Given how important it is to be properly loved by one’s parents in order to have an emotionally sane grown-up life, one may wonder with some urgency why – in cases that range from the regrettable to the truly tragic – the process can go so wrong. Why do some…
When we imagine the difficulties involved in a so-called ‘bad childhood’, we most readily think in terms of children who are physically harmed – beaten, underfed, sexually abused – or else…
A central fact about early childhood is that babies are born into the world entirely at the mercy of others. They have no native strength, intelligence or utility, they cannot fight…
For a long time, we may cope well enough. We make it to work every morning, we give pleasant summaries of our lives to friends, we smile over dinner. We aren’t…
We would – of course – like any encounter with mental illness to be as brief as possible and, most importantly, to be isolated and singular. But the reality is that…
It may sound odd or impolite to suggest that most of us, when we are in the grip of mental illness, are no longer capable of thinking. That’s not how it…
The one ingredient on which any recovery from serious mental illness depends is also one which, curiously and grievously, never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic, namely…