Environmental Debate

Save the planet and psychiatry?
Many psychiatric problems are medically induced. If we look at our pollutants, air, water, food, fabrics and building materials then we see the bigger picture. Irrespective of the longer term issues of climate change, short term issues of pollution are intuitively important reasons to consider moving away from fossil fuels.
Money, an important cause of stress, trying to get some, keep some and save some for later use. Buying less will save a lot of stress. Most of what we buy we do not need. 30% of the food we buy rots in our fridge. Make your own, grow your own, buy less, eat less produced food, buy less clothes, technology and save your working life from causing you stress.
Spend more time with friends. Less time isolated in front of the computer with virtual friends and more time connecting with other people is a good way to ensure mental well being. This cares for our social environment. Do some voluntary work, maybe even related to . to saving our planet. It is good for you as well as good for the greater scheme of things. So many people feel that their life has little value. It could have huge value if you look around at the need in this world seeking someone to lead the way.
Thanks to the inspiration of 1 million women, presentation last night at the PowerHouse in Brisbane and the leadership of Natalie Isaacs.
www.1millionwomen.com.au

Grief

Today the people in Christchurch honour the loss of friends and family in their community following the earthquakes. Who can believe that a year has passed so quickly.  Loss and grief are normal parts of life. It is only that we love and are attached to people that makes it so painful. A life without love is very empty however. So we have to cope with loss as an integral part of love. It creates anxiety for us in relationships because the threat of loss, rejection and abandonment is ever present.
If however we are happy with our own company, have good self esteem then others are not those we depend upon, we depend upon ourselves. We can then quickly move to thanks for the times spent together and the wonderful memories which make life rich. If we live in the present moment, laying down the memories of those experiences rather than always anxious lest they pass, life becomes richer. Grief becomes normal. The ritual of letting go, like honouring the dead in community fellowship, are important ways of finding the support in the present to make it easier to cope. 

Stigma

Much has been written and said about the stigma of mental illness. In reality it means that people suffer in silence rather than seek help because they don't want to admit they have a problem to themselves or others. It is very real. At one end of the scale there are increased insurance fees, Jet's Law which means you have to give this information to the Main Roads Department in Queensland, with no confidentiality and then the employers who will not employ you or the friends and family who abandon you. Sociologists call this deviancy theory, meaning it resides in the group that is rejecting you because it is their way of defining themselves as not ill at your expense.The 1980s saw a process of de-institutionalisation to decrease stigma, but probably more to decrease running costs. It did not really work. An advertising campaign to educate the community about mental illness may have been helpful but I have seen no research to prove that this is so.
The problem is that it comes from within us all. We can accept an invasive germ causing medical illness and freely talk about other organs and systems failures but we have a collective denial that our minds and brains are inextricably one and feel that brain disorder is clearly different to mental disorder. A problem of Cartesian thinking no doubt.
Mental functioning however is higher end processing and clearly more important than body. We need both of course but one can live well without a toe, not without a mind. If we use the computer metaphor.  We need the hardware of course but if the software is not working, wrong program, wrong language, has programming problems, the result is dysfunction. Changing the program, re-booting will mean return to full function. That is the same as mental illness.
Thankfully advances in psychiatric care, pharmacological as well as psychotherapies means that the outcomes for most people are good and return to normal living. So if we talk about the good outcomes more than the scary process of the illness hopefully we de-stigmatise mental illness and become a caring society.