The Ontological War

Psychiatry is unrelenting in its search for the causes of mental illness.

For instance, in its section on schizophrenia Science Daily has articles on “brain synapses,” “neuron activity,” a “damaged gene,” “white-matter defects,” “dopamine abnormalities,” “cannabis,” “abnormalities of the mouth,” “gene mutations governing a key brain enzyme,” “changes in brain density,” and “abnormal proteins,” along with numerous “possible genetic link to,” “genetic trigger for,” “genetic risk for,” “potential indicator of,” “associated with,” and “may indicate a predisposition to” articles.

On its website the NIMH lists the grant money given to researchers, who have analyzed just about every fluid and enzyme of mentally ill people. The DNA of the mentally ill is also being examined with great commitment.

It does seem as if psychiatry is looking in every possible direction for the causes of mental illness.

Well, almost every direction.

After one spends several years thinking about ontological questions one realizes that psychiatry might better be called “359° psychiatry” because it looks in every direction except for the 1° that is straight into us—in to our realself. Psychiatry looks everywhere for the answers to mental illnesses, except into the very center and heart of who we are.

Not surprisingly, there aren’t many example of ontologically sensitive and insightful statements by the psych community. R. D. Laing probably has the most, followed by a few others of lesser abilities.

More than anything else, the psych community needs to look in to the very center of us and then go there ontologically—it needs to take a step forward, then another, and then another—and not, as it has almost always done, try to figure us out while standing resolutely on the surface.

Unfortunately, by not moving forward ontologically psychiatry has ended up becoming a defender of the socialself and alienated socialself life. Maybe, since the psych community isn’t especially sensitive or insightful ontologically, it would be better to let realself ontology take over the lead in searching for the causes of mental illnesses and everything else that is wrong with human life. In time, of course, this will inevitably happen. The interesting question is whether this forward movement will take place under the name of “ontology” instead of “psychiatry.”