Psycle

I read an article some time ago, written by John Sterns. He says he is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder (a co-diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), chronic depression and chronic anxiety. Too many labels one might say but what do they all mean? How does he experience his living?

For one thing, being crazy is noisy, he says. He hears voices, telling him unpleasant things and his own self is now his enemy. This particular phrase resonates with me. My whole life I’ve been thinking how instead of loving myself I keep beating me up whenever I don’t do what would be best for me, or whenever I have the same problem over and over again. I have previously mentioned how much I dislike bugs and viruses and that kind of stuff. Well, except for fighting with them I have myself to fight against to now too. This constant “you shouldn’t be that way” thing, that gets in our minds for one reason or another.

Anyway, to go back to John Sterns, he continues his article with a story concerning art therapy as a form of therapy used in the hospital he was staying in a time of crisis. He didn’t feel like expressing himself through art but the social worker was very clear as to how important it was to see signs of his recovery through his art. So he started making art. A lot. And with some smart moves he made them believe he was now better. But actually he wasn’t. He was just sad.

This makes me seriously wonder about the methods we use as mental health professionals to help those people in need. Are we really trying as much as we should? Shouldn’t we examine every person’s needs and treat her/him accordingly? We seem to give a great value to art therapy for example (and other things too) to see the wanted progress but what if this person doesn’t care for art? What if art makes her/him feeling worse? Why do we insist on what we think it’s better for her/him? Shouldn’t we keep an open ear to different kinds of expression? And on the other hand, how much space is there really to act like that, on your own beliefs, in hospitals, where there’s a very specific protocol to be followed?

Let me know your thoughts, or your own personal experiences.

John Stern’s article is very well articulated and you can (and totally recommend you to) read it here.

image: Hallucination bridge by MoreThanNothing