Martin Seligman makes the claim that fourteen major mental illnesses are now treatable. Who knew there were fourteen or more mental illnesses? In my neighborhood there’s just one… people are fucked-up or they’re not fucked-up. Converting the FU sufferers to an NFU condition, treating fucked-uppedness, pretty much never emerges as a topic of interest down at the Ace Hardware store. We’re long on diagnosis and short on treatment. “He’s fucked-up,” we might say, but seldom will we say that we think someone ought to go sit with the dude until he gets his head straight.
“How fucked-up is he?” we might ask. There’s a gradation of fucked-uppedness that we’re willing to explore. The sufferer may be diagnosed as “sort of fucked-up,” “generally fucked-up,” or “REAL fucked-up.” A guy who’s REAL fucked-up is interesting, but you don’t want to sit too close to him at the hockey game.
I think we’re more interested in changing the situation around fucked-up people if they hurt others. But the service industry that emerges here is more in the nature of shelter and comfort than treatment. Who gives a fuck if you can treat the fucked-up? The trick is to lend a helping hand… remove the battered spouse, the abused child… maybe listen to what the fucked-up guy has to say. If he’s REAL, REAL, REAL fucked up then we have to isolate his ass. The difference between involuntary commitment and a prison sentence is a line finely drawn and perhaps the only real distinction is that the prison sentence has a sunset date.
The fucked-up guy is as likely to get better in the slammer as he is in the bin. What does it mean “to get better?” Would Van Gogh have been better if he was less fucked-up? I think we can leave that to Scoble, Sierra, and Seligman to sort out.
Thanks to Scruggs for bringing Professor Seligman into the center of the conversation. Imagine! Fourteen different TREATABLE kinds of fucked-uppedness. Can I get Thorazine with that?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m something of a johnny come lately on the Seligman scene. T.V. has had an eye on the scandal for some time. I suppose you know that Seligman first made his name as dog torturer? It’s been a smooth transition from there to enabling the vapid and narcissitic. He also caught the eye of Chris Locke, who lists him as a miscreant on Mystic Bourgeoisie.
I love this! In November, when I was visiting “Bob” the therapist on a visit in Buffalo, he was asking me how I had come to this or that conclusion about myself, I replied: “Because I am seriously fucked up!”
I understand FU or NFU as mental health categories … and do I ever “get better?”
Tamar, you’re proof that even the best get better.
J. Alva, this UFOB posting actually made me feel quite optimistic. There were after all a third of the doggies who just growled and said “shock me again muthahfuckah, I’ll show you where we can hide that bone.”
Locke says this (and a lot more), I despise Martin Seligman and his fucking “learned optimism,” both on principle and irrationally — as is my God-given prerogative as a non-academic who owes no lipservice allegiance to fictions like fairness and critical distance. The very existence of this book makes me want to break things.
Locke’s absolutely right, but there needs to be a more careful flaying of the man. One place to begin is to note that the first things Seligman did with his “authentic happiness” roadshow is to take the metric around to businesses and consulting agencies, where they’re already being used not just to impose more awful, cheesy enforced-affect happy seminars on cubicle workers, but to actually use ‘happiness’ and ‘optimism’ as a basis for hiring.
http://www.ufobreakfast.com/archive/00000470.htm
http://www.ufobreakfast.com/archive/00000780.htm
http://www.ufobreakfast.com/archive/00000585.htm
Be clear about this. Kathy Sierra and her Instapundit left-baitin’ udience aren’t just saying that people like us should be shunned, she’s promoting a pseudoscientific philosophy that is being used to keep us from having employment.
Don’t apologize to the squirrels, Frank, never apologize to the squirrels.
http://www.ufobreakfast.com/archive/00000369.htm
Oops. ‘Cheesy’ wasn’t meant to refer to you, Frank, but to this linkset:
http://www.ufobreakfast.com/archive/00000779.htm
The point is that the authentic happiness jive is being deployed as a variant of “Who Moved My Cheese.” The testimonials at Carson’s site of people who were forced to read that monstrosity are hilarious.
If you could manage a smile or two, you’d feel a lot better and we might find a way to hire you. That’s what they told me when I was interviewed for a mailroom job at Vermin Direct, LLC, “the brand managers who care”. Feh. I call it all operant happiness conditioning.
It’s all illogical positivism as far as I can tell. Bur what do I know. I’m tired.