Link Salad, the Curative Compassion Edition
-- The Geel Question - Mike Jay, Aeon Magazine, 9 January 2014
"For others, however, Geel was a beacon of the progressive ideas that came to be known as ‘moral management’. Freeing the insane from their chains and madhouses, providing them with fresh air, occupational therapies and the chance to patch themselves back into normal life - this was treatment in itself. Philippe Pinel, the founding father of French psychiatry who was legendary for ‘striking the chains off the mad’ at the Salpetrière asylum in Paris, declared that ‘the farmers of Geel are arguably the most competent doctors; they are an example of what may turn out to be the only reasonable treatment of insanity and what doctors from the outset should regard as ideal’. His student Jean-Étienne Esquirol, who became the next generation’s leading reformer of mental hospitals, visited Geel in 1821 and was astonished by the sight of hundreds of lunatics wandering freely and calmly around the town and countryside. He praised the tolerance of a system where ‘the mad are elevated to the dignity of the sick’."
-- How to cure us: the medical demons and demonic medicine of Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov - Josh Billings, Melville House, Nov. 13, 2013
"his willingness to put life (medicine) before art (writing) is what makes the doctor-writer such a perversely attractive figure; it is also, interestingly enough, an inversion of the Western imagination’s previous reigning medical archetype, Faust. The Great Bad Doctor, you’ll remember, made the very un-Chekhovian choice of knowledge over love and power over humanity-a decision that today would be condemned in all but the most cartoonish practices. For while the carrot of certain knowledge might have seemed like a reasonable goal in the 18th century, in the 21st, the doctor must come to terms with a little thing called The Human Element. He must be willing to accept that his geometrical diagnoses will be realized within the problematic sphere of actual patients, who are complicated, contradictory, neither wholly good nor entirely evil. Like characters in a Chekhov story, in other words."
-- I Want To Talk About My Ex's Brother - C.C. Finlay, Jan. 10, 2014 - posted with permission of the author ccfinlay
"When you’re depressed, other people feel like another problem instead of a solution. You don’t reach out when you need to because when you've reached out before, people haven't been willing to catch you. Maybe they even slapped you down. You don't believe in hope any more. You don't believe you're worthy of other people. It's based on experience. So even when people do care enough to reach out to you, you push them away."
-- The Science of Hatred - Tom Bartlett, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 2013
"Maybe that’s good news. If there is an underlying cause of warfare and prejudice, if hate is part of our evolutionary heritage, then perhaps there are paths toward peace that apply universally. Not a secret formula. Not an instant fix. But methods that take into account our deep flaws, that adjust for our proclivities."
"For others, however, Geel was a beacon of the progressive ideas that came to be known as ‘moral management’. Freeing the insane from their chains and madhouses, providing them with fresh air, occupational therapies and the chance to patch themselves back into normal life - this was treatment in itself. Philippe Pinel, the founding father of French psychiatry who was legendary for ‘striking the chains off the mad’ at the Salpetrière asylum in Paris, declared that ‘the farmers of Geel are arguably the most competent doctors; they are an example of what may turn out to be the only reasonable treatment of insanity and what doctors from the outset should regard as ideal’. His student Jean-Étienne Esquirol, who became the next generation’s leading reformer of mental hospitals, visited Geel in 1821 and was astonished by the sight of hundreds of lunatics wandering freely and calmly around the town and countryside. He praised the tolerance of a system where ‘the mad are elevated to the dignity of the sick’."
-- How to cure us: the medical demons and demonic medicine of Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov - Josh Billings, Melville House, Nov. 13, 2013
"his willingness to put life (medicine) before art (writing) is what makes the doctor-writer such a perversely attractive figure; it is also, interestingly enough, an inversion of the Western imagination’s previous reigning medical archetype, Faust. The Great Bad Doctor, you’ll remember, made the very un-Chekhovian choice of knowledge over love and power over humanity-a decision that today would be condemned in all but the most cartoonish practices. For while the carrot of certain knowledge might have seemed like a reasonable goal in the 18th century, in the 21st, the doctor must come to terms with a little thing called The Human Element. He must be willing to accept that his geometrical diagnoses will be realized within the problematic sphere of actual patients, who are complicated, contradictory, neither wholly good nor entirely evil. Like characters in a Chekhov story, in other words."
-- I Want To Talk About My Ex's Brother - C.C. Finlay, Jan. 10, 2014 - posted with permission of the author ccfinlay
"When you’re depressed, other people feel like another problem instead of a solution. You don’t reach out when you need to because when you've reached out before, people haven't been willing to catch you. Maybe they even slapped you down. You don't believe in hope any more. You don't believe you're worthy of other people. It's based on experience. So even when people do care enough to reach out to you, you push them away."
-- The Science of Hatred - Tom Bartlett, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 2013
"Maybe that’s good news. If there is an underlying cause of warfare and prejudice, if hate is part of our evolutionary heritage, then perhaps there are paths toward peace that apply universally. Not a secret formula. Not an instant fix. But methods that take into account our deep flaws, that adjust for our proclivities."