This evening I heard someone mention the term 'clinical pessimism.' It refers to the response that people often (usually) receive when they are ascribed with severe or chronic mental illness.
You are impaired, they are told, in so many words. You won't be able to achieve your goals, you won't hold down a career or find a relationship, this will drag you down and it will prevent you from leading a prosperous or fulfilling life. You have a problem, a lack. It is an albatross around your neck.
But is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Are people really impaired by, for instance, hearing voices or venturing into psychosis? Or are they impaired by the limiting expectations of their community? In her recent book Mad World, Micha Fraser-Carroll argues that it is the utilitarian imperative of capitalism which has excluded these states of mind. The demand that we all work within the prescribed system in order to survive, itself creates an artificial benchmark against which we must measure ourselves.
Yet what about mental and emotional distress: despair, depression, and its overwhelming drag into the abyss? Surely we're right to dread and avoid such states of mind? Well, I would suggest that distress is a legitimate response to the social order within which we are expected to conform. That it points to a social problem, rather than an individual one. Furthermore I would invite the view that depression is a sacred state, a wintering, a way that the mind and soul delve into the nature of life. The Buddhists might call this dukkha; Christians the way of the cross. It may not be easy or fun, but it holds value for its own sake, as an expression of existence, of the human condition.
What if instead of 'clinical pessimism' we responded with creativity and patience, acceptance and hope? What if we acknowledged that these unusual or challenging states of mind are in fact offering wisdom to the community? That they are pushing at the boundaries, inviting social reflection and invoking cultural change? What if the madfolk were cherished for what they bring to the table, rather than pitied, or catastrophised, or dismissed out of hand?
Succinct and beautifully radical reflection - how we respond