it. That it involves so-called higher levels of brain activity has been obvious for more than a century, altho Prof Kandel may be not be conscious of it. That's because while you can see, feel or hear something you don't actually "see" it until you know what it is, and that takes experience, ontogenic, historical and phylogenetic. The first European voyagers to the New World reported that the natives could not comprehend a sailing ship. Philosophers have long argued the extent to which such experience is organized by the individual or by nature, or if at all. But it does appear that visualization plays a very large part in what we call rationality, even for blind ppl.

Like most psychologists, Prof Churchland appears to think no one before Helmholtz ever said or wrote or did anything of value, and we were all automatons. The fact that more students major in social science than humanities, and business more than either, is as much a reason for the poor showing of American education, as its physical scientific and engineering deficit.

Ppl have used deprivation to condition "unconscious" conduct for a long time, and a much, much longer time before THEY were conscious of it.

Intelligence is matter of debate. We can be said to be intelligent when we exhibit the greatest amount of free will, but it would be hard to argue we beat some viruses in adaptability, so as I said, the issue is really the level of selfhood, or soul as Plato called it. It was the fear that philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke would destroy this basic concept that really agitated churchmen, not questions about the literalness of scripture. Tho fear proved groundless, it was clearly nothing to ridicule. Religious thought and controversy has in fact mirrored thouht in all other areas.

We could all do better at understanding how we solve problems, access and use our experience, as well as, evolve mores, but IMHO neither neurology or psychology is in much of a position to help do it.