(13-07-2023, 07:32 PM)Olive Wrote: It would be great if this judgement should result in Gloriavale closing, or even just limiting its commercial enterprises, but at the same time there would need to be a massive support net in place to preserve the frail sanity of the remaining inhabitants and help them to enter mainstream society..
There's a support group for those leaving Gloriavale (imagine how damned hard it must have been for the first few to leave) but I think its made up of people who've left & doesn't have any professionals - though I hope I'm wrong, & they now at least have counsellors.
I'd also like to see it closed before further damage is done, & they'd need huge support to reintegrate, especially those born there who know nothing else but that way of life.
(14-07-2023, 06:09 AM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: If addiction qualifies as a disease, then perhaps it is time we saw other human frailities as diseases too. It couldn't hurt to see aggression, cruelty, and some forms of ambition as mental illnesses that need treatment, right alongside depression, personality disorders, and all the others in the big book of human nuttiness.
Addiction is indeed recognised as a disease; & Portugal made huge strides in lessening their problem when they decide to treat it as an illness rather than a crime.
And I think its at least possible that cruelty & aggression may also be - we're constantly learning more about various diseases & new treatments for them so surely worth looking at. Depression which is resistant to medication is now being treated by things such as Psychedelic's & also electricity. And writer Joy Cowley regained her vision recently after being involved in an experiment to find if electricity could help with chronic pain treatment.
We might one day be able to sure ourselves of all sorts of things - we could start with greed...
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)