[Q] Blind people and psychosis

[paigetheoracle]

I was scrolling down a listing for Kundalini psychosis and came across a site that claimed blind people don't get mentally ill. Is this a fact?*

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The theory claimed it was something to do with peripheral vision and startle response as far as I can gather. It also had an interesting quote at the start, which said something like 'If you're a liar, then the truth will perplex you', which seemed to be justification for his claims - if you can't understand them (and I couldn't)then you're not telling yourself the truth about reality and therefore not on my side.

[Feral_Squirrel]

I would be suspicious of any claim that the blind don't get mentally ill at all. That sounds like an absurd absolute statement.

 

But a claim that there is a statistically lower than normal incidence of mental illness among them doesn't sound all that implausible to me.

 

I would say there are probably 2 theoretical broad categories of mental illness:

1) illness that is primarily caused by chemical imbalances in the brain

2) illness that is primarily caused by unethical behaviour

 

And thus, related to the latter broad category #2:

Being cutoff from visual contact and the cravings and subsequent afflictions that result from that craving or from unethical behaviour whose basis is entangled with cravings would result in people with a lower amount of mental afflictions and illnesses I think.

 

For example how likely is it that a blind person would be involved in a love triangle gone sour that eventually led to a murder or something foul... that they then need to cover up with dozens or hundreds of lies leading to even greater entanglement... or so visually captivated by some object outside of their financial means that they resorted to stealing.

 

Or if you are asking if they are immune solely in the context of Kundalini psychosis... then I am not sure of the answer at all. Would be interesting to find out. Sounds at least theoretically possible that their internal energy pathways are setup differently from other people and so the burst of prana that might be frying and overloading a normal person's circuits does not affect them perhaps?

 

I know a girl who has some kind of damage to the pathways around her throat... and consequently a Reiki session that would be mild or even unnoticed by a healthy person, for her leads to hours of tormented mental states. Would be very interesting for science to investigate these sorts of things someday.

[CraigD]

From Federal Programs for Persons with Disabilities, a 1990 document:

As the main cause, approximately half of all SSI blind and disabled recipients under age 65 had a diagnosis of either mental retardation (26.9 percent) or mental disorders other than mental retardation (25.6 percent). Another 12.2 percent had nervous system and sense organ diseases, and 7.6 percent circulatory diseases.

I’m not aware of any data suggesting that blind people are more or less susceptible to mental illness, but much reliable data, such as the above, strongly contradicts the claim that blind people don’t get mentally ill.

[paigetheoracle]

From Federal Programs for Persons with Disabilities, a 1990 document:

As the main cause, approximately half of all SSI blind and disabled recipients under age 65 had a diagnosis of either mental retardation (26.9 percent) or mental disorders other than mental retardation (25.6 percent). Another 12.2 percent had nervous system and sense organ diseases, and 7.6 percent circulatory diseases.

I’m not aware of any data suggesting that blind people are more or less susceptible to mental illness, but much reliable data, such as the above, strongly contradicts the claim that blind people don’t get mentally ill.

 

This really was a claim about people of normal IQ, not the mentally (and physically) disabled, down to brain damage or hereditary disease but thanks for the reply anyway!

[CraigD]

I believe you’re misreading the quote. It states that, of blind people who receive SSI (Social Security Supplemental Security Income, an US entitlement program for people with various disabilities), 26.9% are mentally retarded (have low IQs), while 25.6% are not retarded (have normal or high IQs) but have “other mental disorders”.

 

The statistic is no good for estimating the incidence of mental illness among the blind, because it’s drawn from a special population, but it does show that a large number of blind people have mental disorders other than mental retardation, ie: are mentally ill.

 

I dare not guess if blind people are more or less likely to be mentally ill. On one hand, some severe disorders that can cause mental illness can also cause blindness. On another, blind people are subject to stresses sighted people are not. On another, blind people may have access to better support and treatment programs than similar sighted people. How all these factors ultimately work out, I can’t guess.