Nancee, before I address you comments, I would like to point out a couple of things. I know Bergman, and have talked to him on several occasions. My wife and I spent a pleasant evening with him over dinner and we had a lengthy, pleasant conversation. I read the manuscript to his book before it was published. I wrote the preface to his book, where my identification is given, Carl L. Thornton, PhD, GMI. (GMI, now Kettering University is a small private college in Flint, Michigan.) While you are very uspset with my analysis, I doubt that Jerry would be. He knows my difference of opinion with him regarding the subject of psychosis. If you read the preface I wrote, you will see what I wrote on the subject. Now, regarding your comments, as to the percent of people that should be institutionalized, I agree with Imbue, there is no way that 20% of the JWs should be in a mental hospital. Now, regarding the institutionalization of the mentally ill, even though that is an objective measure, it is not a good one. At one time many people were hospitalized, not so today. You have to be really, really sick to be put away. Now, many psycotics are homeless street people. It has been estimated that one third of the homeless are schizoprhenic. So institutionalization is not a good criterea any more. I also agree with Imbue's comment, there really is no way of knowing the seriousness of the problem, since the Society will not allow any research in their midst.
JW's and mental illness...stats?
by mikepence 24 Replies latest jw friends
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plmkrzy
The First American Study
Pescor, in the first study on American Witness mental health, diagnosed as psychotic over seven percent of his total sample (n=177) of young males imprisoned due to obeying the Watchtower's prohibition against complying with military regulations.
Diagnosed as psychotic = 13
This could easily be due to simply sharing with the doctor their belief about the world is coming to and end when Armageddon gets here and Jesus is seen coming in the clouds accompanied by the sound of loud trumpets etc and only JWs will survive etc. etc. So that would make just about everyone on this board former psychotics and only if it is curable.
[13] The sample was obtained by interviewing all selective service violators admitted to the Federal prison medical center during the study. The level of Witness psychosis in his sample was about seventeen times higher than that for the population as a whole. A whopping seven percent were diagnosed psychotic, four percent had other mental abnormalities and fully one quarter were rated socially maladjusted. Sixteen percent of Pescor's sample were on hospital status and forty-four percent of these were diagnosed psychotic.
I didnt read in detail everything in the link but it seems to me based on the available info provided it would be impossible to determine exactly what these figures REALLY represent. We would literally need to access each individuals file and read it.
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nancee park
Larc, you did not read what I said. I said 5% are deeply mentally ill. Go back up and read it. Also what Plum posted is in line with that. Divide 13 by 177. That should be about 5-6%.
The 20% (again, if you will actually read this time) would be not for DEEPLY but for in general.
So Bergman is right.
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Imbue
Nancy says:
Larc is dead wrong, Bergman correct. 20% of the general population may have mental problems of some sort but here we're talking about it being so serious their is a need to lock them away. That percentage is lower than the 20%, maybe 5% which would mean, if so, that up to 20% of JWs have extremely serious mental problems that may require institutionalization. Get your facts straight, Larky.
Edited by - Imbue on 7 August 2002 19:29:8
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JanH
nancee,
The 20% (again, if you will actually read this time) would be not for DEEPLY but for in general.
Eh, you may want to rewrite that sentence. It is not very clear.
In your earlier message you wrote:
That percentage is lower than the 20%, maybe 5% which would mean, if so, that up to 20% of JWs have extremely serious mental problems that may require institutionalization. [bold added]
That is an absurd figure.
I don't know if it is true that JWs have higher rates of mental illness than the average population. It certainly would make sense to me if they did. But I have read those studies cited by Bergman, and Bergman's own writings on the subject, and I was not at all impressed. The article above is, to put it mildly, deeply flawed.
ExJWs, of everyone, should be very much aware of their own prejudices and biases, and put in some safeguards when their research seems to come to a very convenient conclusion. That is the honesty and objectivity required from scholars and scientists. And Bergman is not very good at that.
- Jan
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JT
I would love to see the numbers as well Mike
but i will share this personal exp with you, in the congo i left there was a female single Dr. (who just got married a couple months ago to a Plumber_ there is a story behind that, but that for another time)who used to be in my bookstudy-----
she is an Expert witness for the Society in child custody cases
she is a clinical psychologist, her best friend is Carolyn Wah who is a single lawyer at bethel they are running buddies-
anyway her pratice is in Alexandria, VA and her case load for JW is unreal- she travels at least once a month for the society in court cases, but we used to talk alot being an Elder she felt she could discuss things, nothing of a confidential nature , but just an observation she had-
DEPRESSION WAS A CONSTANT THING- and why
well her patients always felt
UNWORTHY
GUILTY
AND WORTHLESS
now i'm no dr so these may be the same things that others suffer from
but i do know this those are feelings that the jw religion instills very deeply for not Measuring up to the standards-
meeting, commenting, hours, biblestudies, just the entire life style of DO MORE DO MORE
JUMP HIGHER JUMP HIGHER
AS TO WHAT the numbers are i don't know, but i do know that lots of jw take medicine for depression and when you conside the unrelentless, NO DOWN TIME that the avg jw must deal with week out week in month out month in and yes year in and year out
as an elder i saw constantly members just BURNING OUT - JUST GETTING TIRED
so if jw do have a somewhat higher i would not find it surprising in veiw of the lifestyle of FEAR AND GUILT that accompany most jw
something as simple as :
SITTING NEXT TO A CO DURING THE WT STUDY AND YOU HAVE NOT STUDIED YOUR LESSON and underlined anything
it matters not that you were at the hospital with a sick child or parent all the CO knows is this bro ain't spiritual and don't apprecicate spiritual things and for the jw sitting there he or she knows that is what is being said about them
yes enough to make anyone depressed
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larc
I want to reinforce something that JanH said. If I have any bias it is in favor of Bergman, because like me, he is an xJW. Even with this bias in his favor, I can not accept his research. It is not well founded. It is sloppy at best. I hate to say that because I like him as a person. So, Nancee et al, did Bergman do good work? Well, he brought up a very important subject, but he did not deal with it very well, and that makes me sad.
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LyinEyes
I totally agree with Jim's first comment. Once we leave we get so much better.
I can't blame all of my depression thru the years on dubdoom. My parents had their hand on the spoon , stiring the let's screw up our daughter, pot of depression.
Years of abuse , neglect and family trauma , add a sprinkle or two of JW logic and you can have a seriously sad person.
For years, I never felt good enough, was sick, physically, with unexplained illnesses. I later learned by studing the subject the role that guilt has on your mind and body , especially years worth ,if not a lifetime.
Very interesting, that when i allowed myself to be free, to not go against my own conscience, I got better. I still have days when I feel like crap, that will never go away. I still have days where I get stressed and get headaches, etc. But it is so , so very much better.
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ballistic
Just to say I'm watching this thread with keen interest, having much experience of mental problems in the congregation.
I was unable to leave behind anti-depressants until I left the organisation. I also have seen a family member institutionalised, two other members of the congregation practice self mutilation and wrist slashing and at least two other members attempt suicide. And then there was my friend in the congregation who started going a bit strange in his mid 20's. Everyone was saying they wouldn't be suprised if he committed suicide the way he was talking. Then one day he dies in a head on collision with a lorry.
Who knows if that was suicide or not and what all the intervening factors involved were? All of my evidence is circumstantial. But I get the feeling I'm not the only one.
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Swan
I don't know if this means anything to this discussion or not, but I will volunteer that 9 years ago, prior to DAing myself, I was in therapy and took the MMPI. This is the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory. The results of my test was that I was ABNORMAL! Shocked the hell out of me. I imagined myself to be mentally healthy other than bouts of serious depression. I was in the 10% of the population considered to be mentally disturbed. I was not schizophrenic or psychotic, but I was definitely paranoid. My doctor felt that a lot of my paranoia was situational. We worked on that and the depression a lot. I still get depressed, but try to recognize feelings of paranoia when they occur and use a lot of self talk to help me realize that the whole world is not out to get me!
There are tribes in New Guinea that don't even know about me.