Excerpt:
Recent scholarship, he [the author, Howard Markel of the University of Michigan] writes, has offered “nuanced contemplations on the connection of Sigmund’s cocaine abuse to his signature ideas about accessing unconscious thoughts with talk therapy; the division of how our mind processes pleasure and reality; the interpretation of dreams; the nature of our thoughts and sexual development; the Oedipus complex; and the elaboration of the id, ego and superego.”
He quotes the historian Peter Swales thus: “Freud’s [concept of the] libido is merely a mask and a symbol for cocaine; the drug, or rather its invisible ghost, haunts the whole of Freud’s writing to the very end.”
My response:
I am no fan of Freud but I am concerned at the way in which society, including institutions with Christian and Jewish foundations, are 'throwing those with mental illness to the dogs' while offering no help or alternatives. The increase in ignoring abuse in families, of women and children, the sick and the handicapped, and the elderly is appalling. Those who have lived through the rejection and abuse since early childhood suffer even more as they enter adulthood. And with the liberal propaganda of drug-use and of violent, angry abuse with denigrating objectification of women, is there any wonder people suffer. The use of prescription drugs to numb people, without helping and treating them, is a mindless, evil choice to further ostracize them. The reality is no one wants to take the time or trouble to love and heal. Personally, I don't think they know how or want to know how.
Over and over I hear that the therapist is often the only person to believe there is abuse going on. Often the very last people to believe it is the family and the church family. I feel for the TINY few who have spent their lives serving and helping in true Christian charity. They are often overworked, underpaid and certainly not recognized. And I am certain they too feel like they are fighting an uphill battle. And the Christian organizations and services that berate and attack the sufferers as those who are possessed with demons is a cruelty beyond imagining. Those who are abused are continually treated as if they are perpetrators and not victims. At the very least they are told to 'get over it.'
With the increased lack of true scholarship, rejection of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and little or no true Christian teaching, especially in so-called Christian schools and 'most' Churches(?), I can only weep for the dark, spiritual vacuum into which we continue to be headed. Most people I work with don't even know the Ten Commandments. And the Catholic school I visited handed out Chicken Soup for the Soul and Harry Potter novels that had been graciously(?) donated to them for free. My immediate thought: "I'll bet it was!" When I questioned it I was met with "We have to interest them in reading."
As following Christ continues to become another prestige-building country club, people in the Church just don't really care---they pay the dues they have to pay. Without Love there is no respectful intimacy between spouses, in families, in institutions, or in the city.
At the end, each individual will face Christ and will be judged by 'LOVE' of others. But Lord, when did we see Thee sick, hungry, naked, ...."Whatever you do to the 'least' of My brethren you do unto Me."
My response:
I am no fan of Freud but I am concerned at the way in which society, including institutions with Christian and Jewish foundations, are 'throwing those with mental illness to the dogs' while offering no help or alternatives. The increase in ignoring abuse in families, of women and children, the sick and the handicapped, and the elderly is appalling. Those who have lived through the rejection and abuse since early childhood suffer even more as they enter adulthood. And with the liberal propaganda of drug-use and of violent, angry abuse with denigrating objectification of women, is there any wonder people suffer. The use of prescription drugs to numb people, without helping and treating them, is a mindless, evil choice to further ostracize them. The reality is no one wants to take the time or trouble to love and heal. Personally, I don't think they know how or want to know how.
Over and over I hear that the therapist is often the only person to believe there is abuse going on. Often the very last people to believe it is the family and the church family. I feel for the TINY few who have spent their lives serving and helping in true Christian charity. They are often overworked, underpaid and certainly not recognized. And I am certain they too feel like they are fighting an uphill battle. And the Christian organizations and services that berate and attack the sufferers as those who are possessed with demons is a cruelty beyond imagining. Those who are abused are continually treated as if they are perpetrators and not victims. At the very least they are told to 'get over it.'
With the increased lack of true scholarship, rejection of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and little or no true Christian teaching, especially in so-called Christian schools and 'most' Churches(?), I can only weep for the dark, spiritual vacuum into which we continue to be headed. Most people I work with don't even know the Ten Commandments. And the Catholic school I visited handed out Chicken Soup for the Soul and Harry Potter novels that had been graciously(?) donated to them for free. My immediate thought: "I'll bet it was!" When I questioned it I was met with "We have to interest them in reading."
As following Christ continues to become another prestige-building country club, people in the Church just don't really care---they pay the dues they have to pay. Without Love there is no respectful intimacy between spouses, in families, in institutions, or in the city.
At the end, each individual will face Christ and will be judged by 'LOVE' of others. But Lord, when did we see Thee sick, hungry, naked, ...."Whatever you do to the 'least' of My brethren you do unto Me."
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