Thom Hartmann's approach showing the differences between "Hunters" and "Farmers".

Taken from Thom Hartmann's book, "ADD: A Different Perception."

Trait as it appears in the "Disorder" view: How it appears in the "Hunter" view: Opposite "Farmer" traits:
Attention spans short, but can become intensely focused for the long periods of time. Constantly monitoring their environment. Not easily distracted from the task at hand.
Poor planner: disorganized and impulsive (makes snap decisions). Able to throw themselves into the chase on a moment's notice. Able to sustain a steady, dependable effort.
Distorted sense of time: unaware of how long it will take to do something. Flexible; ready to change strategy quickly. Organized, purposeful. They have a long term strategy and they stick to it.
Impatient. Tireless: capable of sustained drives, but only when "Hot on the trail" of some goal. Conscious of time and timing. They get things done in time, pace themselves, have good "staying power."
Doesn't convert words into concepts adeptly, and vice versa. May or may not have a reading disability. Visual/Concrete thinker, clearly seeing a tangible goal even if there are no words for it. Patient. Aware that good thing takes time - willing to wait.
Has difficulty following directions. Independent. Team player.
Daydreamer. Bored by mundane tasks; enjoy new ideas, excitement, "the hunt" being hot on the trial. Focused. Good at follow-through, tending to details, "taking care of business."
Acts without considering consequences. Willing and able to take risk and face danger. Careful. "looking before you leap."
Lacking in the social graces. "No time for niceties when there are decisions to be made!" Nurturing; creates and supports community values; attuned to whether something will last.

Comments

gbrandolph's picture
gbrandolph 8 years 17 weeks ago

Excerpts on psychiatry from the book Surviving The Matrix Planet: How The Medical-Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical Corporate Complex Is Destroying Your Health & Sanity And What You Can Do To Reclaim It

from The 3 Basic Categories of Drugs

#3-Psych Drugs:

Mind-control drugs: ALL psychiatric drugs are mind control drugs. They are WORTHLESS and of no benefit whatsoever, and, in fact, are the most dangerous of the 3 drug types. THEY SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!!

Since the 1950’s the psychiatrists, in league with the drug-pushing pharmaceuticals have made a great effort to propagandize you into believing there are serious “mental diseases” and “behavioral disorders”. They claim these are caused by brain and/or nervous system malfunction, or other sometimes undetermined reasons, and this necessitates the use of drugs (and a variety of non-medicinal techniques) to return the person to “normal”. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!

The validity of any science is based on the determination of the correct cause of an observed effect. Bridges will topple if not built to the exact standards established by the science of engineering. No healing practitioner can deny that there are physical causes to physical ailments. The body is, after all, a physical apparatus. But it is a well-established truth that adverse mental stress precipitates body illness. The field of psychiatry, on the other hand, attributes ALL mental disorders to physical causes. Denying over 10,000 years of religious wisdom and philosophical understanding of man and life as a spiritually motivated entity they arbitrarily decided that all mental activity and behavior stems from the brain and nervous system. THUS, THE ENTIRE FIELD OF CONVENTIONAL MENTAL HEALTH, ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE IS PREDICATED ON AN UNPROVEN ASSUMPTION. The truth is: psychiatry --- and psychology --- has no more determined the correct cause of mental illness than scientists have discovered who or what created the universe.

The term “mental illness”, in fact, has become an oxymoron as “mental” refers to a mind but psychiatry claims there is no mind so how could something they profess doesn’t exist become ill? Also, psychology means study of the soul but modern psychology disclaims the soul. Unable to DISPROVE the existence of the mind (or soul for that matter), ascribing all behavior to the brain and nervous system, they had to twist the term mental illness to parallel physical diseases in order to validate and justify their “science” and treatments. Cleverly perverting the term “mental illness”, putting labels on types of irrational behavior without determining its correct cause, then manufacturing and marketing drugs for its “cure” is about as scientific and ethical as the old time hucksters who tried to scam off their snake-root oils.

Hence, every so-called disorder (like “ADD” and “bi-polar disease”, etc) has been an arbitrary invention from their committees and national conventions, and has NO scientific validity. THERE IS NO SUCH DISEASE, MENTAL MALFUNCTION OR BEHAVIOR DISORDER AS ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER, BI-POLAR DISEASE OR ANY OF THE PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC-SOUNDING NAMES THEY MANUFACTURED TO IMPRESS YOU INTO BELIEVING THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. They made ALL of them up solely to keep themselves in business.

Obviously there is observed irrational behavior. But the increase of mental illness beginning in the late 19th Century --- coincident with the establishment of psychiatry --- and continuing at a soaring pace into this millennium underscores that they have failed to develop ANY genuine cures. A statistically rising rate of mental illness for over one hundred years!! Any business with such a horrible record of failure would have long since been dissolved. Psychiatry’s status, authority, support, and operations are kept propped up only by government appropriations, foundation grants and the convincing lies they have spread into the society.

Furthermore, they have employed the pharmaceuticals to manufacture dangerous drugs (such as anti-depressants, and other psychotropic mind-altering drugs) to push on you and your children. The “treatment” actually creates the mental disorders they are trying to “cure”! Which then “justifies” the medication.

I recently met a fellow employee who was taking an anti-depressant. I asked him how long he’d been taking them. He said over a year. I asked him if he was still depressed. He said more than when he first started taking them. Ritalin, what they feed kids to “treat” so-called ADD, is a powerful mind-altering drug that induces disorientation, so of course kids taking it will a have a deficit of attention! A few years ago a co-worker told me how the school nurse “ordered” her son to take Ritalin and after several months he had become listless, inactive and less interested in his studies and extra-curricular play. You can guess what I told her to do and tell the nurse where to go.

People have told me stories like this:

“My mother-in-law was diagnosed as bi-polar and was a raving lunatic before the medication calmed her down.”

“What’s she like now?”

“Well, she doesn’t say or do much now. She’s a lot easier to be with”

See, her mother-in-law was acting horribly irrationally, and since we all bow down to the authorities, and they tell us her “bi-polar schizophrenia, etc, etc” is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain we unquestionably trust and believe them. Now she is a controlled half-deadened dim-wit rather than the sane rational potentially loving human being that she could be with REAL effective treatment. Being a vegetable is a lot easier to deal with than a screaming idiot but, truth is, she wasn’t cured. She was disposed of, quick-fixed into a wasted nothing, of no benefit to society or anyone. One brand of irrationality has been traded for another and, worse, now the likelihood increases that she may one day pick up a knife (or some other dangerous weapon) and do some bodily harm to others or even end her own life. Yet people get to really believe theirs or their family member’s “medication” really works. Until they explode and go psychotic. But nobody blames the medication or their dispensers. After all, they’re the “experts”! But in reality their pills are nothing more than little round ticking time bombs that could go off at any unpredictable moment.

What the news media does not report is that behind virtually every sensational mass murder/suicide the perpetrators were either taking psychiatric drugs or receiving some kind of psychiatric treatment. Instead they just parrot the LIES given them by the psych-pharma PR departments, trumpeting their “advances” while suicides and homicides DIRECTLY LINKED TO THEIR “TREATMENTS” skyrocket out of control. If you think I’m exaggerating go read or listen to the news almost any day of the week and you’ll hear the stories. Then go on-line and research the omitted truth --- you’ll find it. The horrible conclusion, the red-flag alarm bell that very few seem to hear is this: the psych-pharma industry hasn’t just failed to successfully treat mental derangement for lack of trying. No. Psych-pharma treatment is CAUSING violent psychopathic crime.

Modern life can be very stressful. People get depressed. What kid doesn’t get hyperactive now and then? (it is the tremendous amount of refined sugar in snacks, etc that causes excessive hyperactivity) And unfortunately, some people become very mentally disturbed. It has NOTHING to do with your brain and/or nervous system, short of nutritional deficiencies. (see Note on Adrenal Gland Burnout, and Hypoglycemia-Hyperglycemia below). It has everything to do with the inability to handle stress. Actually, besides handling stress, the most important factors in the maintenance of a sound mind --- and most effective handling of mental disturbance --- is getting enough rest and eating properly.

The use of drugs and other destructive psychiatric “treatments” like ECT (electro-convulsive shock treatment) and psycho-surgery (slicing out parts of your brain!) essentially evolved from the Nazi death-camp doctor’s experiments as modern replacements for the medieval insane asylum tortures. The psychiatric institution has managed to legitimize themselves and hoodwink governments and you into believing their lies. In this regards they are much more criminal than the medical community. At least the ER’s are excellent for treating life-threatening emergencies and many accidents. And some surgical and other medical procedures are helpful. All the psych wards and dispensaries do is manufacture, perpetuate and spread insanity. The civilization will be better off when they and their practices are outlawed.

gbrandolph's picture
gbrandolph 8 years 17 weeks ago

Dear Thom:

I have gathered statistics from the internet, much from CCHR, on psychiatric abuse. You have my permission to re-print, publish and distribute this.

Statistics And Testimonials Of Psychiatric Abuse

A. Psychiatric Medication
1. Ingestion
· IMS Health, a company that provides information, services and technology for the healthcare industry, reported in 2013 the number of Americans, all ages, taking psychiatric drugs totaled 36,472,663 . A report in The Archives of Pediatrics Medicine indicates that the use of psychiatric drugs by children more than doubled for the decade of 1987 to 1996. Research form the University of Maryland tracked 900,000 children for that decade and found that psychotropic drug use by children under 18 rose form 2.5 percent to 6.7 percent.
· worldwide statistics show that a rapidly increasing percentage of every age group, from children to the elderly, rely heavily and routinely on these drugs in their daily lives. Global sales of antidepressants, stimulants, antianxiety and antipsychotic drugs have reached more than $76 billion a year—more than double the annual US government budget spent on the war against drugs. More than 100 million prescriptions for antidepressants alone were written worldwide in 2002 at a cost of $19.5 billion (€15.9 billion).
· One in seven prescriptions in France includes a psychotropic drug and more than 50 percent of the unemployed—1.8 million—take psychotropic drugs.The United States loses approximately $100 billion (€81.5 billion) to health care fraud each year. Up to $20 billion (€15.7 billion) of this is due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.
· In Canada, between 1995 and March 1996, 428,000 prescriptions for one particular, highly addictive tranquilizer were written, with more than 35 percent of these for patients 65 and older. In Australia, the elderly are prescribed psychoactive drugs in nursing homes for being “noisy,” “wanting to leave the nursing home” or “pacing.”
· Twenty million schoolchildren worldwide have now been diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed cocaine-like stimulants and powerful antidepressants as treatment. In the US alone, 1.5 million children and adolescents on antidepressants are at risk of known, drug-induced violent or suicidal side effects.
2. Harmful Effects
· British coroners’ reports showed benzodiazepines as more frequently contributing to unnatural death each year than cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy and all other illegal drugs
· Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)—today’s antidepressants—cause suicidal thoughts and behavior. Paxil (paroxetine), for example, is seven times more likely to induce suicide in people taking it than those taking a placebo (sugar pill), according to a Norwegian study.
· Antipsychotic drugs such as Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel place the elderly at increased risk of strokes and death and have a “boxed warning” to emphasize the risk.
· It is not just the taking of antidepressants that can cause extreme violence. Withdrawal from antidepressants can cause extreme violence too. Research shows that in just a few days, a person can unknowingly go into severe withdrawal and not even know why he or she is feeling so violent or suicidal. A common symptom of withdrawal is the return of the symptoms the drug was supposed to treat. Psychiatrists will commonly tell you that this is the “return of the mental illness.” It is not. This is withdrawal, an indication of addiction or dependency
3. Violent Incidents
· Despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, and dozens of high profile shootings/killings tied to psychiatric drug use, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.
· Between 2004 and 2012, there have been 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects including: 1,531 cases of homicidal ideation/homicide, 3,287 cases of mania & 8,219 cases of aggression. Note: The FDA estimates that less than 1% of all serious events are ever reported to it, so the actual number of side effects occurring are most certainly higher.
· A study of 950 acts of violence committed by people taking antidepressants found 362 murders, 13 school shootings, 5 bomb threats or bombings, 24 acts of arson, 21 robberies, 3 pilots who crashed their planes and more than 350 suicides and suicide attempts. At Columbine High School, on April 20, 1999, teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot dead 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before shooting and killing themselves. Harris was taking Luvox, an antidepressant known to cause mania and violence
· At least 34 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 166 wounded and 78 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs).
· Between 2001 and 2009, there were 2,100 suicides in the U.S. military, triple the number of troops that died in Afghanistan and half of all American deaths in Iraq. During that same period, military orders for psychiatric drugs known to cause suicidal thoughts and acts increased 76%. American vets have it even worse. One U.S. military veteran kills himself every 65 minutes—an astonishing 22 a day. Today, some 80% of vets labeled with PTSD receive psychotropic drugs; 89% of these are given antidepressants, with 34% treated with antipsychotics – drugs so powerful they were intended only for the most seriously disturbed. Since 2001, there have been more than 150 worldwide drug regulatory warnings and studies issued about the dangerous—often lethal effects—of psychotropic drugs such as these.
B. Sexual and Other Abuse From Psychiatrists
· In a British study of therapist-patient sexual contact among psychologists, 25 percent reported having treated a patient who had been sexually involved with another therapist.
· A woman is statistically at greater risk of being raped while on a psychiatrist’s couch than while jogging alone at night through a city park.
· On October 31, 2002, French psychotherapist Jean-Pierre Tremel was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping and sexually abusing two young patients that the court recognized as being extremely vulnerable. Tremel, age 52, claimed his “treatment” was based
· A 2001 study reported that one out of twenty clients who had been sexually abused by their therapist was a minor, the average age being 7 for girls and 12 for boys. The youngest child was three.
· In 2003, the Colorado State Board of Psychologist Examiners revoked the license of Dr. John Dicke, whose treatment of a 5-year-old boy included using sex toys. According to the boy’s father, his son had been “stripped naked, tortured, restrained, verbally abused, sexually abused, brainwashed and horrified by a dildo” during the alleged therapy.
· In 1989, Dr. Paul A. Walters, psychiatrist in charge of student health at Stanford University, California, and former head of Harvard University’s Health Services’ Mental Health Division, was forced to resign after allegations of his having “frequent sex” with a female patient. The woman, who had been the victim of sexual abuse as a child, was awarded more than $200,000 in an out-of-court settlement. She said Walters had used her to perform oral sex on him, “sometimes as often as two out of three psychiatric analysis sessions per week.”
· An Orange County, California, psychiatrist, James Harrington White, was convicted of the forced sodomy of a male patient. After an investigation by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), White was found to have drugged young men, then videotaped himself having sex with them. White was sentenced to prison for almost seven years
· In June 2002, a jury ordered the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio to pay $7.5 million (€6 million) to 62-year-old Mary Lou Zimmerman following a horrific psychosurgery operation. Mrs. Zimmerman had sought treatment for compulsive hand washing after she read glowing reports about the procedure on the clinic’s website. The reality was a nightmare. She was subjected to an operation in which four holes were drilled into her head and sections of her brain, each approximately the size of a marble, were removed. After the ordeal, she found she was unable to walk, stand, eat or use the bathroom by herself. Her attorney, Robert Linton, stated, “She lost everything—except her awareness of how she’s now different.…She is completely disabled and needs full-time care.”

C. Psychiatric Fraud
· One of the largest health care fraud suits in US history was in mental health, yet it is the smallest sector within health care.
· A study of US Medicaid and Medicare insurance fraud, especially in New York, over a twenty-year period, showed psychiatry to have the worst track record of all medical disciplines.
· Germany reports roughly $1 billion (€807 million) is defrauded each year.
· In Australia, health care fraud and patient over-servicing has cost taxpayers up to $330 million (€226 million) a year.
· In Ontario, Canada, psychotherapist Michael Bogart was sentenced to 18 months in jail for defrauding the government of almost $1 million (€815,993), the largest medical fraud case in the history of the province.
D. Soaring Costs
· In the United States, the mental health budget soared from $33 billion (€29.7 billion) in 1994 to more than $80 billion (€72 billion) today.
· Switzerland’s spending on mental health increased from $73.5 million (€65 million) in 1988 to over $184.8 million (€165 million) over a ten-year period.
· Germany currently spends more than $2.6 billion (€2.34 billion) a year on “mental health.”
· In France, mental health costs have soared, contributing $400 million (€361 million) to the country’s deficit.
· Today, the psychiatric industry in the United States alone takes an estimated $5 billion (€4 billion) from ECT per year. In the US, 65-year-olds receive three hundred and sixty percent more electroshock than 64-year-olds, since Medicare (government health insurance) takes effect at age 65, evidence that the use of ECT is guided, not by medical compassion, but by profit and greed. Although psychosurgery is less common today, up to three hundred operations are still performed every year in the United States, including the notorious prefrontal lobotomy. In the United States, 65-year-olds receive 360 percent more shock treatment than 64-year-olds because at age 65 government insurance coverage for shock typically takes effect.

Source: CCHR

Ashley Deeks's picture
Ashley Deeks 5 years 26 weeks ago

Good Morning,

I have been a fan of you work for years.

I am in the stages of developing a small course about ADHD, dyslexia and the like and I would like to use your table in my course. However I would like your permission to do so as not to encounter any copyright law infrindgments as I never know what I can and cannot use. It would only be this table and a mention of your theory, with credit given to you of course!

Many thanks,

SueN's picture
SueN 5 years 25 weeks ago

Hi Ashley,

Thom says it is fine with him.

SueN

(Thom's Newsletter editor)

laurent46's picture
laurent46 4 years 33 weeks ago

For my part i support the farmers against the hunters, i prefer the way of life of the farmers...

Dissident's picture
Dissident 4 years 31 weeks ago

The differences between farmers and hunter are really impressive, it looks like 2 worlds appart...

Bagnard's picture
Bagnard 2 years 32 weeks ago

Yes, and it always been, During dark ages, it was two types of society.

mickael pino's picture
mickael pino 2 years 5 weeks ago

I don't think we can draw a parallel between hunters and farmers, we're talking about people who work to earn money on the one hand and people who do a hobby on the other...

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