Not all in the mind
Patricia Gosling describes her personal and professional experience of mental health
When I worked as a professional in the field of mental health the people who sought my help were often deeply distressed, and came to me as a last resort, having looked for relief elsewhere without success. Nonetheless, they were still able to communicate enough for us jointly to begin to understand their problems, relieve the tensions and begin the long journey towards healing.
My own experience of depression when young was a bonus, in that it enabled me to empathise with them, and the work gave me the opportunity to put some past distress to good use. Working as a professional is a very different experience from dealing with mental illness within the family, where ordinary living becomes distorted by the pressures it creates.
I welcomed the special edition of the Friends Quarterly on mental health. One can only feel deep compassion for John Miles in his struggles with bipolar disorder in three generations of his family, and with Isobel Lane, who rightly says that being mentally ill is hell. I want to thank them both for their courage in sharing such painful experiences with us.
I have two observations. First, I feel we are too prone to separating mental from physiological processes in our thinking. It is generally accepted that some individuals are more prone to bipolar disorder, and that there is a genetic factor involved. I suspect there may also be environmental factors at work alongside the innate vulnerability.
The book by Richard Mackarness, Not All in the Mind, confirmed my own experience that an allergic response to certain foods can trigger debilitating depression. Once I had recognised this connection, my life was transformed as it ceased to be darkened by intolerable and unmanageable moods. A subsequent experience in late adult life of heavy metal poisoning produced a similar, though not identical, reaction in myself and my spouse – apparently typical of the symptomatology.
Mental health and physical health are inextricably intertwined, and putting them into separate categories means we often fail to make the relevant associations needed for better understanding. Richard Mackarness coined the term ‘clinical ecology’ to highlight the connection between clinical symptoms and the environment.
I have become convinced, too, that the basis of sound mental health is laid down very early in the life of the infant, and that the first weeks and months are hugely formative. Our society today does not make it easy for new parents to properly care for their babies. There is often too little support available during the crucial post-natal period. The geographical dispersal of extended families, so typical of our time, can leave the young parents isolated. The shortage of affordable housing is a national disgrace, bringing inevitable pressure for new mothers to return to work as soon as possible for financial reasons.
Current fashions about the role of men and women are not always helpful either when it comes to the primary biological task of infant nurture. The pressure for women to achieve in the workplace on a par with men can be unrealistic and damaging. Children are all too often the sufferers, and they carry that burden with them throughout their lives.
I do think that as Quakers we have things to say on these matters, and I should like to see them thought about more, and addressed with compassion and sensitivity. This, in itself, is not easy since we all tend to feel guilty around our children. While I welcome the issues raised in recent articles about Quakers and mental health, I think as a group we could usefully do some more fundamental thinking.
I have always valued Friends’ down-to-earth grasp of reality, and their appreciation of the so-called ‘ordinary’. Those qualities are much needed at this time in our wider society. We have been called ‘everyday mystics’, and it is a characteristic of mystics that they are very well grounded in the basics of living. It is from this stance that we can afford to confront the pain that contributors to this discussion have addressed so movingly.
Patricia is a retired psychoanalytical psychotherapist.
