Do We, Can We Legislate?

I was somewhat taken aback by the news reports since my last posting regarding the government's failure to pass new mental health legislation regarding the detainment of people with "personality disorders".

The new proposals offered an easier route to 'sectioning' people, (that is forcibly detaining people,) who were considered to be a danger to themselves, or others because of the nature of their illnesses. The government accepted the main objections based on basic human rights and have decided to amend the existing Mental Health Act.

How do we determine what constitutes a dangerous personality disorder?

The problem I have with such an issue is that Narcissistic Personality Disorders are not so easily defined or recognised. My earlier posting raised the question of the gang of drug pushers who tortured, raped and killed a young girl for the sake of some alleged 'crime within a crime' and seemed to have no conscience about committing such an offence. Yet before they committed this atrocity they lived in the community and were not considered to be mentally ill.

The accepted diagnosis of a personality disorder appears to be (based on my own experience in the field) an individual who already has a diagnosed mental illness, such as Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, or even a serious eating disorder, but has not responded to normal treatments. Nobody seems to question the treatments, only the response to treatments.

Personality disorders, to my mind, do not have a place in the mental health field simply because they are not related to the original diagnosis. Just because someone has a serious and enduring mental illness that does not respond to some wacky pharmaceutical coshing does not mean they have no conscience! An individual suffering a deep psychosis - which, more often than not, is based in depression and fear (paranoia) - is no more likely to be a threat than any one of us with a conscience.

What's Happening To Us?

I listened in horror to the sentencing of six young men who had kidnapped, raped, tortured two young girls and finally killed one of them in a frenzied attack, stabbing her 42 times no less! Then shooting her friend at point-blank range in the head. Miraculously, the wounded girl survived the shot and was able to testify against the men who had committed this atrocity. She survived only because the bullet used was home-made and shattered on impact with her skull.

This wasn't an American crime, it was in Reading, Berkshire. These men had hunted these girls for, apparently, "setting up" a theft of drugs in London.

Whatever their supposed crime, was the "sentence" really appropriate?

Back to Narcissism... We seem to be developing a culture of Narcissistic people who will do absolutely anything for money. The problem we have is that the higher the degree of Narcissism the more likelihood of developing what psychiatrists term Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This type of disorder is the sort that creates sociopaths, or better known as "psychopaths". People with no conscience. These people also have no concept of 'the other'. That is to say that they have no ability to empathise, no understanding that other people may have feelings. All that matters to them is that they perceive themselves to be the only important being on the planet.

The problem the rest of us face is that they do not appear mentally ill. In fact there is no concrete way of telling if someone is extremely Narcissistic because they develop personality traits that hide their lack of conscience. Many have lots of friends, albeit sycophantic, but enough to convince an onlooker that they lead "normal" lives.

Our cultural problem is that we seem to encourage Narcissism. It's ok to be the best. Second is no-where. We have to have the best products or we're nothing.