A sacred process II

Some more thoughts in the wake of Sean Blackwell's video and his latest blog entry.

Make sure to read the "Introduction to my new book..." at Sean's blog, where he takes on Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. Those of you who've been to read Chauncey's analysis of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk, also will have found him praise Kay Redfield Jamison whom he contrasts to Jill Bolte Taylor - in regard to style.

When it comes to contents, both are pretty much the same: both talk about crises being biological illnesses, brain diseases, that are incurable, chronic illnesses, and that need lifelong "medication" in order to be kept under control.

If you've been around this blog only for a moment, you'll know that I strongly disagree with this point of view as there's no evidence so far for crises to be biological illnesses, and as I see that this mainstream-viewpoint actually has stripped and still does strip "countless people of hope for a truly better life, medication free", as Sean writes. Indeed, I find it morally irresponsible by the mental health system to, continuously, make a claim like that, into the bargain often in a way that suggests it were a proven fact rather than a mere hypothesis, a mere theory, and I wish there were more professionals like Ron Unger who'd dare to speak up and challenge the system concerning this matter.

Sadly, I haven't encountered as much as one single professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other, here in Denmark yet, who has shown to be as courageous as Ron (and a number of other professionals abroad). Not even the "brilliant (though not perfect...) guidance". Let me know if you have. I'll be happy to do a piece on him/her!

Now, I can't blame Chauncey for his praise of Kay Redfield Jamison as he, as far as I know, has no personal experience of "madness", his opinion on the matter (whatever it is) thus of course being a result of the information that is immediately available to the public. Which is the mainstream information, stating that extreme states of mind are due to brain diseases. Thus Kay Redfield Jamison's book An Unquiet Mind is published by Macmillan, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight by the Viking Penguin Group, and both can easily be found at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, while Sean Blackwell's book A Quiet Mind is published by and can only be purchased through Chipmunkapublishing, a small though significant, British underground publisher, specialized in books about mental health and well being.

Well, and although I do not at all agree in neither Jill Bolte Taylor's nor Kay Redfield Jamison's conception of crises to be biological diseases, I nevertheless widely agree to Chauncey's criticism of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk. At least as far as style is concerned.

In regard to contents, I will certainly read Sean's book. I'm actually looking very much forward to it. While I think, I will spare me the doubtful pleasure of reading Kay Redfield Jamison's book. I've read several books of that kind, and the reading always left me with extremely unpleasant feelings of despair and powerlessness.

As for Sean's call for people to share about their experiences with extreme states of mind, I find it just as important as he does, in order to reduce the public's ignorance and fear of these states, that unfortunately only has been increased by the mainstream conception of these states to be caused by biological illness, thus being nothing but meaningless and unpredictable (and thus dangerous) "madness" (that would have to be fought and suppressed at any price). Although I also find it quite challenging to share such a deeply personal experience publicly, I have considered doing so for a while, and will share at least some of it in time to come.