The sixth Fatimid caliph, Al Hakim bi-Amr Allah, was famed for his erratic edicts. The caliph, who ruled much of North Africa and parts of Arabia between 996 to 1021, banned molokhia, watercress, as well as fishing and eating scaleless fish. He also forbade women from leaving their homes and outlawed shoemakers from making women’s footwear. One of his most bloody edicts ordered the extermination of Egypt’s canine population. Historians estimate that more than 30,000 dogs were killed and dumped in the desert and along the banks of the Nile. Such behaviour led historians to question Al-Hakim’s sanity. Adjectives such as psychotic, neurasthenic and megalomaniacal have been frequently used to describe the caliph in articles bearing titles such as The Crazed Caliph.
Because of the subjective and consensual nature of declaring a mental state as disordered, the powerful can often evade diagnoses and custodial care. A mad man for one person is a meal ticket or messiah for another. If your typically straight-laced boss walked barefooted into the office with flowers in his hair, declaring 100 per cent pay rises across the board, would you be immediately concerned for his mental health or would you just let things play out and hope for the best?
In a survey undertaken in 1964, more than 1,000 psychiatrists declared that the presidential nominee Barry Goldwater was “psychologically unfit to be president”. Goldwater later won a defamation suit against the magazine that published the results of the survey. In 1974, the American Psychiatric Association adopted the Goldwater rule, discouraging its members from “making public statements about public figures whom they have not formally evaluated”. Numerous distinguished psychiatrists question the ethics of the APA ruling, especially since public figures tend to be relatively powerful, thereby potentially magnifying the societal consequences of their delusional, irrational or impulsive behaviour.
Beyond public figures, odd behaviour among the rich and the powerful is often affectionately, or fearfully, dismissed as eccentricity. Meanwhile, the same behaviour among the relatively powerless or impoverished might be labelled psychosis (a severely disturbed mental state). Declaring a domestic worker “mad” is much easier than calling into question the sanity of the chief executive of a company.
Even once people are assessed for mental-health problems, psychiatric diagnoses appear to differ by socioeconomic status. For example, some argue that diagnostic bias makes it more likely for psychotic patients from higher socioeconomic backgrounds to receive the diagnosis of bipolar disorder rather than schizophrenia that is typically viewed as being more severe, debilitating and stigmatised.
_______________
Read more:
Dubai support groups helping tackle stigma of mental health problems
Panic attack, acute anxiety disorder - the results are debilitating and frightening
_______________
If the rich and the powerful can go under-diagnosed, then the opposite is also true, with the less powerful sometimes becoming victims of overzealous over diagnosis and even malicious incarceration. The Victorian era is infamous for cases where perfectly healthy individuals were confined to “lunatic asylums” on the nod of the “mad doctor”, typically at the request of scheming relatives. Classic cases included having elderly family members certified insane, thereby expediting access to inheritance and estates. Another common one was having a troublesome wife locked away pending a divorce. Several such cases of malicious incarceration are meticulously documented in historian Sarah Wise’s aptly titled book, Inconvenient people.
There are, of course, times when a person’s state of mind poses a danger either to self or others. In such cases, intervention is required. Our mental-health laws and the ethical codes of conduct issued by our professional bodies should help ensure that the most vulnerable remain well protected in such instances. They should also ensure that the least vulnerable, that is, the most powerful, are not conveniently neglected either.
Mental health acts and codes of ethical practice change and evolve to keep pace with social shifts. On July 6, the American Psychoanalytic Association publicly challenged the American Psychiatric Association over the Goldwater decision, informing its 3,500 members that it does not follow this rule. This controversial decision is essentially a green light for mental-health professionals to comment, responsibly and in the public interest, on the psychological states of public figures.
If physicians in the time of Al-Hakim would have voiced doubts about his sanity, I wonder what the outcome might have been.
_______________
Also read:
Masculinity under siege: why some men are more likely to turn to suicide than women
Mental health: ‘It evolved into a general apathy for life, a disdain and a lack of interest in living’
_______________
Where%20the%20Crawdads%20Sing
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EOlivia%20Newman%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Daisy%20Edgar-Jones%2C%20Taylor%20John%20Smith%2C%20Harris%20Dickinson%2C%20David%20Strathairn%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Fire and Fury
By Michael Wolff,
Henry Holt
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
SPECS
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dual%20electric%20motors%20with%20102kW%20battery%20pack%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E570hp%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20890Nm%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERange%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Up%20to%20428km%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh1%2C700%2C000%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
