Limit Setting/Holding Love

One of the greatest books of Pediatric Psychiatry was Omnipotent Child by Thomas P. Millar, a West Vancouver Psychiatrist.  When I saw families years ago I used to recommend parents read this classic in combination with an equally great book by Alice Miller, called Drama of the Gifted Child,
Dr. Millar clearly demonstrated in his vast experience that many children were 'neglected' by parents who failed to limit set.  By contrast Psychoanalyst Alice Miller with her intense experience saw that abused children were often a product of being misunderstood 'gifted' children.  As a consequence of reading both books one could better navigate the fine line between smothering, mothering, and othering.
Children overly parented and protected were infantilized whereas children without parenting felt alien.  The happy medium was what each of these great authors sought to help parents and therapists find.
I loved learning as a psychiatrist that if I didn't set 'limits' and allowed a child to 'rage' out of control then I was giving the child the frightening experience of his being indeed the parent or the adult.  This was the essence of the book, Lord of the Flies.  If there is no 'limit' to a child's rage then indeed we are likely to cry "the horror, the horror' like Kurtz because at the most 'primitive' emotions are rawest and most open to dangerous expression.
There is merit in discipline.  Societies have developmental stages like individuals.  Maslow developped a hierarchy of needs showing the need for safety to precede self actualization.  Erik Erickson showed with his 8 fold developmental stages the importance of 'trust' before love.
A child especially an adolescent needs to feel safe in this world. If the child is indeed in control then as Dr. Millar explains so adeptly they develop 'omnipotence' which comes with 'fear' because if there is no one to stop my homicidal or suicidal rage then I'm alone.  Alice Miller points out that the gifted child seeks expression but nonetheless parents and society must 'limit' this expression for the betterment of the child and the family and society.
Even now there is ISIS refusing to accept international law, denying the role of the courts, setting up their own Lord of the Flies, primitive childish society with all the inherrent violence, chopping off of heads and caricatures of real states.  All around them the parent states of this cult and gang are together with military force limitting their expression.  This limit setting is little different from the limit setting that a parent does when a child wishes to bash another child's head with a rock.
So we all want to 'love' the child. Grandparents love that they can 'spoil' the child knowing that the parents will be left with the obligation of discipline.  Single parents often resolve their tyrant power position by leaving the 'discipline' to the state which involves 'child protection' and police and jails.  Historically the mother at home provided the child 'unconditional love' because the father who was the interface with the outside world provided 'conditional love'. In the great 50's classic of this , mother would tell her children 'wait till your father gets home'. If mother and father couldn't "control' a child's behaviour then the community in the form of child protection services, youth court and jails and police did, just as the militaries of the world are now addressing ISIS reign of terror.
I really would love to be in a world where England's Chamberlain was right and Hitler could be 'reasoned' with.  I grew up singing with the Beatles "all we need is love".  I am to this day working on forgiving the violence my school inflicted on children as a norm, the canings and strapping I received.  Of course, if I'd been a tad smarter I'd not of got caught and a tad brighter I'd not have lipped off at a teacher or two.
The fact is, the world's not perfect.  I think if the ISIS members had been better loved and children and had more breast feeding and less aggressive potty training they might 'do unto others as they would have done unto themselves' but I'm older. I've worked with thousands of people in a variety of centers and just find some are slow learners when it comes to limit setting.
One of my patients was a child who was an arsonist.  Despite the communities best efforts to protect themselves they simply could not get the parents 'to control' their 5 year old child so the town simply out of self preservation rejected the family after they had caused millions of dollars of damage.  The parents saw themselves and 'loving' yet the child was to all intents 'neglected' and only with massive arson projects could they get the attention they missed.
In the best of all possible worlds there would be no 'limit setting'. There would be no need for 'police' and 'social workers' and 'military' and 'judges'.  This would be called 'heaven' or 'paradise' but it's not reality.
The fact is, limit setting is a holding form of love.  My parents set rules for me to learn in the home so that I would be prepared for the rules that I would encounter in school and society. Now I've lived in different countries and travelled extensively and am thankful that I was taught so lovingly that there were rules and consequences.
Watching a birds nest recently in a presentation of time lapse photograph with the camera mounted nearby I noted that most of the chicks with little encouragement left the nest but one really didn't do that well.  The parents were by all accounts 'abusive' and 'bullying' but nonetheless the chick was literally 'kicked' out of the nest.  Begrudgingly it flew and appeared happy like the first chick which had appeared to want to fly from the very start.
Some of this is development.  Some of it's resources.  Obviously Adolf Hitler might have needed a few decades of all the mothers in the world teaching him potty training so that he wouldn't be damaged. The fact is he got the best perhaps his mother and his society could offer at the time.  ISIS leaders obviously needed more time on the breast but didn't get it.  Maybe each of them with a few decades in prison and full time with Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu might lose their passion for chopping off others heads coupled with their adolescent sadistic selfie addiction.  The issue is then 'resource management'.  How much is everyone willing to pay and this question of 'economics' is really tied to the idea of what the 'military budget' should be.  Are the threats external or internal. Should there be more education internally on police or education and health care?
Obviously I believe in limit setting and holding love.  I believe there's a need for balance.  I like moderation. However, I think often I'm surrounded by really stupid people who believe 'all we need is love' and somehow think that the undisciplined masses produce free love and goodness rather than chaos and hysteria.  Am I the only one who saw how the hippy communes collectively collapsed.  I don't think we're going to be a better place when everyone smokes marijuana and we can all hang out at the beach.  I for one am thankful for parents and police and teachers and doctors  and the military and the politicians and accountants. I'm aware that I appreciate 'limits' and stop doing things because I don't want negative consequences. I don't think this is odd. I think it's human.  If I started chopping off my neighbours heads (and some of them really aren't using them) I understand that the community would 'limit' me just like they would a child who took a knife to the playground and began slashing the other children.
I know it's politically correct to sound like an idiot but I even believe the politically correct in a community don't deserve to have their heads removed from their bodies.  Community is about making the most for the most in a  utilitarian sense and involves 'exclusivity' and 'inclusivity'.  If I don't 'limit set' my dog, ie stop him humping your little girl, there's a good chance that a higher power will stop my dog's behaviour.
Because I love my dog, I set limits to his behaviour and clean up his shit. Ideally in time I'll get him to work his paws around those little green baggies so he can pick up his own shit. But I accept for now I'm probably going to have to be the one to do the scooping.  I suspect there's more likelihood my dog will learn how to clean up his own shit than ISIS and the likes will. I still have hope.

Climate Change Cartel, Intellectual Terrorism and Ad Hominem

Ad hominem means 'against the man'.  It is one of the fallacies that are the basis of rhetoric as opposed to logic. Logic is considered to be the way of 'true thinking' that rationally results in arriving at a 'right answer'.  By contrast rhetoric is the 'appearance' of truth, but untrue.  One can win a debate with logic or bully with rhetoric.

As a logician or rational thinker, when one encounters a 'fallacy' one is trained to consider that the 'argument' of those who use 'fallacies' is 'weak'.  Those with strong arguments don't need to resort to fallacy.  Fallatious arguments are normally considered 'false' arguments.

Much of politics is about the use of 'fallacies' craftilly.  Much marketting relies on 'fallacies'.

Ad hominem is simply 'name calling'. It's  the basis of racism and various immature and untrue postulates.

The specific ad hominem that is most prevalent today is 'Climate Change Denier' (CCD).  As a scientist I can easily spot the 'unscientific' and 'pseudoscience' aspects of the present 'debate'.  However as a psychiatrist I am most interestedin the use of the psychiatric term 'denier' ie a "person in denial".

As a psychiatrist, when I say a person is 'in denial', I am indeed saying they are 'insane' or frankly 'psychotic', in general or in specific.   The word 'denial' was a useful description of a  specific 'clinical defence mechanism' that can be seen in mentally ill individuals.  Used clinically the term has validity and limitted usefulness.

For example a person with the psychiatric condition 'la belle indifference' may appear to be 'in denial' about the fact that they cannot use their arm because of a 'conversion disorder'.
A psychiatrist may well help the patient gain insight into their emotional denial about the pain they are experiencing in the loss of use of their arm which may well represent some other unconscious process driven by guilt or shame.  Denial, in psychiatry, is a 'defence mechanism' hypothesized by a psychiatrist, without a conflict of interest, for the sake of helping the patient.

It is not 'insulting' or 'perjorative' like 'denier' when used by a politically biased opponent.

Used politically the term is arrogant, ignorant and aggressive.  The Climate Change Cartel (to use a potentially offensive but potentially equally true term) is self serving and clearly.  The Climate Change Cartel  does not wishto 'help' their opponents in the debate.  To use a psychiatric term correctly they "grandiosely" claim to speak on behalf of the world.  With severe delusions of superiority they argue their viewpoint is the only 'true' viewpoint. Indeed their behaviour is frenzied with religious furor rather than tenative and moderate as true science is.

Having working with the violently insane, and been a scientific researcher, I am clinically concerned about the United Nations  "Climate Change Cartel" which claims they are 'scientific' yet 'bullies' opposition with an aggressive and ignorant name calling and 'labelling'.   The pseudoscence misuse of psychiatric terminology implies that their own position is fundamentally 'weak' because their 'argument' depends on the 'ad hominem' fallacy. Logically and scientifically level minded individuals would question such hysteria, in deed panic, which to the sane might well appear as rank lunacy.  Name calling and insulting bullying is frightening, to say the least.

This 'Climate Change Cartel'  says most unscientifically , "if you don't agree with our "position", and do as we say, and spend money as we say, not only will the world end but you,  who disagree with us will be called  'psychotic' because you are in 'denial'."  'We" (note the supreme 'we') define 'reality' and our 'reality' is true and you are 'deniers'.

I belonged to an organization called Psychiatrist against the Political Use of Psychiatry because political bullies of all stripes have wanted to use psychiatry to abuse their opponents.  Russia long held that it's scientists who did not believe in communism were 'schizophrenic'.

Essentially these 'left wing extremists (Communism is the first church of Aetheism) said, those who do not believe in communism are 'communism deniers'.  They proceeded to lock up anyone who didn't agree with them.

Yet here we have the United Nations (an oxymoron if ever there was one)  (which represents so many countries without civil liberties, freedoms, transparency, rank corruption and 'science deniers' in general) Climate Change Cartel name calling and bullying anyone who 'disagrees' with their 'position'.

They claim this is 'consensus' thinking which fundamentally is itself unscientific.  Science is 'hypothetical.' Consensus thinking is more religious than even political since the religious demanded that all believe in their God and their God alone.  It was thought the community collectively would experience destruction if there was opposition to their 'divine realization.'  The demand that everyone goose step to the same tune pre dates the Climate Change Cartel by at least a millenium.

Which is why the 'Climate Change Cartel' is more religous than scientific. Further the 'science' they 'espouse' is more often as illogical and the fundamentalist as the  'fallacy' their case rest on, ie, that anyone who doesn't agree with them is 'in denial', 'psychotic' or frankly insane'.  It's hard to have a discussion anytime with a fanatic of any ilk, scientist or otherwise.  The Nazi's were great rationalists and great scientists but suffered from just a touch too much arrogance. It doesn't surprise me that the Catholic Church has jumped in bed with the Climate Change Cartel given their rejection of Galileo and the sad plight of Germany's Bonhoffer.

If I believe my opponent is 'psychotic' and 'in denial', so utterly wrong to be insane, so black that I am by contrast 'immutably' and 'divinely white', then I really don't have to have a discussion with him, do I?  What I need to do, is lock him up 'for his own good'.

That's the kind of arguments we saw when in the Psychiatrist against Political Abuse of Psychiatry we saw Jews and people of religious 'faith' disagreeing with the 'divinity' of world leaders whose countries today are members of the United Nations.  Kings and emperors and some recent revolutionary leaders still believe they are divine and their position divine.  Large swaths of people believe books are divine and there are many still who believe bones are.  It's no surprise that the Climate Change Cartel believe their ideas so reverently.   Individually we today might consider them 'in denial' looking at them all from a strictly secular perspective. The secular world is in contrast to to many nations of

Frankly, I'm afraid of the Climate Change Cartel just like I'm afraid of any other bullies and  name callers.  Now perhaps they're be afraid of me because by calling this 'motley crew' a 'cartel' I address the one obvious commonality this disparate group of self proclaimed 'scientists', has in common ie 'monetary interest'.

Before the UN Climate Change Cartel's language became violent, the old climate  'discussion' was simply as follows:

1) Is global temperature getting warmer or colder?  Because I'm older than most these days I remember the 'hysteric' campagn in the 60's that claimed 'global cooling'.  All of the same players and arguments were made then.  That was followed by the 'global warming' fear mongering.  'Computer projections' and the most famous Al Gore's  (note, truly a politician/ not a scientist) famous dramatic!!!  "speculation" chart".
Computer projections are not 'true science".  Ecology and environmental 'science' in general is consider 'soft' in scientific terms. The media doesn't get that all the 'psychological science' used in Criminal Minds is like the "Environmental Sciences'  considered 'soft'.  For "harder science", see the reliably reproducible chemistry experiment of boiling water which changes water to steam every time - that's science.  Fanciful speculative computer projections are based of 'assumed variables'.  These are simply  'best guessing" or 'science assisted 'guessing'.    The 'truth' or 'fact'  about the 'computer projections is that those used by the Climate Change Cartel  were found to be grossly wrong,  out by a factor of hundreds of years.  What immediately followed was  'climate change'.
Everyone knows that 'climate changes' . There is no debate about climate changing.   No one disagrees that climate changes.  Only fools would be investing millions of UN dollars 'proving' 'climate change' since 'change is life'.
As a psychiatrist listening to these people I'm seriously 'scared' by this very 'creepy' tactic.  If you back both sides of the argument, warming and cooling, you can get funding regardless of whether you're right or wrong. My fear is tainted by a little bit of envy that people in power can get away with this sort of skullduggery.
This was what Goldman Sachs did with taking out insurance on the investments on both sides of their 'economic model'. While the world collectively suffered, the Wall Street economic hustlers essentially 'profitted' with 'economic change' 'model'. (As scientists whenever we hear the word 'model' we think, 'fashion", not fact. ). The world economy  nearly 'collapsed', all the while Wall Street called the opponents of the 'new economic change model' 'deniers'.  Opponents at the time may as well have been called  "Economic deniers' because they really did disagree with the 'packaging' . Those that disagreed with the good stock/bad stock real estate hustle that they sold, the dysregulation and subsequent bail outs made the insiders rich were silenced.  Is Climate Change another 'insider' get rich game?  Is this not the question someone should ask when a bunch of rich UN favorites  insist they're doing something for me with my money and they want more money?
Meanwhile climate continues (duh!) to change, but now in addition to confusion about gases, and ozone and temperature there's this new 'variable' called 'extreme weather'.  Interestingly the 'data' about 'extreme weather' is a 'variable' for which there is even less data,  so it works very well for speculation, scientific or otherwise.  Old religious prophets invariably called on the weather change to sell their latest brand of religion.  Astronomy always was the secret 'priestly' science'.  Prophets and priests hustle 'climate change' long before the United Nations got in the game.
But the real issue isn't climate change since obviously climate change is universally accepted.

2) Is 'climate change' 'man made'? This is part of the 'real issue'.  Obviously 'climate change' is not solely  man made. We see climate change on Saturn ie Climate changes, independent of man.  That is fact. Life changes.  The tides change. The seasons change.  So obviously claiming climate change is solely man made is wrong.  It doesn't matter how you wrap it up and how much perfume you put on it, the sun is this great orb in the sky working as a heater and the planet is orbitting and moving closer and further away from the sun. To 'deny' the influence of the sun, the moon and the orbit on climate would be truly psychotic.

3) The question then is 'how much does man's influence affect the climate versus how much is the contribution of non man factors. "  This is indeed a 'scientific question. A typical scientific experiment would be to put a bunch of women and men in a box with a bunch of dogs and measure the fart ratio and density.  A good scientist could say that 'human contribution to the fart density is x while dog contribution is y.'   This is the question that's never heard in the incredibly stupid media "sports casters 'science' casters wannabe' 'discussions'.  It's worse on the internet.

4) The question following this is what scientist call  an 'applied science' question.  What can we do to 'change' things like atmospheric 'gases'.  I've already said that the best solution of all would be to bury universities and grow forests over subterranean cities. The Climate Change Cartel however refuses to listen to reason on this matter.    We all went through the hysteria of the world ending with the millenial madness computer scare.  Then we had the ozone layer hijacking hysteri when we didn't all fry. In 'applied science' there's real money to be made.  My friend became rich selling cheap survival kits for the end of the world to the silly internet people who thought at 2000, Armageddon would come. He wasn't a scientist. He was a businessman.

5)  The UN is principally businessmen and politicians and their pets.  This is a sad fact.  Scientists are tools and don't get paid much unless they 'serve' someone. I love Bob Dylan's song, "Maybe the devil or it may be the lord, but you've got to serve someone!".   So at the level of "applied" 'science' there are business 'cartels' and scientists 'serve' these "cartels"

6) I would n't care about this at all but I don't like fallacies, weak arguments, bullies, name calling and pseudoscientists using the language of 'psychiatry' .  I don't like that the UN's Climate Change Cartel has used the psychiatric term 'denial' and 'denier' so flippantly and erroneously.  Any scientific committee worth it's salt would have consulted psychiatrists about their use of the term 'Climate Change Deniers" rather than misinforming the world with their 'intellectual terrorism'.
The very term "Climate Change Denier" is simply that.  Intellectual terrorism.
I don't even want to talk with you as long as you are bullying me, threatening me and name calling. You frighten me.  Indeed you are more terrifying to me than any of your 'skys falling' negative projections of the future.  I'm even more concerned about your extortionary approach to academic funding.  Your over riding demands for money and all your 'consensus' drama is bullying.  You frighten me.  Stop bullying. Stop name calling.  Maybe then 'real scientists' will feel 'safe' to enter a discussion.

The next question is who 'owns climate' and how much 'climate' will the UN big boys allow the little people?

What 'percentage' of the world's economy does the Climate Change Cartel  want now?  How much more taxes do you want to take from our children to pay for your 'dreams' and 'projections'?
I left the university because I saw inter department fighting worse than provincial and state fighting for funds.  Before everyone gets on the latest academic band wagon, remember academics are the best funding infighters.
'Ecologists' and 'climatologists' are not going to say 'oh by the way, I think you should fund 'science education' rather than 'climate change education, ' The future would be a much better place if we all understood science better, especially the media, and especially those who 'debate' on the internet. . Frankly, I'd be even  happier if students were trained in 'critical thinking'.
But then the Dalai Lama just said we all needed to meditate (every last one of us) (and be taught in meditation) (meditation teachers are not free) and there would be world peace.  So should we do what the Dalai Lama suggests before we do what the UN climate change factions suggest. Now as a scientist I might ask the question in an applied science way, "Which would be the better bang for the buck, giving the Dalai Lama all the money to teach students meditation  or giving the Climate Change Cartel all the money?  Maybe a real scientist could set up an experiment to test the hypothesis that paying the Dalai Lama money would more likely benefit the world than paying the United Nations?  It's just an idea.



In the meantime I just wish the Climate Change Cartel would their stop bullying, intellectual terrorism  and name calling first.

Happiness by Douglas Todd

Douglas Todd is a Vancouver Sun journalist who has written a remarkable 4 part series of articles on "Finding Happiness in Difficult Times". I just read the third of the series and was thoroughly impressed with what a remarkable writer Douglas Todd is. The article drew on works of Dalai Lama to Aristotle and referenced the latest research in ornithology. Perhaps we are all striving for happiness. I enjoyed his incorporation of UBC philosophy professor Sylvia Berryman as well as social psychologist Barbara Dunn's clear distinction of ideas of success, consumerism and happiness with those of positive psychologist Martin Seligman. Dr. Seligman is a personal favourite of mine having given us first the research on "learned helplessness' in depression and later become an amazing contributions outlined at his site 'authentic happiness'. Douglas Todd's writing has this extraordinary depth and breadth but ultimately touches the individual. I was uplifted and inspired by his down to earth discussion of happiness. Quite literally Douglas Todd helped me feel happy in difficult times. Well researched, well written, well done, Douglas Todd!


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