“I offer today’s broadcast to Kelli and the millions of others who mistakenly believe that their hard to understand and painful patterns of behavior have something to do with mental illnesses, chemical imbalances, mental health and require something called treatments involving either drugs, talking or both.”
In this 40 minute podcast, Prof. Laurence Simon discusses an article – “It’s Not Just a Chemical Imbalance” – written by Kelli Maria Korducki in the New York Times.
The podcast comes from his The Stories We Live By series, which is subtitled “Retelling our own life stories that are creative and hopeful rather living as victims and in despair.”
His written introduction to the podcast says:
“I offer today’s broadcast to Kelli and the millions of others who mistakenly believe that their hard to understand and painful patterns of behavior have something to do with mental illnesses, chemical imbalances, mental health and require something called treatments involving either drugs, talking or both.
I will try and make clear to Kelli and the millions who believe as she does that she and they are caught in a number of traps created by language, particularly that which derives from the illogical, authoritarian and wholly unscientific language of Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology and other fields that follow mainstream Psychiatry.
I will suggest, based upon what Kelly writes about how she currently lives that were she to fully avoid the language that enfolds her she would feel even more than she does at present to be “a person who belongs to the world.” (Final sentence of her article.) I will suggest some books for Kelli and the millions who struggle as she does that will include Thomas Szasz’ “The Myth of Mental Illness” and my own “Psycho ‘therapy’ and The Stories We Live By”.
You can listen to this podcast from here.
