Reflection on the Often "Mythical" Aspects of Mental Illness

Mental illness in psychology is one of those things that makes a lot of people shuffle their feet and shift in their seat uncomfortably because it's something we — much of the time — would rather not talk about.

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Looking Back... and Progressing?

I suppose the whole thing has become a little less weird in the past 50 years or so. I remember having relatives when I was a kid — this would be in the 1960s — who were institutionalized because they had a mental illness.

These situations were often discussed only in whispered tones with guarded words like "Uncle Sven had a nervous breakdown," or "Aunt Gerda is a little bit crazy."

Although things are quite different in this our year 2023, we still make biased snap judgments when somebody we know (or at least are peripherally familiar with) is seeing a therapist. "Oh," we think, "they're a little bit off; something is WRONG with them..."

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The Worrisome Landscape...

There are different aspects of it all that worries me, to a great extent.

Perhaps I think more about these things because I have spent much of my adult life involved in some corner of the self-improvement, spiritual development and self-help industry, and I happen to be married to a top rate counselor.

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The first of the two things that give me the greatest concern — and I have touched on this in previous posts — is the fact that more and more things that once were considered part of the normal spectrum of The Human Experience are now being classified as "abnormal" or some kind of syndrome.

We love to medicalize everything and then find cures for it. Maybe I shouldn't say "we," so much as "the industry that profits from" determining that the fact that you scratch your left ear 40 times a day somehow constitutes a condition that you need to be treated for.

And guess what? We just invented the treatment for that particular affliction. Note that I say "treatment" here, not "cure..."

Causes and Symptoms...

However, the single thing that troubles me more than the above is the approach generally taken.

Let's, for a moment, look back to Uncle Sven's predicament of 50 years ago and get real about the fact that we are disinclined to truly examine why Uncle Sven has a so-called "nervous breakdown."

In this case, that nervous breakdown being a reflection not of something being mentally wrong with Uncle Sven, but something being fundamentally wrong with the system that doesn't afford Uncle Sven a reasonable way to live and be able to take care of his family in the manner Society imprints on him that he's "supposed to" take care of his family.

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Poking deeper into such things has long been considered to be "off limits" because we — meaning "the collective machinery" — don't really want to look at the fact that it's a system of our own making that is responsible for creating the ostensible "mental illness" we're busy treating... which isn't actually an illness in the same sense that we physiologically catch a virus and then end up with the flu.

Uncle Sven isn't who's ill; it's society that's ill, and Uncle Sven is actually a symptom!

So even if we can actually "help" Uncle Sven recover and get back on his feet, his options going forward is sadly limited to a return to the very set of circumstances that caused him to become "mentally ill," in the first place!

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So, Why "Mythical?"

I suppose I should start by saying that that I actually am a supporter of, and believer in, the value of psychology and psychotherapy.

That said, I do think many mental illness issues a somewhat mythical in the sense that they only really have meaning of they are viewed in the context of the ills that brought them into being, in the first place.

Giving Uncle Sven "a pill" for his nervous breakdown and teaching him meditation completely overlooks the fact that he is simply overworked and at his breaking point. There was never really anything wrong with him.

The "myth" is that there was...

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Sadly, the world is filled with millions of "Uncle Svens," and their prognosis is not good.

But — perhaps — a good start is to simply be aware what it is that's actually "broken," in this equation!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your day!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2023-07-09 14:52 PDT

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(Edited)

Reminds me of a book I read long ago, where one of the characters lived in a house with a sign on the door when leaving the house:

Welcome to the asylum!

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Interestingly close to reality... we actually have a "welcome" front door mat, but the welcome is for us, when we step outside...

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Agreed, not only is our society unhealthy, but we pathologize things that would have been looked at differently in the past just, all the time.

As someone with diagnosed CPTSD, I look back on history and find various characters that I think today would be labeled as such, but they were either a warrior hero (CuChulainn), or a saint (St. Theresa). Not to get too into it, but CuChulainn had a "battle fury" and was known to take a hit and get up and keep going like it was nothing - that's a pretty good description of a PTSD high when there's danger afoot. It's not that you don't feel that you're hurt, it's just that you don't care; it will knock you on your ass later, when the danger has passed. St. Theresa was obviously traumatized (she threatened to kill herself if her parents forced her to marry rather than enter the convent, as a member of a religion that would have believed she would go to hell for doing that; many women were married off to men they didn't want to marry and they didn't try to suicide; that says to me that something happened that she'd rather die than be touched by a man), and then while a nun she would do corporeal mortifications that would sometimes trigger "consolation from god" that she described as "being pierced with a spear of ecstacy" - she hurt herself, her brain sent danger signals, she got a PTSD high, it sounds like to me.

In either case, the high is so good, they attributed it to a deity (CuChulainn was a demigod), but today we're like "you're broken and your brain is in survival mode."

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Yes, and it's interesting how many historical figures undoubtedly had "something" going on that was central to making them who they were. Parallel to your outlines, consider someone like Joan of Arc who "spoke to archangels" and by most standards would today be seen as schizophrenic. Most great artists of the Renaissance were almost certainly "bipolar."

But — in most cases — what people need is a little non-judgmental understanding and kindness... not medicalization.

I live in a home where both of us have been diagnosed (somewhat different) types of CPTSD as a result of wildly dysfunctional upbringings. Understanding is perhaps what matters most...

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Uncle Sven isn't who's ill; it's society that's ill, and Uncle Sven is actually a symptom!

Yes! Nearly everyone is sick in some way. Many mental 'illnesses' were once considered differences that did not require any intervention or medical care. But the medical machine is voracious, and needs to find more and more illness so they can sell us more and more pharmaceuticals. The medical industry is a parasite, and needs our bodies to be ill, or to be seen as ill, in order to function or even exist.

We have been encouraged to be on a constant lookout for illnesses in ourselves. This enslaves us to the medical machine. The field of psychology, while it has some merit, like all things, is a big reason we all spend so much time obsessing over what might be wrong with us, rather than to feel safe in our bodies.

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Yep. (Most) Western medicine is based around treating the patient, rather than healing them. But in a for-profit medical system, a "well" individual is no longer a profit center.

The field of psychology definitely has merit, but the so-called "codes of conduct" typically serve as shackles that keep those seeking help "in treatment" for months or years. My wife is a Jungian analyst, but she practices as a "life coach" because being a "Licensed therapist" would prevent her from accomplishing with her clients in 3-4 sessions what mainstream counseling takes years to accomplish...

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yup. I was in therapy for fifteen years! lol. She really was a paid friend all those years. Although she did help me with my problems, she didn't help me with my most debilitating problem. I had to do that on my own.

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I have heard arguments that "mental illness" isn't really a thing. Either there is a medically-identifiable injury/imbalance, or broken people are failing to cope with the world that is breaking them. What is your position?

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I think there's a lot of truth in that. Yes, you can have a genuine chemical/biological imbalance, and it may even be heritable... and it's totally appropriate to apply "illness" to that. Most other stuff? More of a fabrication, I think. For example, in the time of C.G.Jung, it was considered a natural thing that some people had a "Melancholic temperament." By today's standard, that would be labeled "clinical depression" and treated.

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This post reminded me very much of a book I recently read, "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari. It's a very carefully researched and well-written book, in which he reaches conclusions very similar to yours. I highly recommend the book!

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I appreciate the recommendation... sounds interesting, I'll have to check that one out!

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It should be available through your local library, where you can literally check it out.

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