Tom Cruise "interview"...:killingme

[ylexot]

Something Tom fails to recognize...vitamins are drugs.

 

[Tonio]

I don't know squat about scientology but I do think we're drugging way to many people in our society, especially kids, and I do think part of the problem is not facing problems and fixing them, but masking them with, as Tom almost said, gobbledy ----, and drugs.

No argument there, Larry. I think the issue with Cruise is not so much his belief system as it is his self-righteous attitude and his messianic fervor. He believes he has the right to tell Brooke Shields and everyone else how they should be living their lives.

 

[SamSpade]

1. Crusie thinks pshycology is quackery.

2. He thinks there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance

3. He says drugs only masks the problems.

4. He says, and Matt agreed, that, ideally, no one should be on drugs in order to live a happy life.



I think he's got some points. I don't know squat about scientology but I do think we're drugging way to many people in our society, especially kids, and I do think part of the problem is not facing problems and fixing them, but masking them with, as Tom almost said, gobbledy gook, and drugs.

Amen.

You know the old joke "just 'cause you're paranoid, it doesn't mean the world ISN'T out to get you"? Well, just because he's weird, a narcissist and full of himself, doesn't mean he's wrong that we're overmedicating our kids. How we got to a world where so many kids are on Ritalin is beyond me.

He also has some valid points about the quackery of psychiatry and psychology - at least, to me, it fails the smell test of scientific precision. While some treatment seems to work, I rarely come across strictly objective means of arriving at a diagnosis in those fields. If you diagnose someone as bipolar, or obsessive/compulsive, or ADHD - is there a definitive test that confirms the diagnosis beyond all doubt?

So he's a little nuts. Doesn't mean he's all wet on this.

 

[Toxick]

Here's something interesting:


Tom Cruise believes that psychology is a joke.




HOWEVER he believes this is a true history of the galaxy:

75 million years ago a galactic ruler named Xemu, in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy (including earth - except back then it was called Teekeeack) decided that since all the planets were overpopulated - over 178 billion people each - he would solve the problem by calling in all these people for income tax inspections.

This exodus, ironically, was facilitated by psychiatrists.

When these people showed up, however, they were not subjected to tax audits, but rather they were injected with a combination of alcohol and glycol which paralyzed them, and they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC-8s.

These DC-8 space planes flew all the people of our galaxy to earth and stacked them by the hundreds of billions at the feet of volcanos - which were then filled with Hydrogen bombs, which summarily detonated, killing everyone.

Since all these people had souls (called "thetans") and the souls could come back, the souls were trapped in sticky electronic beams. Captured thetans were then taken to movie theaters where they were forced to spend days watching special 3D movies which confused their minds as it convinced them that they were God, the Devil and the Christ. After these movies were over and the thetans left the theater, they started to stick together because they thought they were the same people, and they usually clustered together in groups of a thousand or more. There were few living bodies around, and were possessed by these soul-clusters creating "body thetans".

As for mean old Xemu, his officers finally overthrew him and locked him in a mountain trapped by force-fields on an undisclosed planet, where he lives to this very day.



That's scientology in a nutshell - I kid you not.




Of course psychology is a joke and there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance.


Now, will someone slap him please?

 

[Bruzilla]

Okay... time to fulfill my role as the fly in the ointment...

I think that Cruise makes a very good point, he just doesn't make it very well. I'm not a scientologist, and don't know a whole lot about their "religion", but I do know that one of their core beliefs is that people need to resolve their problems, and their issues with others, rather than just dealing with them or covering them up. It's called cleansing or something like that. Cruise is dead right when he says that most psychotherapy drugs are not meant to cure something as much as to hide the symptoms of it. Someone with severe depression can take drugs to feel better, but if they come off the drugs they go back to being depressed. The Scientologists believe it's better to deal with the causes of the depression, by confronting and overcoming them, than to take drugs to cover them up.

Take that pinhead who drowned her five kids and said it was because of post-partum depression. There was nothing medically wrong with her. She was depressed because of her husband and her life. Yes, anti-depressant drugs could have made her feel better, but once she came off the drugs the source problems would still be there and the effectiveness of the drugs would lessen over time. She would have been better off confronting her husband, and changing the conditions that were making her depressed, thus curing the depression rather than covering it up or crying on the shoulder of a therapist. Dealing with those pressures is what that cleansing? business of Scientology enables you to do.

I DEFINATELY AGREE with him on the misuse and overuse of drugs like Ritalin on children. I know parents who have kids on that drug, and it has more to do with making mom and dad's life easier than taking care of any problem the kid has. Nowadays it's accepted practice that if your kid acts like a kid, you dope him/her up with Ritalin and your problem goes away. Except it doesn't go away, and the root causes of a lot of these alledged childhood behavior disorders, namely lack of attention, lack of discipline, lack of educating your child on acceptable behavior, etc., by the parents come roaring back to the forefront once the child comes off the drug. My goofy sister-in-law and her husband, who's three kids are all on Ritalin, are big believers in "time outs" and other touchy-feely forms of discipline, and were sure the reason their kids had all kinds of behavior problems was that had ADS. I told them that their kids were suffering from Lack of Discipline Syndrome and needed to be taught right from wrong, and the consequences of doing wrong... things that they abhored. So... their kids are all doped up and in about 10 years or so they'll start being asked to "turn to the left, turn to the right, now look forward" by the nice booking officer.

 

[virgovictoria]

If you diagnose someone as bipolar, or obsessive/compulsive, or ADHD - is there a definitive test that confirms the diagnosis beyond all doubt?

There are tests that indicate chemical imbalances, such as lithium/salt and bipolar disorder. There are also scans that indicate abnormal activity in certain lobes of the brain where certain mental complexities seem to originate and certain medications seem to target.

When I have time to find some links, I'll post them in a new thread - don't know where they all are right now.

 

[Bruzilla]

HOWEVER he believes this is a true history of the galaxy:

75 million years ago a galactic ruler named Xemu, in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy (including earth - except back then it was called Teekeeack) decided that since all the planets were overpopulated - over 178 billion people each - he would solve the problem by calling in all these people for income tax inspections.

Is that so much of a stretch to believe as believing that the dead can get up and walk around? Or that there is a thriving society of demons living at the Earth's core?

 

[Toxick]

Is that so much of a stretch to believe as believing that the dead can get up and walk around? Or that there is a thriving society of demons living at the Earth's core?

Yes, as a matter of fact.

 

[Bruzilla]

There are tests that indicate chemical imbalances, such as lithium/salt and bipolar disorder. There are also scans that indicate abnormal activity in certain lobes of the brain where certain mental complexities seem to originate and certain medications seem to target.

When I have time to find some links, I'll post them in a new thread - don't know where they all are right now.

Not to put words in Cruise's mouth, but I don't think he was referring to actual cases where there is a physiological cause of the problem, like with true, measureable, chemical imbalances. I think he was talking to "soft" diagnoses like Post-Partum Depression, other forms of depression, ADS/AADS, etc. There are a lot of doctors who are treating these as clinical issues when they are not, with their diagnois based on short-term, limited-scope, observations rather than any conclusive physical testing.

 

[Bruzilla]

Yes, as a matter of fact.

I agree

 

[ylexot]

Not to put words in Cruise's mouth, but I don't think he was referring to actual cases where there is a physiological cause of the problem, like with true, measureable, chemical imbalances. I think he was talking to "soft" diagnoses like Post-Partum Depression, other forms of depression, ADS/AADS, etc. There are a lot of doctors who are treating these as clinical issues when they are not, with their diagnois based on short-term, limited-scope, observations rather than any conclusive physical testing.

Yeah, he did say something to that effect in that usually there is not blood test or any other physical test to determine if the drug might help.

BTW, I didn't know anything about Scientology, so I found an interesting site (neither for nor against)...SCIENTOLOGY: Its symbol, history, beliefs, & practices

 

[ylexot]

Here's the quote...

Then you go and you say where's-- where's the medical test? Where's the blood test that says how much Ritalin you're supposed to get?

 

[Toxick]

BTW, I didn't know anything about Scientology, so I found an interesting site (neither for nor against)...SCIENTOLOGY: Its symbol, history, beliefs, & practices

See! That's how they get you.



Actually, what's on that page is a summary of Dianetics. "Dianeticism" isn't that far-fetched at all. All Scientologists are "Dianeticists", but I know a few Dianeticists who are not Scientologists. Dianeticism is a prerequesite for Scientology, but not the other way around.



I think that there needs to be a clear distinction made.

 

[Kizzy]

Take that pinhead who drowned her five kids and said it was because of post-partum depression. There was nothing medically wrong with her. She was depressed because of her husband and her life. Yes, anti-depressant drugs could have made her feel better, but once she came off the drugs the source problems would still be there and the effectiveness of the drugs would lessen over time.

How about the pinhead doctor who had her on SO MUCH medication that even a sane person would have gone insane on such a mix.

I believe "MOST" causes of depression can be solved by finding the root of the problem, but I am not going to go out on a limb and say it is for everyone. I think some people are just programmed to be happy or sad. It is just they way they are.

 

[remaxrealtor]

Amen.

You know the old joke "just 'cause you're paranoid, it doesn't mean the world ISN'T out to get you"? Well, just because he's weird, a narcissist and full of himself, doesn't mean he's wrong that we're overmedicating our kids. How we got to a world where so many kids are on Ritalin is beyond me.

He also has some valid points about the quackery of psychiatry and psychology - at least, to me, it fails the smell test of scientific precision. While some treatment seems to work, I rarely come across strictly objective means of arriving at a diagnosis in those fields. If you diagnose someone as bipolar, or obsessive/compulsive, or ADHD - is there a definitive test that confirms the diagnosis beyond all doubt?

So he's a little nuts. Doesn't mean he's all wet on this.

Here, here! He might want to considering taking it down a notch though.

 

[ocean733]

Here, here! He might want to considering taking it down a notch though.

There is no proof of ADHD (in terms of a medical/neurological condition).

IMO, most of these children are placated when they act up --the punishment from their parents is not reinforced.

These kids learn that acting up is a way to manipulate to get what they want. If it works, why wouldn't any reasonable person continute the behavior?

Sedating (medicating) a child because they have been "trained" to be an idiot to get their way is crazy.

My opinion.

 

[ocean733]

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), ADHD, and Bipolar syndrome: there is no way to actually determine it biologically (yet). Of course, one can speculate, but it seems as though once someone is labelled they are basically "diagnosed".

 

[ocean733]

This conversation was initially about Tom Cruise.


oops.

 

[FromTexas]

Actually, if you go out and read the research, you will see that bi-polar disorder has distinctive patterns in brain imaging. Also, more current studies have pointed to similar imaging patterns between those children who are definitvely diagnosed with ADHD as opposed to those without.

Are there more kids diagnosed as ADHD or bipolar than probably are? Of course. I also hear of people going to doctors getting diagnosed for things that they surely do not have, getting a prescription, and feeling better. In fact, I think some people go to doctors and won't take they have nothing wrong for an answer, so some doctors feel pressured to come up with something and placate their client. Is that right? It surely is an ethical dilemma.

Are some kids mis-diagnosed between ADHD, bi-polar, etc... sure they are. The only thing you have to work with beyond expensive imaging tests and studies is the mental condition. You can only rely on subjective responses from the patient (which obviously is not perfect) and subjective insight into the patient by the psychiatrist/psychologist on whether that patient fits the DSM criteria for a disorder. Some are better at this then others. Obviously, extreme cases are easier to diagnose.

So, quick facts:
1) Psychological disorders including ADHD and bi-polar do exist and have science to prove them.
2) Psychiatrists like doctors, lawyers, and any other worker in the world are subject to human falibility (just like you) and there are good ones and bad ones. Some will do anything to make parents happy and just prescribe something but it doesn't mean the science behind it is bad.

 

[ocean733]

Actually, if you go out and read the research, you will see that bi-polar disorder has distinctive patterns in brain imaging. Also, more current studies have pointed to similar imaging patterns between those children who are definitvely diagnosed with ADHD as opposed to those without.

I absolutely agree. I have been doing brain research and fMRI analyses for the past 10 years. There are brain differences. There are brain differences to most things (control condition vs. experimental). There is still no scientific evidence - it's like guessing Alzheimers premortem.

When it is published in a journal, it doesn't mean it is fact. It means it's up for debate and scrutiny.

Are there more kids diagnosed as ADHD or bipolar than probably are? Of course. I also hear of people going to doctors getting diagnosed for things that they surely do not have, getting a prescription, and feeling better. In fact, I think some people go to doctors and won't take they have nothing wrong for an answer, so some doctors feel pressured to come up with something and placate their client. Is that right? It surely is an ethical dilemma.

I totally agree.

I am sure that ADHD does exist. Certainly not in the numbers that are being treated/sedated for it.

Are some kids mis-diagnosed between ADHD, bi-polar, etc... sure they are. The only thing you have to work with beyond expensive imaging tests and studies is the mental condition. You can only rely on subjective responses from the patient (which obviously is not perfect) and subjective insight into the patient by the psychiatrist/psychologist on whether that patient fits the DSM criteria for a disorder. Some are better at this then others. Obviously, extreme cases are easier to diagnose.

So, quick facts:
1) Psychological disorders including ADHD and bi-polar do exist and have science to prove them.
2) Psychiatrists like doctors, lawyers, and any other worker in the world are subject to human falibility (just like you) and there are good ones and bad ones. Some will do anything to make parents happy and just prescribe something but it doesn't mean the science behind it is bad.

I think that everything that you have said is brilliant. I am not disbelieving, but I am skeptical of the "labelling" that goes on, since it is so hard to diagnose.