A Little Girl With Bipolar “Deserves” A Trial of Lithium
This is a Two-Part Post: Dave: This illustration gives a picture of how the use of a psychiatric diagnosis and
Tag: mental illness
A New Understanding of Emotional Distress
Our current cultural model for conditions like anxiety and depression uses language like “chemical imbalance”, implying that suffering is related to our brain chemistry. In this post, Dave Keith offers another perspective that looks at our moods as dynamic states related to the context of our living patterns.
The Human Experience Inside “Mental Illness”
In this post, Dave Keith reflects on how he came to understand psychosis as a symbolic expression, embedded in a person’s relationships and experiences. This offers an alternative, dynamic and life-affirming perspective on what is often considered the “destiny” of mental illness.
Psychological Symptoms As A Sign Of Health
“Chemical Imbalance” has become a generally accepted way to think about psychological conditions like depression and anxiety. But David Keith offers another perspective: In fact, emotional problems may be a sign of mental health.
ADHD Diagnosis Conceals the Family Story
Good physicians take a clinical history in the interest of arriving at a diagnosis. While the clinical history is a review of ‘facts’, there are in fact, few ‘facts’ about human experience. Different examiners will get different histories depending upon what they ask about. Different family members give different reports of the same set of events. In my view clinical histories are a form of fiction pretending to be ‘objective’.
From The School of Life: “The Sanity of ‘Madness'”
Amy: Here’s another small reflection from Alain de Botton’s The School of Life. My only additional thought is that we