Sunday 1 January 2012

Bad Things Happen and can make you Crazy

Hi

Here's the link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Models-Madness-Psychological-Schizophrenia-Schizophrenias/dp/1583919066/ref=zg_bs_922830_4#reader_1583919066 to a book which I have not yet read, but which has made me feel immeasurably better just by looking at the chapter headings in the sample on Amazon.  It is called 'Models of Madness:  Psychological, Social and Biological approcahes to schizophrenia'. There is also a large amount of text available to read as a sample before you buy, and it actually made me want to cry.  The book is by several authors; Richard Bentall, Loren Mosher and John Read.  Have a look.

What gets me, is why, when there are so many enlightened people in the world (about mental illness, the reasons for it, appropriate treatment and so on) and their arguments are so simple and so moving and so obviously right, are there still people who take the opposite view?  Are there really people so selfish that they refuse to accept that schizophrenia is not a biological disease, or an illness at all BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO LOSE THEIR JOBS?  Can so many human beings really be watching people suffer deliberately, while knowing they could comfort them greatly, just by telling them, 'There is nothing permanently wrong with you, you are going through a tough time, but you will get better'.  Would anybody be so cruel? 

I don't think that can be the case, not so widely.  It must be that a lot of people still don't fully understand.  And that is why I am going to push my book in the year ahead - get it into print, publicise it, stand by it.  Because if the people who are cured find the courage to stand up and be counted, and add their voices to the great and good, like Rufus May and Richard Bentall and Ron Unger, Loren Mosher and John Read (and countless others that I can't think of off the top of my head) perhaps, things will finally change.

Louise

1 comment:

  1. Oh, and by the way the title of the above post 'Bad things happen and can make you crazy' was borrowed from the book - it is used, rather wonderfully, as a chapter heading.

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