LIVING MINDFULLY IN A WORLD FULL OF NORMOPATHS

'To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day,

to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle

which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.'

e. e. cummings

'The moment we want to be something we are no longer free.'
J. Krishnamurti

I won't be pulling any punches in this post.

I have been re-reading Will There Really Be a Morning? Not the poem by Emily Dickinson (although that is reproduced in the book as well), but the largely ghosted autobiography of the famous American stage, screen, radio and television actress Frances Farmer (pictured below). The Nirvana song "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle", written by fellow Seattle resident Kurt Cobain, was named after the late actress.

Ms Farmer had a sad and troubled life, and psychiatry, as it was once practised in various places around the world, did not serve her well, to put it mildly. She spent some 8 years as an inmate in a state mental asylum deprived of all civil liberties. During that time she was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats, and poisoned by tainted food. She was chained in padded cells, strapped into straightjackets, and half drowned in ice baths, and may even have been made the subject of a transorbital lobotomy ... all because she had attitude, she made some bad judgments, and she behaved idiosyncratically at times.

Farmer writes in her book, “Once the finger of suspicion is pointed at an individual, the stigma remains. Any unusual act or reckless behavior triggers a consequent doubt as to that person's sanity." She also writes, "[I]t is a fine legal distinction to judge whether an individual is eccentric or insane. None is safe from this danger despite constitutional protection." I agree.

We live in a world of conformity, a world full of crushingly boring “normopaths”, that is, mindless people who are almost pathologically determined to be just like other people ... all of them fellow travellers in what Ernest Hemingway called "the millenium of the untalented". (I love that phrase!) 

These people must have the same things as others, especially material things and houses (the latter often taking the form of tasteless but pretentious "McMansions" ... those in Australia generally being made with tacky fibre cement cladding). They commit themselves to dressing like others (designer clothing and sunglasses), eating the same trendy looking food as others, working long hours like others (the Lucille Ball "I have to work or I am nothing" [her exact words] mentality), believing the same things about life as others ("Life's for living!" ... Really? How profound!), and generally keeping up with others. They have a fear, indeed almost a phobia, of being different ... and, worse still, of being perceived by others to be different.

Watch this clip from the old Candid Camera television program (courtesy YouTube and Viacom), and see for yourself the power of conformity in action. Would you or I be any different if we were in that elevator?

We live in a new Dark Age of Puritanism and wowserism in which it is no longer socially acceptable to be different. There is little or no tolerance for those who are, or choose to be, idiosyncratically different, let alone eccentric ... especially in the business world and in the professions (particularly law). There is a very limited range of what is deemed by society, captains of industry and others in positions of power to be “acceptable” behaviour.

I dislike normopaths immensely. I have suffered at the hands of some extremely unpleasant ones. Quite a few of these people were high-level managers. These often ruthlessly ambitious but otherwise socially intelligent people tend to rise to the top in organizations because for the most part they don't have enough talent to stay at the bottom ... something these driven people are generally aware of themselves, but are extremely good at concealing from most others.

I do not suffer any longer at the hands of these people. I choose to be different. I choose to be myself. I am free, and there are no chains that bind me.

What, you may ask, has all this to do with Mindfulness? Well, a fair bit. You see, Mindfulness is all about gaining self-knowledge and insight into ourselves. We come to see ourselves as we really are. We learn, over time, to accept ourselves as we are.

Naturally, if we are on any path of self-improvement, we will seek to change for the better those things in us that need changing and that we are capable of changing. However, we no longer seek to be like others, because we are comfortable with ourselves. We no longer judge or condemn ourselves for being different. Indeed, we are proud to be different.

Finally, be yourself. Be the very best person you can be, and in truth are.

RELATED POSTS

SLAVES OF THE 'I'---EVEN UNTO DEATH

AM I CRANKY, GROUCHO? YOU BET YOUR LIFE!

LORD BUCKLEY AND THE ART OF MINDFULNESS

THE NSW INSTITUTE OF PSYCHIATRY

I am proud to have been associated with the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry (“the Institute”), as both a lawyer and an educator, since 2002.

The Institute, which was established by the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry Act 1964 (NSW) under which it is constituted, and which governs its operations, is a major provider of continuing professional education in mental health in Australia.

Although the Institute is a statutory body independent of any individual university or teaching institution, it has university-equivalent status, having been granted approval to offer a number of courses up to Masters level, with agreements of affiliation with several Australian universities. The Institute is also a member of the World Health Organization Collaborative Centre in Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Australia.

Through its Board the Institute is directly responsible to the NSW Minister for Health. The Institute provides training for health care professionals, psychiatrists-in-training, consumers and staff of non-government organisations, general practitioners and the public ... and, yes, the Institute even runs courses and workshops on mindfulness, which the Institute endorses.

The Accredited Persons Training Program was conceived in 2002 and introduced in 2003, after amendments had been effected to the then Mental Health Act 1990 (NSW), in response to concerns that a scarcity of medical practitioners in some areas were hampering or delaying the initiation of treatment for people with mental health problems and associated risk factors. 

Senior mental health clinicians who have at least 5 years experience of working with patients are able to be nominated by the local Director of the Area Mental Health Service for training as Accredited Persons. 

These clinicians undergo a 2-day training workshop carried out by NSWIOP where they get specialised training (including legal training) in the Mental Health Act 2007 (NSW) and related rules of law as well as in the assessment of those suffering from psychosis. Once qualified they are then registered as Accredited Persons for a period of 3 years. 

At the end of that 3 year period they are required to undergo a refresher course in order to become qualified again for another 3 years. Accredited Persons are able to write Schedule 1 Certificates in order to transport patients to hospital as an involuntary patient where they are assessed again by a qualified psychiatrist.

I have been continuously involved in the Accredited Persons Training Program as a lecturer (and at times also as an examiner) right from its beginnings---program development began in 2002, with the first training sessions commencing in 2003---to the present day, both as a lecturer and at times as an examiner as well. Although I have taught for long periods at other tertiary educational institutions (most notably, the University of Technology, Sydney), my association with the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry has been the highlight and most satisfying part of my teaching career. At the risk of sounding immodest---yes, I still have an ego which needs pruning, lopping or even topping---I regularly receive solid, positive feedback from those who attend my lectures and workshops at the Institute. Feedback on my performance from course participants includes the following:

We all agree that Dr Ian Ellis-Jones is a legal legend and machine who invokes robust debate, participation and expression of opinion in the most passive of people.

 

(Source: Email communication dated 6 January 2012 from Peter Bazzana, Mental Health Educator at the Institute, and member of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal, to myself.)

Another more recent program offered by the Institute with which I am involved as program co-developer and lecturer is a special training program on the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Act 2007 (NSW). Under this Act an accredited medical practitioner can issue a dependency certificate that means the person can be detained for up to 28 days in the first instance.

A dependency certificate may be issued in relation to the person only if the accredited medical practitioner is satisfied that (i) the person has a severe substance dependence, (ii) care, treatment or control of the person is necessary to protect the person from serious harm, (iii) the person is likely to benefit from treatment for his or her substance dependence but has refused treatment, and (iv) no other appropriate and less restrictive means for dealing with the person are reasonably available. The accredited medical practitioner can also take into account any serious harm that may occur to children in the care of the person, or other dependants.

Attendees at the 2-day D&A training workshop are highly experienced D&A treatment and rehabilitation health care professionals, being either medical practitioners or what are known as "involuntary treatment liasion officers" (registered psychiatric nurses and other mental health workers) who provide assistance to accredited medical practitioners as respects the performance of their duties under the Act.

In addition to my lecturing duties and responsibilities at the Institute, I also provide a range of legal services to the Institute including but not limited to ongoing advice on the meaning, interpretation and practical application of the various pieces of NSW and other legislation pertaining to mental health.

Mr Peter Bazzana has kindly written these words:

Dr Ian Ellis-Jones is a highly valued consultant to a number of programs at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry. He has consistently demonstrated his excellent skills as both a writer and a presenter. His workshops are consistently highly evaluated by the mental health professionals who attend.

RELATED POST

PSYCHIATRY AT A GLANCE

MINDFULNESS BROADENS YOUR HORIZONS

The practice of Mindfulness Meditation requires no belief commitments, but it certainly can broaden one’s horizons by affording insight into ourselves and the world around us. Over time, we start to break loose from tired, worn-out, narrow, constricted and confined thought forms which have held us back, often for decades. Not only do our thoughts change, but so does the grey matter of our brains by means of which we think our thoughts.

Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn (pictured below), Professor of Medicine Emeritus and the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the celebrated author of numerous seminal best-selling books and audio books on Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation including Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, has written:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally … When we commit ourselves to paying attention in an open way, without falling prey to our own likes and dislikes, opinions and prejudices, projections and expectations, new possibilities open up and we have a chance to free ourselves from the straitjacket of unconsciousness.”

Dr Ellen Langer (pictured below), a professor in the Psychology Department at Harvard University, and the author of many books including Mindfulness, The Power of Mindful Learning, On Becoming An Artist, and Counterclockwise, has carried out over 30 years of research into “mindfulness” and its opposite … “mindlessness”. Professor Langer describes the “mindless” person - that is, the person who fails to act mindfully in their daily lives - as being “trapped by categories”, engaging in “automatic behaviour”, and “acting from a single perspective”. Langer writes, “The mindless individual is committed to one predetermined use of … information, and other possible uses or applications are not explored.”

“Mindlessness” manifests itself in various all-too-familiar ways … reacting emotionally and automatically to triggers, labelling and prejudging people, inability to think outside the square, predetermining matters, acting on and never questioning false, unstated, unconscious assumptions and presumptions, and so forth. On the other hand, a mindful person - someone who has applied meditation to their entire daily life - is open-minded, nonjudgmental, ever curious and alert, looking for and actually noticing new things, creative and innovative. A mindful person, being self-aware, knows. A “mindless” person believes and accepts on faith what others have told them is true whether the subject-matter is religion or whatever.

There is an old saying which is often heard in Twelve Step recovery groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” When people and organizations suffer from mindlessness, their mindsets and thought forms are fixed and rigid with the result that … so are they … and so are their experiences of external phenomena.

Break free from the past! There are no chains that bind you … and no fetters … except those you have created for yourself. Dr Norman Vincent Peale (pictured below), who, with the Freudian psychiarist Dr Smiley Blanton (who trained under the master Sigmund Freud himself), founded in 1937 the first service in the world combining religion and psychiatry for the sake of mental health (which is now known as the Blanton-Peale Institute), once wrote, “There is a spiritual giant within you which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison you have made for it.” So, come alive! Be awake!