Tom A Vitale:
The next time you are in the presence of someone having a psychotic episode
I've been there. Read some of my older posts to get an idea. The very fact and severity of someone in the brink of an episode is evidence for the dangers of antipsychotic drugs. People use them because of the sheer severity of behaviors that can occur. They do not use these drugs because they are "safe." They use them as a means to control out of control behavior. Unfortunately, psychiatrists also like to prescribe them for just about everything else too.
The hindrances hypothesis is not wrong, there is an incredible range at which the hindrances can manifest. How do you think the hindrances manifest for the realms of the "hungry shades" or in the "hells"? I stated it is a gross perversion/pathology of them. I am not against drugging someone with antipsychotics in the throes of an acute episode. I am not even against drugging them for even a shorter or longer term. I am saying, there are solutions to being drugged out on antipsychotics until you die with the base assumption of science being that re-birth is not true. Withdrawal from these drugs will often cause violent nightmares... Would you want to take that risk? Would you want your loved ones to take that risk?
The problem I have with your hindrances hypothesis of mental illness is its assumption that, since mental illness is supposedly a result of the hindrances, it is something which can hypothetically can be controlled by a mentally ill person if they simply adopted "right view." This is like saying someone can control their cancer if they adopt the right view. Biological/organic mental illness is something which cannot be controlled by right view, changing social conditions, etc., as it is based in the organics of the organism, as are other biological illnesses of the body.
I don't doubt that many people suffer from non-organic depression or neurosis which COULD be affected right view, changes in social conditions, changes in interpersonal relations, changes in various external factors, etc., but it simply doesn't apply to folks with organic illnesses like schizophrenia, bi-polar, etc. Philosophically your notion is idealist, in that it suggests that the materiality of the organism is unimportant or non-primary.
There are three types of individuals worth examining: 1) There are those who are neurotic or ill because of external or social factors, for whom changing the external or social factors would cure the illness or neurosis. For example a man who goes to university for ten years to get an advanced degree only to find upon graduation that the job market/economy is not going to allow him to find a job in his chosen field. This individual may then become depressed. If, however, things change and a job becomes available, then the depression will go away. 2) There are those who are genetically or organically predisposed to possibly develop a mental illness of some type, who, based on external social factors, may or may not ever develop this mental illness. Given the right kind of social factors, etc., the illness may never manifest, or, if symptoms do arise, they can be helped by changes in the external or social. An analogy would be like an individual with an organic or genetic predisposition for heart disease. If they never smoke, drink, eat highly fatty or cholesterol laden foods, reduce stress, etc., they may never develop their illness, or, if they do, adhering to the fore mentioned guidelines will help reduce the severity of their illness. 3) Those with a genetic or organic illness whose illness is largely unaffected or unalterable by changes to the external or social, an illness which must be treated via medication for the entire life of the individual. This does not mean that changes to the social or external are meaningless or unimportant, just that they are secondary in that without medication no progress can be made whatsoever.
The problem with your statement/theory is that it excludes and ignores, abjects and denies the third class of individuals, which is hurtful, destructive, and plain offensive, not to mention plain old ignorant.
I believe you are making an inductive fallacy, which is to make broad generalizations about everyone based on your own limited personal experiences. Perhaps you were misdiagnosed and improperly medicated, but that doesn't mean that all folks are. An anti-psychotic given to the wrong person, yes, can be destructive, but an anti-psychotic given to the right person can mean the difference between life and death, leading a productive life and succumbing to the illness.
Also, I do not like nor to I appreciate labeling people with mental illness as "crazy." It perpetuates the stigma against mental illness those with it, and also the false popular notion that mental illness is a moral failing, a failing of effort, a failing of the individual, or something which makes those with mental illness not fit for inclusion in human society.