Category: Uncategorized

Bekah’s Response to Take Back the Night (4/16/19)

Take Back the Night was a beautiful display of forging ahead with trauma; the open discussion of the ways in which healing is not linear and individuals are more than what happens to them was something I had largely never experienced outside of one-on-one discussion. Acknowledging the ways in which we can help each other absolutely alleviated some pain, though having to face the fact that I hardly know anyone without trauma from abuse presented more, even if it was of a different sort. I can say that events like this, that present the positives of therapy, work deeply in conjunction in my mind with all of the work toward reclamation and self-diagnosis. Disability envisioned as an identity rather than a deficit, and therapy offered as support rather than a cure; individuals with trauma as survivors rather than victims, and medical practitioners as individuals that validate you rather than subject you to more trauma through incessant evaluations. It is the side of psychology I like to see; the side that encourages individual voice, agency, and identity.

Natalie Illum’s poetry really ate at me; it kept entirely with the theme of my earlier points about the widespread (and often cyclical) nature of trauma. The story of the open mic in particular made me simultaneously full of feeling and hollow of thought. There is something about the communication of trauma by and for survivors that moves so differently. She made a comment between pieces about the compacting of physical and emotional abuse and the emergence of language such as gaslighting to help individuals communicate their experiences, that furthered my feelings on that. The reality that language as it stood could not match the implications of toxic actions hits really hard, but knowing that survivors have formed and popularized their interpretations of the acts they will likely never get closure on hits much harder. When she asked us to consider the prompts of what abuse taught and what surviving taught, I was terribly perplexed, but when she read the piece she described as her response to the prompt, I felt more at ease. So often trauma and disability narratives are asked to veer into that realm of adversity as enlightening, but this was not that; this was about finding your own feelings after being denied access to them for so long, rather than finding ways to make your scars pretty for the world. This is the first time in a really long time that I have witnessed wounds being reopened and rediscovered for reasons outside of inspiration porn/trauma porn/poverty porn and it hurt but it also sat really well with me.

Side note: read/listen to/support Tanaya Winder’s poetry! Her expression of healing is incredibly moving, and she is terribly supportive and sweet!

WC: 459
I pledge: Rebekah Stone

Bekah’s Response to Leanna Giancarlo’s “They Called Me Crazy”: The Mad Scientist Trope and Pushing the Boundaries of Knowledge (4/16/19)

This lecture dove straight into the history of animosity between science and religion with discussion of scientists as individuals either without a mind or without a soul. Dr. Giancarlo ran through as many major cinematic depictions of the mad scientist trope as possible, from the original in Metropolis (1927) to any number of Frankenstein films (1910, 1931, etc.) in order to juxtapose the common characteristics and motivations with depictions of science from the viewpoint of the church. This involved heavy analysis of science’s driving goal or motivation—while many would argue it is a scientist’s desire to play god, others would suggest it is to better mankind. Dr. Giancarlo explained this as the crux of the madness or soullessness debate, given that such clear guidelines for what is god and what is man establishes what is normative behavior and aspirations for man. Therefore, madness is created as a label for any individual with intent to deviate from the norm.
While this presentation of facts followed a decent logic, I feel that certain aspects of the lecture did not sit well with me. Disability studies is nothing if not interdisciplinary—my academic experience and research desires are nothing if not interdisciplinary. I cannot help but feel that a trope such as the mad scientist, which Dr. Giancarlo admitted rose largely in response to the use of science for warfare, should be addressed as a response to the inherent divorce of science from humanities. When a case is presented, as it was in this lecture, of a real live scientist such as Fritz Haber, known for his work in the fixation of nitrogen to fertilize the land and feed the nation, whose labor was co-opted by the government for violence (specifically, gas chambers), it not only presents science as something that is inherently good, only corrupted out of happenstance, but as something that is doing its best as is. I, like many other disabled activists, cannot stress enough that science could do better and is obligated to do so. Yes, scientists can have good intentions and they can make wonderful creations—countless accessibility devices and therapies have been created, often times by disabled scientists—but this does not mean that intentions outweigh impact. The field as a whole must take a reasonable level of accountability and enforce a standard of curriculum that rounds out their understanding of their impact. I study psychology! I know how little even the social sciences care to educate us on our torturous past and present, and how much what we learn is actually rooted in eugenicist ideals. We have a crisis in the field of only reporting the results we favor; we have institutional problems of favoring the privileged and therefore endorsing wildly biased ideals! Pretending that ethics boards are enough to topple power dynamics, or that learning the “objective facts” of science is enough to ensure scientists are doing the best they can is unacceptable. As a scientist, I feel obligated to accept the criticism the mad scientist trope provides. I may not be responsible for all of the violence done through scientific means, but I am obligated to know my history and to prevent any further damage. Just as my position as a white, able bodied woman, I feel obligated to accept criticism, to know my history, and to challenge the systems that inherently benefit me as they stand. Recognizing these privileges does not posit us as god-like nor as soulless, it merely presents us with an opportunity to do better.

WC: 586
I pledge: Rebekah Stone

Bekah’s Response to Elizabeth Donaldson’s Psychographics: Graphic Memoirs and Psychiatric Disability (4/9/19)

This lecture, starting with disability rights’ iconic “nothing about us without us,” and leaping into discussion of the deep need for disabled voices in representation of mental illness, forced me to reevaluate some of my own thoughts and feelings on tropes I had normalized growing up.
I have always been inherently bothered by tropes of disturbed, mad, or mentally ill villains for the obvious perpetuation of neurodivergence as criminal, so when she made reference to the romanticization of the Joker character, I was entirely on-board. That stereotyping has real live consequences—just look at how many laws there are that ask the state to identify mentally ill individuals by their danger level first, humanity second! When she made reference to the demonization of asylums via Arkham Asylum, though, I was entirely unsure of my own feelings. I am by no means anti-psychiatry or against any other accessible, nontoxic form of healthcare, for that matter; obviously so much of disability rights activism has been centered around the right to access these institutions. I suppose the most annoyance I ever truly got out of demonizing institutions in fiction is that it has allowed unaffected individuals—namely, neurotypicals—to distance themselves, finding the medical tortures and abuse to be a thing of the past, if real at all. Maybe it even deepens that fear neurotypicals have of disability because they feel that such maltreatment is the only option? I truly do not know; I cannot identify the tropes as the cause of the disconnect between myself and others when I would describe the horrendous things doctors had gotten away with right before my own eyes—that surely has more to do with an inability to empathize with a lived experienced outside their own, one that their privilege kept them from seeing—but it definitely helped widen the gap. However, in dissecting popularized depictions of medical institutions and mentally ill characters, I feel more understanding of the ways in which creating such tropes can demonize institutions for those that need it and interfere with their right to treatment.
In the past couple days, I seem to be coming back to the thought that these portrayals, while potentially based in some reality, cannot be the only representation available. It has linked in my mind as similar to the way deinstitutionalization activists had to fight for the right to treatment and the right to refuse treatment. Many felt that fighting for the “negative” right detracted from the “positive” right and vice versa; positive representation of healthcare may seem unrealistic, even if in an effort to destigmatize the experience for some (or even if simply in an effort to imagine a world where healthcare is not so taxing) it may be seen as taking away from the negative experiences portrayed, and the negative portrayals may be stigmatizing or depressing the individuals needing some positive representation. In the same way that disabled creators should be allowed to express their experiences of maltreatment and abuse through fiction without bearing the weight of having to imagine better institutions, disabled creators should also be allowed to express their positive (imagined or otherwise) experiences with institutions through fiction without feeling responsible for the general ignorance of neurotypicals. I suppose this is simply another situation in which polarizing depictions can only be resolved by more diverse, authentic representation.

WC: 573
I pledge: Rebekah Stone

Bekah’s Response to August Gorman’s Descartes and the Madness Argument (3/26/19)

From what I understood of this lecture—and I cannot pretend that was much, in the grand scheme of things—there is perplexity to the way in which Descartes mentioned and then quickly abandoned the conception of madness as a challenge to proving the existence of an entity. Dr. Gorman led this discussion by first exploring the ways in which philosophy and mental illness have been known to interact through the case of Phineas Gage. Gage, the man we have to learn about in every psychology course to have ever existed, sustained a traumatic brain injury (specifically injuring the frontal lobe) and supposedly had a large change in personality and behavior. This obviously really impacted the ways in which we view humanity (mind, body, soul ‘n’ whatnot), but that is not exactly where this talk went with it. According to Dr. Shelley Tremain, this purported change in personality came about in response to differential treatment and ableism post-trauma; this ableism, baked into the sciences, raises a lot of questions for philosophers interested in discovering ethical approaches to disability. With that in mind, there was a circle back to Descartes’ argument. I still have no real idea where I stand on that; I imagine there is validity to the idea that he ditched it in order to avoid being stigmatized. What got me interested in the lecture, though, was the whole explanation of the principle of charity (not assuming the worst argument possible is intentional) and the principle of humanity (actions as close to your imagined own) as correlated and potentially undermining of neurodivergence. It reminded me of Dr. Alisha Gaines’ talk about a year ago on the ways in which many white ‘allies’ have responded to racism; the gist of that being that so much ‘allyship’ has historically centered the privileged self and based itself on the contention that if an experience is ‘unempathizable’ (for lack of a better word) to the masses then it is not worth considering and/or dignifying. In the same way that a dreaming state has often been likened with madness, perhaps as a ‘more accessible’ form of mental illness, white ‘allies’ have a deep history of parading around in blackface in order to witness (witness, not experience) racial discrimination ‘first hand.’ It all ties together in my head with assumed experiences over lived experiences; Gage’s condition medically being assumed over his condition socially, etc. (I am truly hoping at least 2% of this response made sense).

WC: 410
I pledge: Rebekah Stone

Bekah’s Response to Julia DeLancey’s “The Flag of Imagination”: Surrealists and Artists on the Schizophrenia Spectrum (2/19/19)

This lecture began with an overview of disability models, psychoanalytic perspectives of psychology, and surrealist principles, leading up to discussion of Hans Prinzhorn’s Artistry of the Mentally Ill (1922). Dr. DeLancey described Prinzhorn as having had a history of education in art and psychology, and she used his work to open up conversation on the fetishization and othering of the neurodivergent in multiple ways. Psychology at this time was all about Freud; everyone had an unconscious mind and symptomatic behaviors were merely indicative of latent thought needing to become manifest. Surrealism, an artistic movement of the time intending to challenge societal conventions by opening up the aforementioned unconscious mind, fixated on the minds of children, “primitive” (non-Western) cultures and societies, and the mentally ill. I contend that this fixation is not only fetishizing and mystifying, but a practice of cultural voyeurism. It is not the easiest argument to make, given that culture typically implies group identity, and mental illness had no clear-cut definition, but I am stickin’ with my gut on this one. The medical model aimed to eliminate disability, though medical institutions held more than just disabled individuals (insert long history of institutionalizing individuals over sexuality, gender, politics, etc.); institutionalized identity is broader than that which the surrealists aimed to objectify and appropriate. They wanted the edginess of all those that had been othered, but they specifically wanted the psychiatrically disabled; they wanted a lived experience they could never have, even if they tried (which they did, of course, with drugs). More bluntly, surrealist interest in the art of the mentally ill did little to encourage the creators or grant them autonomy or freedom; even Prinzhorn’s work pushed no boundaries. At best, it co-opted trauma narrative and commodified their creative endeavors (which, even with payout and consent, definitely played into saneism and infantilization for the way it was carried out).

WC: 311
I pledge: Rebekah Stone

Madness Series Lecture–Last One

Olivia Bridges

I attended the last lecture for the madness series. I cannot remember the name of the speaker but I believe that he is actually the professor of the class. The lecture was called an existentialist approach to madness. While the speaker covered a variety of topics such as Freud and his breakthrough to treat people with mental illnesses as people and get to the root of their trauma rather than treating them like criminals and burdens. The part of the lecture that stood out to me the most was the myth of mental illness. The notion that mental illness is a metaphor and not an actual medical condition, which is why the medical model is incorrect when approaching mental illness. However, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that idea. As an individual who has struggled with mental illness my entire life this upset me. I have been told my entire life that my anxiety is because of a chemical imbalance in my brain. From what I gather in my notes the speaker is implying that anxiety is caused by those who are aware of their own existence. And while I can see the argument that anxiety worsens when one is not distracted because that is certainly true and part of the reason I struggles so much last semester, my anxiety and depression started long before I was aware of my own existence. It is something I have struggled with my entire life, I was put on medication as young as ten years old and had significant anxiety before then. Probably as early as first grade. It made me feel like my medical condition was being dismissed. The only thing that allowed to me to not be ashamed of my anxiety and depression is because doctors and my parents told me it is a medical condition. One in which I cannot control because it is a chemical imbalance. Yes medication does make me feel better and yes there is not a cure, but mental illness is an illness. I do agree that humans are anxious beings but that shouldn’t take away from others experiences. I have suffered greatly because of my mental illness, sometimes it feels like dying. I understand that mental illness cannot be understood purely on the medical model but it is a medical condition.

Take Back The Night Response

Olivia Bridges

Take Back The Night is a tradition long held at Mary Washington; however, for the first time in the University’s history, the Tally Center organized the event with the help of numerous campus clubs. Among those clubs included my own, Where Is The Line? Our club strives to bring awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence. The purpose of the event is to empower survivors so they can heal, but also to bring awareness.

The event began and ended with acapella groups singing as well as a candlelit ceremony once everyone was done speaking. There were several speakers in attendance–I believe it was around five speakers. Two of which I knew. The last speaker was a woman with a physical disability. She previously attended UMW and has poetry published in various publications. While most of the speakers stories narrated their journey to healing, she instead shared her poems. Even though her poems spoke of sexual violence and darkness, it still had an empowering effect because despite what she went though she was strong enough to speak at the Take Back The Night Event. Additionally, at least for me writing is a form of healing. The last poem she shared was actually an activity she recommended everyone do to help them through their trama. I strongly believe that while the poems were melancholy, they were also empowering and eye opening.

Lastly, I thought it was interesting to hear from a woman with a disability because it provided diversity. While I am unsure of the exact statistics I know that 1 in a 5 college women are sexually harassed and 1 and 4 women are as well. However, I am sure the number of people with disabilities that face sexual violence is even worse. So it was important to have a person with a disability speak.

Rebecca Young’s Response to “An Existential Approach to Madness”

Dr. Vasey’s lecture this afternoon, which approached madness from an existential standpoint, was an interesting and insightful finale to this semester’s lecture series on madness. Within his presentation, he addressed a number of topics we we’ve addressed ourselves in Dis/Lit this semester. Most notably, in my opinion, was his discussion of the medical view of disability (and mental illness, in particular).

In his lecture, Dr. Vasey repeatedly addressed the supposed “myth of mental illness.” In discussing this, he clearly made the argument that the linguistic term “illness” is a metaphor in this phrase, and that madness of any kind is not a literal disease or sickness. His primary point when discussing this was the concept of a potential cure, or lack thereof, for these “illnesses.” In his opinion, mental illnesses or disturbances (what he considered “madness”) are an inherent part of the individual, and cannot simply “go away.” This distinction was, according to him, the reason madness cannot be considered an illness. According to his definitions, an illness is something which can be treated and cured, and which will then leave the afflicted individual. Contrastingly, mental illness is a permanent part of an individual’s identity and existence. While symptoms of a mental illness can be treated and sometimes cured to potentially alleviate someone’s suffering, he argued this afternoon that the supposed madness itself is an inherent part of the individual.

I found this critical discussion of prescriptive, pathological approaches to madness to be very similar to some of the points we’ve made in class discussions ourselves. The controversial nature of such medical approaches to mental illness are applicable to all kinds of disability. As we’ve discussed, approaching disability with the intention of “curing” disabled individuals is a potentially problematic stance to take on this issue. While the suffering related to some individuals’ disabilities should not be invalidated, an oversimplified approach to “curing” disability perpetuates notions that it is inherently a weakness, problem, or burden. In this way, Dr. Vasey’s argument resonated with me, and I felt it connected strongly to our class discussions.

Overall, this lecture was a very unique presentation of madness, and I felt that it was an excellent piece to conclude this semester’s series with. By discussing incredibly broad, philosophical notions of disability and mental illness, Dr. Vasey made us critically examine our very understandings of what madness is. Additionally, however, he made connections to historical and contemporary applications of these ideas. This thought-provoking lecture was also an excellent bridge between the discussions of madness and our class discussions of disability, making it an enlightening experience all around.

An Existentialist Approach to Madness

Written by Amanda Smith

On the evening of April 23rd, the last lecture of the Mysterium Hunanum Studies on Madness commenced. Presented by Craig Vasey was the series last topic: An Existentialist Approach to Madness.

Vasey started off  his presentation with the word “madness” asking the audience what does the word mean exactly, if we could put one single definitive definition to it. He explains that it’s just a word, it can cover an array of things from physical imbalances or disturbance in the mind. He further explained that it can’t be but into a single definition, he says describing the madness is like describing what love means. It’s hard to determine a significant single meaning for it. He jokes adding, “Madness is a linguist black hole.”

Vasey then goes into an overview of his main point about the research he found on Freud theories looking at literary works made by Freud’s colleague, Michael Thompson. Thompson wrote “The Truth about Freud’s Technique”where we explore the idea that there is no such thing as mental illness because it is not a proper medical condition, or as Vasey says, “mental illness is a metaphor, a mapping of medical talk and values (concerning physical suffering and its cause) onto behavior, feelings, thought, consciousness-experience” In culture today, he explains, that mental illness is just a term we have accepted. That we as a society want to make it seem that there is a cure to mental illness, that it something we need to find a solution to. But in reality, we are only helping someone who is suffering, suffer less. Whether it be throughs medically prescribed drugs or therapy. Overall, showing us that the medical field is in charge of mentally ill individuals.

To introduce the findings of Freud’s time, Vasey gave a brief background but how 1780’s the idea of moral treatment came along, a “remarkable step forward in treating such people as human beings who need help from society,”  Vasey exclaims sarcastically, meaning that instead of treating mentally ill people as criminals, entertainment, and animals, we treated them like humans that need help. When psychoanalyst started to treat these individuals they thought that the body or mind was intervened by the gods of evil spirits, had a failure to control appetites and desires, or possessed by the devil. These ‘findings’ were then resulting in private institutionalization because they were too much too handle or states were sponsoring warehousing to try techniques to control these mental ill patients. But then came Freud.

As Thompson had put it, “Freud believed people developed hysteria and neurosis because they have been traumatized by unrequited love in their childhoods. He was the first to recognize that our parents, in fact all our relationships, have on us and our capacity to love is also the source of the most profound suffering.” From then on, Freud would consider this notion with tests and therapy sessions that would, as Vasey says, reach the repressed memories or thoughts that are causing the suffering by paying attention to the patients concerns in order to help them. Vasey explained that in repression, one is not aware of the memories, and that the mind is actively working to keep those memories repressed.

Though this concept was hard to grasp for the audience, we all were astounded by the evidence found in Thompson work. Thompson wrote, that there was a woman who was temporarily blind, paralyzed, and would not drinking water and was very unhealthy due to the fact. After Freud had put her under hypnosis she grumbled about her english lady companion, saw the lady’s dog drinking out of her glass, but didn’t want to be impolite so she didn’t say anything, she asked for a drink of water, and then woke up with the glass to her lips and never was disturbed again by this experience.

From this, Vasey would explain the difficulty of a psychoanalysis. Which can be explain with the “three humiliations of human narcissism at the hands of science.” Those three concepts being: cosmological, biological, and psychological. cosmological is the past time revelation that we used to think the earth was the center of the universe and god put us there. But was it’s actually true is that the sun is the center, thanks to Copernicus. Biological humiliation was when the human race thought they were a supernatural being, but Darwin provided a different opinion, evolution. Finally, what this lecture is focused on is the psychological humiliation. We think that we are in control of our mind, but according to Freud and Vasey “you’re not the master of your own house and the ego cannot control its drives.” The mind represses things, and they may come back to torment you, but overall we are not in control.

Vasey then extend is notion, that we don’t control our thoughts, and ties in the beliefs/themes of existentialism. One of these themes was anxiety. We have so many anxieties that we repress, because we are a race that is aware of ourselves, cares we exists, and knows that we will die. Amongst these fairly important anxieties we also  carry around the question of life: what is the meaning of human existence? What kind of being is human being? We have heightened our awareness of our existence, that we developed the distractions of everyday life. Whether it be through tasks or through keeping busy with multiple activities, we absorbed ourselves in things, to keep our minds away from the anxieties, which is an understandable reaction, it’s not a mental illness, it is a part of life. Vasey calls this repression of anxieties, ontological insecurity. Vasey also briefly pointed out that we have become a generation of understanding of everyone’s weirdness, because we all have troubles.

The final conclusion of Vasey’s lecture was that Freud findings makes sense. We all really do repress our memories and anxieties, there is a subconscious we cannot access directly, and that being like this is not medically related at all, or as one student suggested, “we are all mad here.”

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