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I congratulate you for writing a very important document. As you know we have been working with the various disasters in the last 20 years. It will be useful if we can get together and discuss the common areas of interest.

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Comments

(I) About the Monograph :

(1) It is an important issue and very timely, and can be a good stimulus for Indian authors to start addressing such problems in greater numbers.

 (2) For a monograph, it is too brief. The historical background (the studies of PTSDs in the past wars/disasters) could have been in greater detail; and the outcome of those sufferers (if any such studies are available) could have been included.

 (3) Even now, you can, if you find it reasonable, attempt the above in the Monograph’s next edition.*

 (4) Keep up the good work.

(II) About the contents/issues raised in the Monograph :

 (1) Your idea of three earlier revolutions in the field of mental health is excellent. But the fourth revolution is not “evidence-based, integrated movement in Psychiatry”. The reasons for this are many :

(a) Evidences that are currently available are not complete, nor are they capable of integration. So far, majority of research findings are ‘disconnected’ islands (not comparable, not logically connected, etc.), based exclusively on (i) politics of research financing (ii) Conveniences of research guides, etc.

 (b) Available evidences are skewed or distorted (viz: ‘biological basis of behaviour’ as against the accumulating “evidence” that psychology influences biology/biochemistry!), predominantly influenced by pharmacological monarchs.

 (c) Because of the reasons sited in ‘a’ above, a proper integration is not yet possible. Ofcourse, attempts in that direction are always worthwhile.

(2) Really, the fourth revolution will be (or can be) when all medicine is acknowledged as psychosomatic medicine (for example, in Ayurveda, there is not a single disease one of whose etiological factors is not psychological); when it is recognised that an individual’s attitude and value systems will play a major role in whether he is healthy or ill.

(3) The questions that you have raised at the end are not easily answerable in a way that majority of people want to benefit from the answers.

(a) Every individual is in search of truth, but he/she wants the truth according to his own expectations. Most people are terrified by the truth. A proof of this statement in the present day culture is where progress (individual level, social level, or cultural level) is equated with a behaviour of pretence! People always strive to project an image contrary to what is .

 (b) Over the decades (or centuries), there have been an erosion of values( let alone social values, even of such a personal value as sincerity to one’s own belief systems). Consequently, such a corruption of values has spread to intellect, social interactions, commerce, and political behaviour. The consequences of what is happening all over the world can be likened to a state of ‘septicemia’ of the human race!

(c) I am not at all a pessimist. I believe that nature will cure this septicemia, but the price will be very heavy, and the time-scale very large.

This is to felicitate you two on your endeavour to bring about the FourthPsychiatric Revolution through the Mens Sana Monographs - All the very Best! I wish to share with you a Quotation from a Discourse of the Buddha to the Kalamas, which perhaps is the First Charter of Freedom of Thought in human history. The Buddha advises therein :