Vive la Difference

I love the way our world of digital media works sometimes. After reading a post by Susan Burwash on Facebook I followed a link to the OT-Si Project on Twitter and eventually ended up on a blog site and a very short post about the nature of rehabilitation. So now here we are, minutes later, ready to publish from my own platform.

First of all, lets revisit the quote that started this line of thought off…

The goal of the recovery process is not to become normal. The goal is to embrace our human vocation of becoming more deeply, more fully human. The goal is not normalization. The goal is to become the unique, awesome, never to be repeated human being that we are called to be.

Pat Deegan 1996 – a person who has recovered from mental illness.

What is mental illness – what is mental wellness for that matter. One thing that I know that it is not is an outcome. Mental well being can never be seen as an end result, never is it a destination – it is the journey.  However, in such a product orientated world where process is just a means to an end, how can this notion be properly supported? 

Arts for Health, the Kawa Framework and other humanistic approaches are beginning to address this problem with in the Western cultural context, but this is not an easy climb. Making this shift requires a cultural change: a gradual erosion of the old order to reveal a new path which may not adhere to previous tenets.

In the passage above the phrase that moves me the most is “…to embrace our human vocation of becoming more deeply, more fully human.” This is a phrase which acknowledges our incompleteness, our potential for evolution. Mental “illness” is not a problem for society, it is an opportunity to learn from those who have experienced a world beyond many people’s comprehension and experience – it is an opportunity to see potential in the darkest places, and to question the assumptions and frameworks created by a world which seeks to restrict emotional existence. Mental – lets call it disruption – mental disruption is a journey, or at least part of a journey, it is not something to be impeded or disregarded as a dysfunction. I do accept that people in distress require support, but we should never assume mastery of the experience of others, less we should pollute the unique and powerful journey that they are on.

How we perceive and manage mental wellbeing is an opportunity for revolution.