Politicains who study mental health cases for an election

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In the fall of 1969 I was taking a psy 101 course and the professor stated that Politicains studied mental health cases during an election year. because they were an indicator of concerns with-in the general population and that they sometimes used what they found for their campaige. {I think he should have said political advisors}In other words if they found a patient that had a problem with something they may use what they find for an issue in their campaigne. Is there any truth in what the professor stated?

-- Douglas Butcher (douglasbutcher@hotmail.com), December 26, 2002

Answers

I have never heard anything like this, but I'm no expert on political campaigns. I don't see, however, what one could learn about the general population's political mood from a single mental patient's problems. Isn't the problem with many mental patients precisely that they are out of touch with reality and with the concerns of their fellows?

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), December 27, 2002.

I believe he was indicating that sometimes people lose it over what is going on in society and that occasionally the Political advisor finds that what triggered the mental health problem is mirrored by many in the general population.. so the politicain is able to use what they learn for a campaigne issue... I am tempted to get my college transcripts and track down that Professor :-)

-- Douglas Butcher (douglasbutcher@hotmail.com), December 28, 2002.

That might be best. I can't imagine that the stressors that *putatively* cause mental patients' "breakdowns" would be very informative about the general population. First of all, this presumes not only that mental illness is *primarily* caused by social stresses -- a very shakey assumption to start with -- but also that the social stresses that cause it are in the political realm rather than, say, the personal (e.g., is broad economic downturn or foriegn policy turmoil more likely to "cause" an individual's mental illness than, say, a bad marriage or the death of a close relative? If I weren't wary of this whole approach, I would think the latter rather than the former). Politicians wouldn't (and more important, wouldn't be *perceived* to) have very much control over the personal realm. Second, the kinds of stresses that weigh on many mental patients' may not have very much to do with (what most other people view as) reality. How would, e.g., a schizophrenic's belief that everyone is watching and criticizing him or her help a politician design a campaign.

Just some thoughts...

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), December 29, 2002.


... on the other hand, none of that would keep a political strategist who didn't really know very much about psychiatry from mistakenly designing his or her campaign on that basis. It might even work because psychiatric patients might well *report* (again mistanely) that their problems were caused by this, that, or the other grand socio-political trend. I have personal knowledge of one person who is clinically paranoid who started having delusions about Serbs both being in his neighborhood and being "out to get" him in particular during the recent Bosnian war.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), December 29, 2002.

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