What If – Mental Illness Isn’t Illness

Good Morning All!

Perhaps you’ll recall the 1950 movie, Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart. A wonderful movie based on the play by Mary Chase which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1945. Enjoy the clip and if possible, just rent the movie and enjoy the whole thing and its greater message.

I came across a fascinating story last week on Reuters, so I followed it to its source in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The story is about a study conducted by a team of psychiatrists in the Netherlands. Of  nearly 4000  7-8 year old children, 9% reported that they hear voices.

Results:

The 1-year prevalence of auditory vocal hallucinations was 9%, with substantial suffering and problem behaviour reported in 15% of those affected. Prevalence was higher in rural areas but auditory vocal hallucinations were more severe and had greater functional impact in the urban environment. There was little evidence for associations with developmental variables.

Conclusions:

Auditory vocal hallucinations in 7- and 8-year-olds are prevalent but mostly of limited functional impact. Nevertheless, there may be continuity with more severe psychotic outcomes given the serious suffering in a subgroup of children and there is evidence for a poorer prognosis in an urban environment.

The most significant piece of information is that the urban children were the ones seeming to be disturbed by this phenomenon, yet the country children were not.

My comments have to do with knowing that there is far more to our ‘reality’ than meets the eye or ear.
For example, if it is true that dogs can hear tones that we cannot, we don’t deny the existence of those tones. Similarly, we all believe in electricity, even though we can’t see it. Yet, we assume hat out of hand that those who hear voices are in some way ill. We even given it a name, schizophrenia.

I suggest that the country children have less “problems” with hearing voices, because they live in nature and accept that these voices are a natural part of Life. Whilst city children have no context for incorporating these voices into a mechanical and technological world.

I wonder about the “sickness” of autistic children. Is it not true that they are usually brilliant and narrowly focused? What if we were to ask a different question when we came upon such people, children and adults alike and asked, “What gift are they giving us in this way? What are we meant to now see, know and understand a deeper level?”

In the book, The Gargoyle
by Andrew Davidson, the heroine in the story is alternately described by her world as schizophrenic, manic depressive or obsessive compulsive as she tells a story of a life lived 600 years ago and brilliantly carves gargoyles of stone. She is genius.

Perhaps we should stop labeling people as ill who have the capacity to align with higher frequencies and bring levels of being to the planet that make the rest of us uncomfortable. We just might learn something about our Greater Selves, which just might free us to be Who We Really Are.

Thanks for reading!

Kath