The Panopticon Network and Clinical Psychology (Clara B. Jones)

The Panopticon Network and Clinical Psychology

In the 1970s, clinical psychologists wrested control of the APA, and, in response, scientific psychologists withdrew from that organization, establishing their own professional society. Clinical psychologists continue to fortify their status in the Panopticon Network via initiatives to prescribe medications and to gain other privileges generally within the domain of psychiatry. Although surveillance by the Panopticon Network begins at birth with registration by the state, expansion of surveillance impedes all aspects of life after an individual’s legal emancipation from parents. I was born middle-class in the segregated South in the early 1940s. My nuclear family has been labeled “non-reactive” as indicated by such neglect as apparent parental indifference to my witnessing the death of a friend, my killing my brother’s kitty at the approximate age of ten, and a suicide attempt at the age of eight. In another family, any of these events might have led to intervention by psychologists; however, my parents consistently denied all evidence of psychopathology in their children. Instead, at an early age, I became my father’s confidante and my mother’s rival.

My surveillance by the clinical psychology nodes of the Panopticon Network were especially memorable during the 1980s* when I was hospitalized with a higher frequency than during any other phase of my adulthood. Most of these hospitalizations took place at a luxurious, expensive, private clinic in Massachusetts, and it was there that my diagnosis of schizophrenia was enforced. In 1990 or so, I was hospitalized at a state hospital in New Jersey and diagnosed as “bipolar.” The most immediate and positive outcome of this reclassification involved a change in medication leading, within a brief period of time, to the mitigation of symptoms and a relatively episode-free phase for more than a decade. The psychiatrist who reassigned me from schizophrenia to the category, “major mood disorders,” was East Indian, emphasizing that the Panopticon Network, including all forms of policing and diagnosis, is international in scope and that expertise is not limited to the American psychiatric community. For most individuals, parents are the original enforcers of social** regulation and, therefore, are expected by the state to enforce mores, codes of conduct, and appropriate behavior until a child’s emancipation in the mid- to late-teen years.

In my family of origin, corporal punishment was not employed as a mode of punishment or behavioral shaping. Instead, my mother, who would probably have been classified as a hysteric and a narcissist, employed methods, including raging screams, to induce feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse to control her three children. My most memorable of these tactics occurred when she said to me at an early age, “I always wanted a little girl; but, you weren’t the one I had in mind.” Although race and skin color were never discussed in my home, I felt ashamed to be relatively dark brown in skin tone and, privately, considered myself to be the “darkie” in the family. My mother, brother, and sister were Caucasian in color and features, and my late sister, fifteen years younger than I, was the desired, and desirable, daughter with light skin, and dark blonde/light brown hair. Surprisingly, perhaps, instead of developing a perspective of self-hatred and though it is not possible for me to say I loved my mother, I continue to respect her training in biology, chemistry, and math and gained much information and many skills from her scientific training and practice. For many years I resented my mother’s neglect. However, for some time, I have understood what must have been her anger and conflict towards my father and her children as symbols of her failure to become a medical doctor, her lifetime goal never achieved***. Similar to my mother, my husband**** and children prevented my becoming an animal behaviorist studying tropical taxa; however, unlike my mother, I yielded custody of my children to their father (~1977) in order that I might devote uninterrupted attention to my career*****. Although I never regretted that decision, it has not been one without significant consequences, particularly negative effects on my relationships with my offspring and with other women, including my daughter, who are mothers unable to imagine such a choice. The costs for all concerned have been high.

With the possible exception of single, teenage mothers who yield their children for adoption and who remain in the custody of their parents, the Panopticon Network, including all domains of social influence, evaluates individual and group behavioral patterns along interacting and complex continua from normal to pathological. The cadre of clinical psychologists hold Ph.D.s preparing them to practice as therapists as well as researchers and not a few are members of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM). I can imagine my brilliant mother with a high-powered career in medicine and an extremely competitive aspect toward her colleagues, possibly, winning the Lasker Prize (awarded only to those with a M.D.) for her research. Ideally, I view my mother without children and, possibly, single; however, perhaps I am projecting my own unconscious thoughts (needs?) onto her. Thinking of her now, especially thinking of her rages and exclamations that she would die if her proscriptions were not followed, I wish that she had followed our family doctor’s advice to permit a clinical psychologist to intervene in order to help our family. My “perfect” mother and her “perfect” family were never permitted to reveal the chaos underlying the daily drama of apparently appropriately behavior.

*During this period, I converted to Catholicism though I never practiced seriously and, now, consider the conversion a sign of my dis-ease.

**Except where stated otherwise, throughout this document, I employ the definition for “social” as defined in the recognized Social Sciences: interindividual interactions.

***To be fair, my father's desires for the future had, also, been thwarted. A star quarterback in college, his wishes to become a professional football player were foreclosed due to racial barriers in those, and, semi-professional, leagues. Instead, he became a physical education teacher.

****Clarence Dalton Jones (now, Dalton Miller-Jones, Ph.D.)

*****I'm not certain why I always put it in this way. In point of fact, I had been thinking about surrendering custody of my children since 1976, deciding that, due to my unpredictable mental stability and my meager financial and other resources, my children would be better situated living with their father. It took me a year or so to come to this decision which was reinforced when I experienced another manic episode in 1977. Making a long story short, after the “breakdown,” I moved to the town where my children were living & made a serious suicide attempt not too long after (in 1979). Rather than giving up my children to their father to concentrate on my career, burying myself in my career was my way of saving myself after what was a terrifying, humiliating, and very sad event.

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Psychopathology Sonnet

for Judy Blume

1. I was confined for three years after he left.

2. I am mentally ill and allergic to cheese.

3a. My diagnosis is grim, but your marriage is strong.

3b. I left Munich with men who wanted a tryst.

3c. Self-actualization is my goal though I don't have a job.

4. The economy lost 8% this month, but traders are bullish.

5. Dick committed Betsy for life when she started to rebel.

6. The more choices I have the sicker I am.

7. Hitler admired Kandinsky's art but labeled it grotesque.

8. I woke from my coma after three days of treatment.

9. I am homeless now but plan to take an online course.

10. I was diagnosed bi-polar, but my son calls me schizoid.

11. Before Freud fled Vienna, he said Hitler would save him.

12. I wanted to falsify it, but Science is not my strength.

13a. I traded a bottle of Pinot Noir for a bag of chips.

13b. Replicants govern Brooktondale.

14. Anxiety is contagious but curable.