In Wetumpka, AL.

The Wayback Machine will show this site is an investigation of Subliminal Distraction begun in 2002.

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Copyright 2003 Edit Saturday October 25, 2014

Psychiatrists appearing on the  "60 Minutes" TV show used  x-rays of enlarged brain ventricles to claim they were evidence that schizophrenia is a brain disease.

This is an x-ray of extreme "normal functioning hydrocephalus."   The 44 year old French civil servant functioned well until a problem appeared with his left leg.  

"..."We were very surprised when we looked for the first time the CT scan," says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University, Marseille. "The brain was very, very much smaller than normal." Nevertheless, subsequent tests showed the man to have an IQ of 75 — at the lower end of the 'normal range'.

The patient was a married father with two children and a job as a civil servant. His problems with his left leg were a neurological symptom of the condition, says Feuillet.

The general condition caused by a build-up of fluid in the brain's ventricles — called hydrocephalus or 'water on the brain' — is relatively common, affecting about one in 1,000 people. It is most common in children but can affect adults too."   Nature.com

You can see in the image that his brain ventricles have increased in size until the center of his brain has vanished, replaced by cerebrospinal fluid.

Yet he does not have any behaviors of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia.

Milder cases of 'normal functioning hydrocephalus' can exist for years until something happens to cause an x-ray or MRI to be taken. The condition, called "water on the brain."    Often discovered in childhood, it can be corrected by installing a shunt to drain excess fluid.

While enlarged ventricles do appear frequently in schizophrenia, this does not prove the condition causes mental illness.

I am not aware of statistics showing how many diagnosed schizophrenics do not have enlarged ventricles.

Rather,    reduced brain volume from tissue displacement with enlarged ventricles creates a slight decrement in functioning IQ.  When someone has chronic Subliminal Distraction episodes mistaken for schizophrenia, that reduced facility prevents the normal spontaneous remission of Subliminal Distraction caused behaviors.  See Connie Tucker's case.  Her Subliminal Distraction episode was mistaken for schizophrenia.  Here

If this is your first visit to this site, it is an investigation of visual subliminal distraction, a normal feature of the physiology of sight everyone has.  In 1964 designers, and engineers accidentally discovered that under "special circumstances"  visual subliminal distraction   could cause a believed-harmless mental break.  When there is chronic repeating exposure, the "harmless" episode will repeat, waxing, and waning as exposure increases, and decreases.. A long lasting episode cannot be distinguished from mental illness. The explanation is covered in five short sequential text pages beginning with the link Subliminal Distraction.

The office cubicle was created to block peripheral vision for long concentrating knowledge workers to stop it by 1968.  Still a problem today now open plan offices use Systems Furniture designed so that no one sits, creates distracting movement in another worker's peripheral vision.

Although discovered, and solved before they existed, today computers, and other digital view-screen devices allow anyone to make the "mental break causing design mistake" almost anywhere.

Most are aware of videos showing people walking into traffic, or falling into fountain pools while texting on their phone.  That level of concentration, unaware of anything happening around you is the level of concentration necessary to allow Subliminal Distraction. But psychiatric symptoms are only created with long hours of exposure over many days.

The onset of exposure can be safely demonstrated. Demo  The psychiatric effect can be proven with an experiment.   Warning

Mental health services around the world are unaware such a problem does or could exist.  In nine years sending emails, and letters I found only one doctor who said he had seen the episodes from offices when he was in residency.  

Part of the reason this phenomenon is unknown is that designers, and engineers eschew discussing it. Believing it is only a harmless nuisance in the correct design of office workspace, they do not want to reveal information that would start a flood of lawsuits against an employer, or customer. When I began in 2002 I was accused of being an attorney trying to get information for a lawsuit   Here.

The "Site Outline" page has examples of other places these mental breaks happen.  The special circumstances for Subliminal Distraction exist for ICU Psychosis, QiGong & Kundalini Yoga exercise mental breaks, LGATS mental breaks, and some Culture Bound Syndromes.   The "Outline" page explains my investigation methodology, and has two places you can verify the problem exists, believed harmless. Outline

Unlike the theories of mental illness, the "mental break causing design mistake" can be experimentally copied, optimized, and with necessary precautions shown to cause anxiety, and depressive ideation with a few hours exposure daily for several days, long before the office worker mental break would happen.  See Warning page.

Psychiatrists, and mental health researchers use statistical correlations to suggest causation for mental illness.  Correlation is not proof.

Case evidence of efficacy is claimed for drugs that failed double blind testing.  Case evidence is exactly what double blind testing is intended to prevent, drug, and observer bias. 

Almost every one involved in mental health services is aware something is wrong with the current theory that chemical imbalances in the brain cause mental illness.

But they don't know what the answer is.

Before the claim that brain disease, evidenced by increased ventricle size, is the cause of mental illness can be convincingly made,  it must be shown that those enlarged ventricles were not caused by increased cerebrospinal fluid pressure in the brain unrelated to mental illness.

The claim that enlarged ventricles are associated with schizophreniam and not just an unrelated correlation assumes everything is  known, every significant variable,  involved in cases of psychosis. 

The truth is that no one knows the cause of mental illness.

Psychosocial explanations involving stress are often given for mood, and psychotic disorders.  This involves a belief in the fragility of the human psyche. 

ICU Psychosis in hospitals is explained as caused by  too much stimulation from blinking lights and buzzers in an ICU.  

With the diagnosis of  PTSD witnessed. or experienced trauma is given as the cause of mental events.

There is no testable objective evidence that any of these psychosocial explanations are true.

The American Psychiatric Association does not know what mental illness is.  They can point to it, describe it, and give unproved explanations.    Again,  no one knows the cause of psychiatric symptoms, and episodes of psychosis.