On 1/15/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:40:25 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?
Marc Riddell wrote:
A least one problem I envision with such MH Articles in WP is the fact
that
you would, in some cases, have patients writing the textbook. There are
many
aspects of mental, emotional, and behavioral conditions that are beyond
some
persons¹ ability to accept. In the very first month that I signed on as
a WP
editor I encountered such a problem. I wanted to upgrade an existing
Article
on a chemical dependency-related subject, and immediately encountered
strong
resistance from another editor. I was attempting to emphasize the
disease
component of the condition, but the editor refused to acknowledge this
fact.
Being very new to WP, after a least a week of back and forth with this editor, of endless diatribes by them, and every one on my edits being changed, I finally gave up, left the Article, and haven¹t looked back
since.
One emotion that this will not evoke in me is surprise. ;-)
I have practiced (one day I may get it right :-) ) in the fields of
Clinical
Psychology and Psychotherapy for 42 years now. I wanted to bring some expertise to the Articles in WP related to my fields, but have backed
away.
I would love to see more, well-written Articles on all aspects of MH in
the
encyclopedia. I believe they should be written by persons schooled in
the
fields, and should be written so that any sentient person could
understand
it. For me, the true measure of an ³expert² in something is his or her ability to explain it to someone who isn¹t.
I'm just glad that I'm not writing in this field. While most fields already have the dynamic tension between well-meaning but unschooled amateurs and professionals the inertia of whose schooling may have involved accepting certain assumptions withut question, mental health can also involve people who refuse to accept reality on a more personal level. They can too easily show the respect level of a scientologist.
Scientology: the denial system for the ages.
Still, some amateurs are careful in their research, and some professionals do not feel offended when their assumptions are
questioned.
The only assumption I ever make in my work is: if the person is experiencing pain it is a signal there is something wrong. My role is to locate the source of that pain and try to eliminate it. If a person presents with a knife sticking out of their belly, or a bone is protruding though their skin, the diagnosis of the source is rather simple. In Mental Health (MH) which needs to be distinguished from Emotional Health (EH) [another subject for another time] the search for the source can (and is) much more complex. It also carries with it a factor not present in most med/surg conditions cultural stigma.
³Assumption² is a slippery word in my field. In the field of physics, if I drop an object from a height in our atmosphere, one can reasonably assume it is going to end up on the ground. This ³assumption² becomes a fact by doing it. And, there are zillions of incidents in the past that can be pointed to as verification of that fact. ³Facts² (such as they are) in the field of Clinical Psychology are based on countless case histories of persons who have presented with similar symptoms and behaviors, and have responded well to similar therapies resulting in wellness. And this is not absolute. The one vital ingredient necessary to consider here are the instincts the professional caregiver.
The important issue in our context here, as I see it, is that we are trying to write an encyclopedia of fact, not opinion. If an expert (ouch, yes, I used the word) in a field writes facts in that field as they know them to be, I believe it presents a problem when a non-expert (there I did it again) edits out those facts, and substitutes their opinion.
Yes, this is problematic, but if the "experts" use so much jargon that the lay reader cannot use the article, which is often the case, then it's as good as no article, because experts probably aren't consulting Wikipedia for information in their field. This is another area where it is hard to get some Wikipedia editors to see the problem, that using jargon, first isn't necessary, and that second, blue-linking jargon doesn't make it acceptable, and that third, if you can't explain it without the jargon maybe someone else should be writing it.
KP
If the above constitutes a diatribe, so be it. If you don¹t want to hear the
bell, don¹t push the button :-).
I would also like to see links to biographies of persons in the
encyclopedia
who have suffered from these conditions.
I think this last point would run into Wikipedia's verifiability meat-grinder.
My intent here was to enable persons suffering from these conditions to understand they are not alone. However, I agree it would create a citation as well as confidentiality nightmare. Oh well, nice thought.
Ec
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