And In Related News. About More of a Generalized Mental Illness Issue. The Need to Correct Crazy Talk, and Crazy Acting.

The first rule (ok, not literally but work with me here) is never ever let the crazy person get away with it. The actual practitioners of psychotherapy talk about discouraging "acting out." Particularly, when following the method of treatment known as Cognitive Therapy, the crazier ways of thinking are challenged, as well as the crazier behaviour. The goal, however, is to sufficiently correct the patent's faulty thinking with rational thinking. The logic is simple, even if the process often is not. The logic of course is that if the patient no longer thinks that is is appropriate to think it is ok to act badly, they will not act badly. To put it into layman's terms (and I technically am that), the job is to get the patient to cut the bullshit, and to get real.

Now in an ideal world, it would be a simple process of finding the irrational data in a person's mind, removing that bad data, and replacing it with good rational data. But that is often a difficult process when the patient is just one stubbornly resistant person. But what about when we are not dealing with a single sick person, but a sick institution? How do you eliminate the irrational thoughts and replace them with nice, rational thoughts, particularly when the sicker members of that institution reinforce each other's madness? How about the even worse scenario, where there is a profit motive for encouraging the irrationality; not only a mere motive but a multi, multi million dollar market for the right flavored kind of irrationality?

Now some might accuse me of making an unfair point at the cost of the Republican Party. I admit to deliberately trying to make the point, specifically, that the Republicans are stewing in their own irrational madness. And I do not feel guilty for it, as over the course of decades, and more so, following the election of P.E. Obama, I am seeing far more than the usual level of Republican irrationality. And I think it needs to be thwarted. At minimum, the crazy talking and acting should not be tolerated.

Let's run through a quick and not inclusive list of the irrational things far too many Republicans think.

(a) Despite the failure of the free market, as evidenced by the failure of not only the financial sector, but the effect of that failure on the national and global economy, continuing to believe that markets are self correcting and best left unregulated.

(b) P.E. Obama is a (pick and choose as many as you like) socialist, communist, Muslim, militant, half black, half white, Indonesian, Kenyan, Fifth Columnist, Manchurian Candidate, Sleeper Agent.

(c) That if you call the deliberate infliction of pain in order to extract information out of unwilling people by any word other than torture, than it is not torture.

(d) That education and professional expertise are bad things.

(e) Hell, I might as well say it this way, as so many Republicans are acting like . . . the sky is falling.

(f) for now, lastly, believing that the mere fact you find anyone else who agrees with you means you are not crazy.

Actually, that is one huge, honking cognitive defect. That is likely the most important, clinically.

Anyway, you should get the point. I wish I could make it less issue oriented, but unfortunately the matter is deeply intertwined with the problem of Republicans substituting dogma and ideology with reality. Opps. That is one huge, honking cognitive defect, too. But more to the point, that is a better way of saying it than above (but I am not going to delete what I have typed.) And as a practical reminder of how irrationality should be thwarted, and people brought back to reality, I include the following excerpt from the film, "The Madness of King George."

And don't go making some gotcha point, since I mentioned torture, and the doctor who treated George III used his "restraining chair." Here in the 21st century they use Lithium, or Prozac, or any of a wide range of interesting, and sometimes actually effective pharmacologicals to chemically subdue patients' behavioral excesses, so they can move on to the more important task of treating the irrational thinking. And yes, I know the visual of the chair is striking, but the important part (for my purpose) is that last speech by the doctor.

And yes, I know we can not dope up the Extreme Irrationals in the Republican Party, and then go about fixing their more irrational thoughts. Again, this is what has been driving me to make this specific post for a day or more; the idea that acting out, that the crazy talk and the crazy acting

Must Not Be Tolerated.

I am not commending the specific technique this turn of the 19th century doctor used, but only the core idea behind his therapy, which as I hope I have made clear, is still one of the core ideas behind modern Cognitive Therapy.