Was it a Symptom of Mental Illness or the Fuel to Achieve His Greatness?
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers know that from time to time I will discuss some famous person’s experience with depression. The experiences of Joni Mitchell (see HERE), U.S. Grant (see HERE), and Leo Tolstoy (see HERE) are the most recent examples. All of them, despite their mighty struggles with depression, still managed to earn the respect of millions. To continue this series on…
When Abraham Lincoln was 19, several neighbors were assigned to inform him of the heart wrenching news that his sister had died. As one of them described the incident, “We went out and told Abe. I never will forget the scene. He sat down in the door of the smokehouse and buried his face in his hands. The tears slowly trickled from between his boney…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. On this blog, from time to time, we have been discussing depression. To help us better understand this deeply troubling experience, we have looked at the biographies of several individuals who, despite their mighty struggles with depression, still managed to earn the respect of millions. Today, we quickly review three of these biographies, that of the brilliant psychologist and philosopher William…
Was It a Symptom of Mental Illness or Nourishment For His Creativity?
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today, let’s see if we can tie together some of the loose threads of my last post, which chronicled Joni Mitchell’s experience of depression. There we found that she explicitly rejected the idea that her experience indicated that she was mentally ill. Instead, she came to believe that, “Most of my best work came out of it. If you get rid of the…
Was It a Symptom of Mental Illness or Nourishment For Her Creativity?
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. From time to time I have been discussing two distinct ways of looking at the nature of depression–the medical model and what we may wish to refer to as the creative temperament view. The medical model views people who experience depression as having an illness that requires, as the first line of treatment, taking pills that are called “antidepressants.” The enormously…
Millions of people experience one or more episodes of depression during their lifetime. At such times, many fear that if news of this were to get out it would diminish the level of respect people have for them. Attempting to avoid the stigma of being viewed as having a mental illness, they shy away from revealing what they are experiencing. Some promote the idea that…
In a past post I asked the question, “Is Depression an Illness?” Many expressed strong feelings on this subject. Some argued that it is indeed an illness; others made the case that it was an experience that most of us go through, some more than others for sure, but classifying it as an illness leads one down a path toward taking unhealthy drugs that in…
Since as far back as she can remember, Carla, 19-years-old, has been having periods during which she has waves of deeply sad feelings. She has family members who say that depression runs in their family, and she should see a psychiatrist for treatment. So, off she goes, and after a few questions, the psychiatrist declares she has a mental illness called Major Depressive Disorder. Carla…
You say that you’re down on your luck. Well, most of us have found ourselves down there. I know I have, so, welcome to the club. It just so happens that how you handle this period of time can lead you to lose your self-respect, and for others to also lose their respect for you; or it can be a great period of time during…
