Madness, you or me, but no we

Is madness the breakdown products of the whole self or is it simply that people are distressed by the way they see the world?
What is the most productive method of treating this, counselling or drugs, “just take the pill”.

Should people with severe mental illness be encouraged to take control of their lives? Psychology could probably be viewed as paternalistic, so can families really help in a patient’s recovery or can this lead to over protection, which tends to impede recovery.

So how to deal with this. Perhaps a laid back attitude and a place of safety.

On reflection, perhaps trust is the most important ingredient.

Many questions.

Perspectivsm solves all things.

This classification is contingent on the environment and may or may not include biological/chemical components. The definition of madness, or mental disorder is really an inability to function within the given environment. In that sense, health, whether physical or mental, should be approached as a function of adaptability.

Health: "…is the level of functional and metabolic efficiency of a living organism. In humans it is the ability of individuals or communities to adapt and self-manage when facing physical, mental or social changes". The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
or
“a state characterized by anatomic, physiologic, and psychological integrity; ability to perform personally valued family, work, and community roles; ability to deal with physical, biologic, psychological, and social stress.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health

But no we is right, since humans have not been adopting to strictly natural environments for millennia now, so this definition is primarily for human made environments, which can be arbitrary and even contradictory. You can choose to adopt to either human societies, or isolate yourself and try to adopt to a more natural environment.

That would depend on the potential ability of the person to adopt to a “particular” environment. That sounds pretty banal, I know, but I think that’s how it works, in theory. If you have autistic people, or people with down syndrome and create and environment to which they can adopt and function in, you could argue that they are healthy…but different. So, the definition is contingent on environment. If you want to take it all the way to pure nature, I don’t think you can find purely ‘un-mad or sane’ people, since even in primitive societies, superstition and magical thinking would be present, which of course, is a kind of adaptation. So, they would be healthy only in so far as they are able to function within their environment. Sometimes, the environment is contradictory itself, and that creates a problem with adaptation. For example, increase in the use of technology and information flow is also increasing the incidence of ADD and ADHD in people, and one of the suggestions that were presented is reducing the use of it. But how feasible is it really when technology is being pushed onto everyone worldwide? Also, someone who grew up in a war zone might not be able to perceive the world in the same way as one who has never been exposed to it, but because the war-environment is undesirable, the one who grew up during the war will have a challenge and an expectation of adjusting to an environment in which such elements are ignored or unknown.

As a “mad woman”, one’s self-awareness is crucial in reclaiming autonomy and independence. Most people who are severely mentally ill cannot posit self-reflection into some sort of proactive plan in which they identify their symptoms and act according to a contingency plan to mitigate their symptoms before their health worsens.

Trust is vital but the most important trust is the trust one has in ones own decision making. People who are suffering full blown episodes are past the point where they can trust their judgements and then important decisions rest in the hands of family who mostly don’t understand the illnesses and surrender their mentally ill loved ones to the fucked up mental health systems for often times excessive measures in institutionalizations.

Interesting. So, would the woman in Gaslight really be classified as insane because she can no longer trust her own decisions?

She may be saner than some in realizing this. It speaks to self-realization.

A Shieldmaiden

Maybe not the whole self. There may be some bit of saneness somewhere in “there”.

Simply?
That alone does not create madness in a person. We all feel that way sometimes - it’s human.
Perhaps those who cannot accept that and don’t have the ability to push past it or transcend it, dont have the ability to see it, to allow the suffering, those are the ones who may eventually become mentally ill. But it isn’t that simple. There are probably other influences which add to it.

One size does not fit all. Counseling, drugs, cognitive therapy, etc. the holy trinity or more.

That just might be a slippery slope. The dangerous one might go out on a shooting spree.
I don’t think that someone with a severe mental illness - severe in the moment - is capable of taking control of their life. It’s a process/a journey. At some point, it is necessary that they begin to take control of their life, with help/counseling.

I think that it takes a great deal of balance to know when to hold, when to walk away.
It all depends on the circumstances and the individuals involved.
Love and caring is necessary but perhaps not too much dependency making. But of course at first total trust if possible might be necessary but that would also be quite the process. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Again, it depends.
Too much or too little laid-back attitude. Only a real caring professional might be able to judge that…and maybe the more caring, the more questioning he/she has to be. A control freak wouldn’t accomplish much.\

That’s a process too. Takes time.

Yes, I think that it is the questions which allow the professionals to not be too sure of themselves – to really examine what is going on and to also question their own ethics and ways in which they are caring for the person.
It isn’t an easy thing to play God.
True caring can be difficult.