Lawson, the good news is that there is now a lot of discussion in FF, including on campus, about mental health. On Oct 5 there was a well attended public meeting on campus about these matters. One person called it "history making."
Many people in FF have now taken govt training in what's called Mental Health First Aid. There's a waiting list for future classes. The topic that MJ mentions came up in last week's town/gown meeting. There was so much discussion that this week there is a special meeting devoted to just this topic. Really, really good progress. On Sunday, October 19, 2014 1:52 PM, "lengli...@cox.net [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Are you suggesting that people on this forum didn't already realize all these things? L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : A little excerpt from a recent TM Free post: Fairfield residents have been dragging their feet around suicide prevention for years. This is due not only to the American stigma around mental illness. It is also exacerbated by TM official and unofficial doctrine. Just a few of them are: - Maharishi disapproved of Western psychotherapy. - If you saw a psychotherapist, you could be disqualified from attending a TM course. - TM is supposed to make you emotionally healthy, therefore if you report emotional problems, you are making TM look bad. - People with emotional problems have been advised to do more asanas or learn the TM-Sidhis, rather than to seek professional help. - People with emotional problems have been told they are "unstressing" rather than being advised to seek professional help. - When people have had emotional problems (including hospitalizations and suicides), the TM organization has tended to hide the information or blame the person for being too emotionally unstable to begin with. - People with emotional problems have been misdiagnosed by TMers as being in higher states of consciousness.
