Trauma Pill Might Help Ease Emotional Pain 488
FrenchyinOntario writes "Canada's Globe & Mail is reporting that scientists are currently testing a 'trauma pill' that might help the victims of rape, the battlefield and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) forget or perhaps simply never store the memories of what happened to them the way they are stored normally immediately after the traumatic event, when the brain overloads itself with stress hormones. It's theorized that the pills could eventually be handed out to victims of Katrina-like disasters as well as returning war veterans. Critics wonder what kind of an effect it would have on a victim not to work through the pain like people have traditionally done."
Eternal Sunshine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:4, Funny)
You must have watched a different Star Wars than I did.
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Insightful)
A pill to end HIV/AIDS? Hah!
A pill to stop famine? Pfft!
Parent, don't make me laugh. It would be miraculous if we could have a 'pill for every ill.'
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Eternal Sunshine? (Score:3, Insightful)
it's about stopping a kind of emotional cancer, not about making you happy.
It'll Turn 'Em (Score:2, Insightful)
Wonderful.
Re:It'll Turn 'Em (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we can order the troops to do a My Lai every day and they will have no regrets, will not feel moral repercussions and their conscioiusness will not eat them at night for lining up innocent civilians against the wall.
Do not understand me wrong, I am all for treating people for actual post-traumatic stress disorder, but somehow I have this gut feeling that is not what this drug will be used for. And I do not want to be anywhere near a person whose "magic pill" has suddenly stopped working.
Re:It'll Turn 'Em (Score:5, Funny)
What's science today coming to?
Re:It'll Turn 'Em (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminiscent of the quite excellent movie Jacob's Ladder.
But I think Lt Calley and his troops were likely suffering from PTSD already. Perhaps such a treatment would make atrocities less likely. In TFA, the army was unenthused by the idea, saying it would "curb survival instincts" (make them less aggressive, I think that means).
Re:Question... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because US soldiers didn't kill them and we're not in Vietnam discussing the Vietnamese government? Amazing isn't it, when discussing the potential consequences of something regarding the US military we look at past actions by the US military and not some other group... simply amazing.
I don't think that a drug like this will be used to facilitate war crimes because a Military needs discipline and rape/murder goes against discipline.
Why? Soldiers kill all the time, they are ordered to and do so.
An Army is a mob and shows some mob behaviors which are tempered in a military unit by training, routine and dispiline, the US military, NATO, Russian, Israeli and those militaries which closely follow these doctrines will not allow a drug which breaks down the discipline to be dispensed.
This will reinforce discipline, your logic is actually proving how useful this would be. Your well trained army can be ordered to kill civilians, assuming it is trained well enough. However, some may feel remorse and this will cause long term problems (for the army as a whole and for the individual soldiers). Now with a magic pill, this problem is solved. They can order as many killings as they want without any of those nasty consequences. Of course, as soon as such usage becomes public knowledge recruitment numbers would probably plummet but that wasn't what you were arguing.
Oh, Dude, you could not be more wrong (Score:5, Informative)
One of the major discoveries of last century was just how pervasive and powerful psychic trauma is to people, especially soldiers, police officers, and emergency rescue personel.
It is way, way, WAY more common than was ever suspected, has NOTHING to do with one's strength of character or moral fibre, and can be crippling in ways that physical injury can never be.
There is NO choice in who will wind up with PTSD, and little to no way to predict when a particular individual will come down with it, or how strongly. It is insidious, often nearly invisible, and powerful.
I have seen many friends struggle with the effects of PTSD, and it is not at all a laughing matter.
Happily, there are techinques to help people deal with it, and to lessen the impact it has on their lives. Two books I highly recommend are On Killing [amazon.com] and On Combat [amazon.com], by Lt Col Dave Grossman. These books are, to the best of my understanding, the first books to really deal with the psychic cost of killing, and how to minimize it if you are forced to deal in violence.
They aren't perfect - Col Grossman makes much of the desensitizing nature of certain video games (which I think is overblown) and parts of On Combat start to read like advertisements for his consulting agency, but these are required reading for anybody in the military or law enforcement trades - or for anybody who thinks that PTSD victims in any way choose their fate.
DG
Re:It'll Turn 'Em (Score:3, Insightful)
Bah... useless (Score:5, Interesting)
Exams in a couple of days dammit!
Re:Bah... useless (Score:2)
Since nicotine is a mild(?) stimulant, I'm not surprised at the finding. Same story with caffeine, Ritalin or Adderall (which are not so mild stimulants)
My recommendation: Go with a Nicotine Patch.
It's not illegal and it lasts longer than caffeine pills. The cravings are a different story though, since nicotine is by far the most addictive of the possible choices.
Re:Bah... useless (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to use a product called Exo Memory. Probably the same as this [pharmacydirect.com.au] product which I just found online using Google, except I found mine by asking at my local Pharmacy here in Western Australia, so I never had to buy it online. (If you are from Perth, you might like to know that the Pharmacy up the road from U.W.A. in Nedlands is where I first saw this product).
In any case, it seemed to do the trick. I could read a page of information and quote you anything I'd just seen. I was remembering phone numbers after reading them ONCE for days afterwards. People's names, lyrics from songs, locations of files. Cramming took on a whole new meaning during the time I was taking it because of the sheer speed with which I was storing new information and recalling it accurately. It was wonderful stuff!!!
In moderation, I can't see the harm either... I am not responsible if it diagrees with you or vice versa, but I saw no side effects.
Re:Bah... useless (Score:2)
I wonder what would happen to someone who was taking it and got shown goatse...
Learning (Score:2)
Try integrating what you need to learn with your existing knowledge. It might help to have an emotional reason to remember whatever it is you're trying to remember. Rote memorizing of facts is stupid, because you'll forget them sooner or later.
Re:Bah... useless (Score:3, Interesting)
Society.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not necessarily (Score:2)
Their personal spiritual outlet, diet, exercise, and positive social contact are what people require.
Given the lack of deep understanding of how the brain works, I'm perfectly content to watch other people spend a lot of money experimenting with their body chemistry.
Not that these daredevils are operating in isolation. The insurance companies, alas, spread the costs around the economy to a painful extent.
Do you want your memory altered? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone much smarter than me once said that we must remember the past so that we do not repeat it. Do we really want our soldiers to be able to just take a pill after a battle so that they will not remember? Wouldn't it be better if they remembered, suffered, and convinced people not to go to war in the future? There is nothing really in the article that says that the memories would be totally erased but messing with memory formation is pushing the limits what I want done to me.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is dumb by starting out with "make your forget" and then refutes itself by saying that's not what they're doing.
The pill works to help keep the event from causing the kinds of connections that lead to PTSD. You still remember the event and its effects - it's just less likely to lead to PTSD.
PTSD can be very debilitating and I don't think anyone should have to live through that. Soldiers won't come back with no memory of the terrible things they did. They just won't spend the rest of their lives diving for cover when a car backfires - or attacking their wife when they are startled in their sleep.
Nobody lives a richer life because of PTSD. But with their memories of terrible things still intact, people will still be able to reflect, and work for change.
Of course, rape victims will be made victims twice because they will not be able to both use this pill to prevent the psychological damage and be considered a reliable witness. Defense Lawyers will say, just as you have assumed, that her memories were changed and there's no way she could identify her attacker reliably. And gullible people on the jury will go for it. "We can give you this pill that will help you be whole, but you'll have to give up on having a solid prosecution against your attacker." What a choice. Ironically, I would imagine that by reducing the tramatic effect of the attack, the victims memories might actually be more reliable.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:3, Interesting)
I realize this will be taken wrong but an interesting fact is that a major contribution to the stress of rape victims plays the way rape is accepted in our culture. We're being told daily that rape is horrible, leaves you marked for life, and so on and so on.
This is the point I don't want taken wrong: it's not as if I'm saying rape is something normal, not at all.
But ho
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't have a culture that considers women equals with men where any man can do what he wants with a woman regardless of how she feels about it, because equality necessitates that it also be a culture where a man can do what he wants with a man regardless of how he feels about it, and you wouldn't want that.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, rape victims will be made victims twice because they will not be able to both use this pill to prevent the psychological damage and be considered a reliable witness. Defense Lawyers will say, just as you have assumed, that her memories were changed and there's no way she could identify her attacker reliably. And gullible people on the jury will go for it. "We can give you this pill that will help you be whole, but you'll have to give up on having a solid prosecution against your attacker." What a
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:5, Insightful)
My memory of that night is this:
Driving ---> entering hospital on a stretcher ---> being at home
The doctor said I subconsciously blanked everything else out. The same type of thing happens to people who've undergone serious trauma/abuse.
You don't have to have the memories intact for an event to leave a lasting impression upon you.
I guess that for some people, the memory is emotionally charged, to the point that it creates mental health problems. However, I don't remember what happened to me, but the mere fact that I know it did happen is more than enough to have taught me my lesson.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:4, Interesting)
Years after, of course, these detailed memories are gone (only a "summary" remains...), but for the days just after it was pretty impressive.
You don't have to have the memories intact for an event to leave a lasting impression upon you.
Oh, yes, since then I drive more carefully, especially on snowy/icy conditions...
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
"No, it wouldn't."
-- Every Government In The World
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
Well, ya. But what'd be cooler is if I can imprint random memories on me with a pill.
- A Casual Technology Whore
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
What they didn't tell you is you'll have to be putting out tracking chips through your nose afterwards.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
I appreciate your point, but would you deny a rape victim that option?
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
There's nothing good about PTSD, but a great many of the most influential statements, art or otherwise, are a result of someones scarred past.
Re:Do you want your memory altered? (Score:2)
Would you really want your memory erased with a pill? The emotional stress of a memory is just as important as the events. I guess it is true that ignorance is bliss, but I think the people in this community have chosen to forgo that bliss for the truth, that is in many cases harsh. This looks to me just like another way to escape reality. I can only speak with limited authority as I have never experienced something that I would consider absolutely horrible. I think however In the long run I would like to
yep. (Score:2)
Does it work for roundhouse-kick related injuries?
(That said, 4 out of 5 doctors fail to recommend Chuck Norris as a s
Re:yep. (Score:2)
Re:yep. (Score:2)
Chuck Norris: No Prescription Necessary
Scars of the mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm. It might leave them suitably un-traumatized, and ready to boldly march into positions of victimization as if they never had before. I wonder who that will benefit. Scar tissue sucks, specially acquiring it.; but doesn't it grow for a reason?
First major use for them... (Score:5, Funny)
Accept and move past... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
Imagine if Karla Homolka had access to that combo, then she and her boy friend could still have been in business...
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
The victim will still have her memory - and would probably be in a better place to accurately recall that memory.
Besides, we already have drugs that will cause blackouts so that someone can rape someone else with them having little or no memory. Just look up "date rape drug".
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
No, this doesn't erase memories. It inhibits what your brain releases during trauma that makes the memories more vivid and terrifying years later. In fact, in the study, they had a hard time showing that there was a statistically significant difference in emotional response.
Also, they already have drugs that make you forget what's happening while you're on it. That's what date-rape drugs do.
Comfortably numb (Score:3, Insightful)
"Just a little pin prick."
" Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
I know this is slashdot, but..... (Score:3, Funny)
This kind of morning after pill might actually sell!
Oh, wow. This is bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
Step 2: Hospital required to give memory-zapping pills to distraught family.
Step 3: Profit (or at least no loss of profit from a lawsuit)
"Ignorance is strength" indeed...
Expect trouble, both from victims and the violent (Score:4, Insightful)
The article also mentions military use; which is even more worrying. Suppose these had been around in Hitler's day - think how much more deadly the Holocaust would have been if SS guards could just take a pill and get on with the killing the next day. One of the reasons for the industrialisation of death in the gas chambers was that earlier methods of just shooting people caused very high levels of stress related breakdown among the executioners.
Re:Expect trouble, both from victims and the viole (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the main motivation for the gas chambers was just sheer numbers required. The Germans didn't dig the graves, the condemed did. The Germans didn't cart out the dead, the prisoners did. With the gas chambers and mausoleums (I won't call them ovens), they could be renditioned quickly without having
Try Buddhism instead... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering.
2. There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire, rooted in ignorance.
3. There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana.
4. There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path.
The weird thing is, it actually works...
Re:Try Buddhism instead... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Try Buddhism instead... (Score:3, Informative)
uhh.... dude, what is Nirvana and how does one achieve it?
"It is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice and implies a release from the cycle of deaths and rebirths"
ref: Parinirvana [wikipedia.org]
"When a person who has realized nirvana dies, his death is referred as his parinirvana, his fully passing away, as his life was his last link to the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara), and he will not be reborn again"
ref: Nirvana [wikipedia.org]
"The aim of Buddhist practice is to end
Re:Try Buddhism instead... (Score:3, Informative)
You might want to check up on such things before you make yourself look quite so ignorant, and quite so, um, prejudiced.
Re:Try Buddhism instead... (Score:3, Funny)
Look at the Dalai Lama. He is the lead spiritual figure in Buddhism, and he still incarnates and looks pretty darn happy to me!
Re:Try Buddhism instead... (Score:3, Informative)
I NEED my pain! It makes me who I am! (Score:2, Insightful)
has to be administered on the spot (Score:2)
I can see blocking formation of memories for rape victims and the like, but giving it to veterans? After they get home? That makes no sense - the memories would be imprinted. Giving it when the trauma occurs in battle might or might not work - you wouldn't want to give it after combat missions - you'd have perpetually green troops rather than seasoned veterans and a higher casualty rate to go with it.
There are already techniques to desensitize those with troublesome memories -
Re:has to be administered on the spot (Score:2)
I'd usually wake up on the floor, but every now and then, I'd wake up in mid-fall and get a hand out in time to stop my plunge.
I still have those being-chased dreams though. They suck majorly.
And since we're on
NLP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_prog ramming [wikipedia.org]
Too little, too late (Score:2)
Where was this back when I was in high school? Seriously, they should put this into the cafeterian food...
Paging Dr. Pangloss (Score:5, Insightful)
People said the same thing when anaesthesia was invented. There were those who worried that people would suffer from missing out on the "transformative experience of pain." Guess what? It turns out that biting a stick while a surgeon sawed off your leg wasn't that crucial to enriching the human experience after all.
These criticisms don't have any rational basis. People who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder aren't better adjusted than other humans -- quite the opposite. Irrational fear of change runs deep, it seems.
Re:Paging Dr. Pangloss (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a relatively new field, but they basically introduce the person to whatever is causing their problems, while keeping them in a controlled environment.
The key is that the doctors can control the amount of sensory stimulation. If big fat hairy spiders sends the patient into the red, they can display a circle with 8 legs and then work up from there. The doctors also use 'crude' physical props to aid in the experience.
I remember reading an article about them doing this with war vets (the type who hit the floor when they hear a loud bang) and it was very effective in showing them that nobody was shooting at them and that there was nothing to fear. After a bunch of sessions, they went home changed men.
Wish I could find a link for you.
Use for slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
2. Receive painful, ego-shattering rejection.
3. Take pill.
4. Suddenly 2. doesn't seem so bad...
5. ???
6. Profit
(7. Repeat)
Re:Use for slashdotters (Score:3, Funny)
You had to bring it up didn't you... Just when I was forgetting the whole event, you had to dredge it up again... Bastard.
And don't forget... (Score:5, Funny)
New Scientist had good coverage of this last year (Score:5, Insightful)
The NS article had some very interesting moral and ethical questions too.
You want to pass a polygraph after comitting a murder. Could taking these pills before committing the crime help that? If this were the case, could the presence of metabolites of the drug in your system be used to incriminate you?
Do we really want to raise an army where the soldiers experience no guilt whatsoever no matter who and how many they kill? Soldiers are members of society too. Do we really want that kind of future society?
The philosophical argument is interesting too. Memories are a fundamentally defining attribute of the human experience. What happens to us as human beings when we choose to modify that?
There's no doubt that trauma patients in A&E benefitted from receiving these kinds of drugs. Their experiences and states of mind after the fact were demonstrably better than those who didn't get the drug.
I can totally see scenarios where this could have great value.
I'm just saying that it could be a very sharp double-edged sword.
Thoughts?
Re:New Scientist had good coverage of this last ye (Score:2)
My guess is that an evil shrink could induce anxiety disorder/phobias in otherwise normal people, just through the power of suggestion.
Anyways, my point is that memories aren't the real problem, but the emotions we associate with the memory.
So did Jim Carry (Score:4, Informative)
Uses ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet it works wonders on torture victims, too.
There's Evidence That Suggests Forgetting is Good (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Reliving_t
Traditional psychiatry, with its emphasis on remembering every humiliating or traumatizing moment of your life could easily make you miserable.
If you look at treatments for PTSD, you'll see that psychotherapy hasn't been proven to be helpful.
Look at the standard human reaction after a war: don't talk about it. Pretend it didn't happen. Try to get on with life. Otherwise you'll just be a mess, and not get anything done.
Re:There's Evidence That Suggests Forgetting is Go (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary - a brief scholar.google.com search [google.com] has a number of articles by researchers suggesting that psychotherapy helps a number of people with PTSD, whatever the cause may be.
The National Center for PTSD [va.gov] has information for Veterans Affairs staff on how to treat returning Iraq War Vets, and it includes mental health counseling, including individual counseling, group therapy, and family therapy. (
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Sybok? (Score:2)
I've been looking for a text of Kirk's speech on the issue of "forgetting" your pain. Perhaps a lone Slashdotter can recite it from memory. If it was good enough for Bones, then it's good enough for me.
Beeeep (Score:2, Interesting)
New pill, huh? (Score:2)
Now, what are the effects when these pills are taken in larger doses - say 6-10? Hallucinations, hunger - accompanied by greater appreciation for taste and aroma, dry throat, open-eyed visuals?
Medical opinion (Score:2, Informative)
No more war (Score:2, Insightful)
First we mechanize war, so we dont have to die.
Then we make it long distance, so we dont have to see who we kill.
Then we shut up the press, so we dont have to hear about it.
Now we pop a pil, so we don't know its there.
I'll wait for the movie (Score:2)
Blah blah he finds out he was drugged.
These drugs are sick man, sick!
This is scary stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
A rape victim is also sadly a witness. While it would be nice if we could just get rapist on technical details often to proof that it is rape the jury or judge needs to hear the victims account. Often it is a vital piece of the evidence, even with complete physical evidence a victims account is still needed because it makes clear the terrible nature of the crime.
So what happens when the victim takes this drug and has artificial manipulation of her memories?
Some comment that the drug does not erase the memory but only doesn't make it a traumatic memory.
Well, that is part of the defence by the doctor involved. The other part? That he doesn't care about how well his victims will be able to testify.
This is not even like he is curing the symptom not the disease, he is merely numbing the symptom. The disease, rapist, is left unharmed and can strike again and again.
This is nasty stuff. It reminds me of all those Sci-Fi stories where you have a civilisation so perfect and peacefull that they become unable to deal with violence. Cue someone taking advantage of it. If rape is no longer traumatic should it even be a crime? We already got judges around the world judging rape as natural for a healthy human male. Now they can just say, "Oh take a pill you hysteric girl." Far fetched? Check up on the practice of rape victims being the ones punished. No I am not talking about muslim countries. I am talking western countries who did stuff like lock rape victims up in mental wards and or sterelize them.
We need pain, it is an incentive to stop whatever is causing the pain. The cure is not to make rape memories less traumatic. The cure is to elimanate rape. Yes it is very bad for the victim but we need her trauma to convict the criminals and prevent them from being able to do it over and over again.
This is wrong. Hopefully smarter people then me will realize this and impose very strict guidelines on the use. Or maybe we should improve our legal system that rape victims do not have to wait years and years and keep their memories fresh before the trials and re-trials are finally over.
Here's a Shortcut... (Score:3, Insightful)
Jesus H. K-RISTE!!! Emotional pain can be quite debilitating and there are many things people shouldn't have to go through. But doesn't anyone find it the least bit frightening that we, as a society, are trying to find ways to remove every negative thing life throws at us? Is that really a "good thing"? I remember a particularly painful breakup I went through and it took me a very long time to get over it. I certainly would have been tempted to take that pill when I was experiencing the pain. However, looking at it a decade and a half on, I'm glad that such a thing was not available. Had I chosen to forget that trauma (yes, it's mild by comparison to PTSD or rape) I would not have developed as a person and would likely have not been able to form healthy relationships later. I suspect that there are aspects of negative experiences that build us up into better people. Whether it's a rape victim who channels his or her rage into working to protect others from the same fate, or a soldier who tells the truth about what really happened on the field in an extended conflagration. Pumping these people with pills would take that away from society as a whole. And that is a BAD THING. We really need to question the use of medication for everything. It's gone completely out of control and mostly due to profit motive of the pharma industry.
Re:not really a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference between struggling through difficult situations and thriving and being emtionally and psychologically damaged.
Your logic leads me to believe that maybe we should have government-mandated rape in order to make sure everyone has maximum opportunity to grow as a human being. I hope that's not what you're saying.
Re:not really a good idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not really a good idea (Score:2)
to assault and battery?
Probably not. If I stab you with a knife trying to kill you, but only manage to land a minor flesh wound, I'd most likely be charged with attempted murder - not just simple assault.
Your comment makes me think of the Turner Diaries.
Re:not really a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not really a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
A person who has an asthma attack while driving or suddenly faints for no apparent reason and runs over and kills 5 people is charged with 3rd-degree murder. They could end up in prison.
A person who carefully plans the assassination of their next door neighbor but botches the job is charged with attempted murder. They could end up in prison, and it would depend to some degree on how successful they were.
Clearly the second person is a danger to society. The first perso
Re:not really a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a male survivor of rape when I was a child. There were many years that I wished there was some magic that would make it all go away, but standing where I'm standing now, I'm glad that pill did not exist. It's better to embrace your pain and be real about it, than to try to hide from it through drugs, dissociation, or anything else.
Now I'm not saying I would actively oppose the administration of this drug, I definetly would not. But this is how I personally
Re:not really a good idea (Score:3, Informative)
I think my experiences are a part of me, the good the bad and the ugly - they are there and even though they may hurt a lot I want them as a part of my life. I grow from these memories - I like my pain it makes me who I am today. If I could forget any bad part of my life - I would be a smaller person for it. Rape is a tragedy, but yet - it may help if the victim remembered what happend. Like for example
Re:not really a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite frankly I'm more afraid of a pill that helps you forget trauma than the trauma itself. We've made a lot of social progress since the days of the casual Viking Sack and rape have probably. Somehow I feel a lot of this was due to the desire of the traumatized to no longer be victimized, themselves or others.
Painful or not - people being hurt leads to action to prevent it.
Why spend millions on education and crime p
Re:not really a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a medication that if given shortly after a stroke occurs can mitigat the permanent damage of the stroke. Should we withhold that medicine so people can experience the full effect of a stroke - and "grow as a person" as they try to overcome that damage? Or if I twist my ankle - should I not put ice on it, but rather experience the full possiblity of pain and suffering that can cause? The ice doesn't get rid of the consequences of whatever I did to twist my ankle - it still hurts - but icing it may reduce the swelling that can cause secondary damage that will take longer to heal. That's all we're talking about here.
Re:not really a good idea (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I've wondered about the ethics... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've wondered about the ethics... (Score:3, Insightful)
where does guilt reside, if not in memory
So it's about memory then, a crime? And not about victims? Or law? You don't have to remember having done a criminal act to be convicted. The moment you commit a crime, you have. It were your actions, you are accountable and responsable and not because of your memory thereof; this has nothing to do with memory. Being "guilty" isn't equal at "having the ability to feel guilty about the action" (and thus requiring the memory thereof).
It doesn't mean you cannot r
Re:I've wondered about the ethics... (Score:3, Interesting)