Thinking Aloud

A remarkable and unique film is reaching a growing audience through the medium of community screenings on both sides of the Atlantic. Crazywise, the work of directors Phil Borges and Kevin Tomlinson, is an invitation to explore the different perspectives regarding deep emotional or mental distress in western and other less developed cultures. It boils down in essence to one question – should the experiencing of a psychotic episode be termed a break down, or a break through? Breaking through the distress to become the person you were always meant to be. The film consists of interviews with various mental health experts and also focusses on the stories of two Americans who have had to negotiate a path through the mental health system in the United States. What is clear is how different both Adam and Ekhaya's journey might have been had they experienced their difficulties in the developing world. One of the remarkable statistics disclosed by psychologist and mental healt...

PTSD or PTS? Ever since the term PTSD or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder was coined, in the years following the Vietnam War, it has been a topic of interest for me, and becoming a therapist ten years ago only increased the need to try and understand this most misunderstood of 'conditions'. The word 'disorder' is, I believe, grossly misleading, and I hope to explain my stance in the course of this blog post. With better understanding, I think we can do so much more to support armed forces personnel who are suffering unnecessarily, giving them insight and access to the facts about the symptoms of post traumatic stress. Knowledge is power. A search of the information available about PTSD is revealing, as it's hard to find any references that do not 'pathologise' the symptoms of trauma. Worse still, the Wikipedia entry regarding PTSD goes into great detail about which psych medications are recommended for 'treating' the condition, the drug ...