DSM-IV and a whole lot more

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Jim,
  I have no intention of signing off.  Perhaps I haven't been clear re: the 
people with whom I go to medical school.  Just earlier I sat at a computer 
next to a young woman in my class, and because there were more popular fellas 
in the lab, I got all kinds of repellant vibes off from her.  (I already said 
I had a schizotypical personality disorder {halucinates} and none of you drove 
me out like a mad mob, so I figure the floor is mine).  Well, as soon as the 
young men were gone, I start getting all this attractive stuff coming off from 
her, stuff I don't know what to do with (see referance to recent heartbreak).  
So I let it just kind of wash over me.  My point was this is a sanctuary for 
me.
  
Scottie (and DSM-IV students),
  You've taken me to the point now where I talk about the Tao what with all 
your talk of narcissism.  Let me pose this question: was Teddy narcissistic?  
He was indeed self-sufficient and aloof.  But certainly not narcissistic.  
There is another side to aloofness, namely humility which makes the Taoist 
master what he or she is.  Recognizing that within each person is a well 
spring of life and energy and logos (Seymour's fat, old, cancerous lady) the 
master remains aloof--if s/he didn't then that well spring wouldn't have a 
chance to shine, and well, then you'd be caught in the DSM-IV trap.  Looking 
at me and the woman in the computer lab, I *could* classify what she did in 
cultural terms and call her a flirt or something, and go about playing the 
game of romantic love with her.  *Or* I can sit back and let things pan out 
before I talk to her again.  When I open my mouth she won't understand what's 
going on, how I can communicate with her if I'm not playing the game, but 
that's okay, I wouldn't want it any other way.
  I called it the DSM-IV trap because I was thinking about the borderline 
personality disorder.  My professor warned us that as clinicians we should 
treat borderline cases with much attention to clear boundaries and avoiding 
getting sexually involved with said patient.  Now that *could* be taken as 
good advice but, do you also see how this is a trap?  Rather than sitting back 
and acknowledging that being flirtatious is a part of the person's makeup, and 
rather than practicing Lao Tzu's edict "Waste nothing" the follower of DSM-IV 
sadly wastes a lot.  Namely the whole reason he or she is seeing the patient.  
Patience, faith, understanding: these are the attributes of the Master.  I'm 
not saying that *I'd* know how to handle a borderline case.  When I think it 
was Camille wrote that Lolita "mounted" the older man I just about fainted.

Finally as a GOLD STANDARD with which to understand DSM-IV, consider the 
Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies from the 19th century.  This is the idea 
that stimuli hit any of the five sensory organ types and their (the stimuli's 
(hello, any students of Latin out there?)) information travels to the brain 
where reality is then interpreted.  A person, then, is nothing more than the 
various connections between neurons in their brain, and can thus be molded 
into normal shapes by phychiatrists.  That hurts to even write.

You can thank the following fact for the length as well as the content of this 
post: today is my 24th birthday!!!!  I promise not to be like this for another 
year.  Really I do.

John Touzios

Yours, John Touzios

"The Tao does nothing."
-Lao Tzu

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