HUMANITIES 102 FINAL ESSAY

WORLDVIEWS OF MADNESS

INTRODUCTION

Mental and emotional distress is a state that people experience mental suffering with some

anxiety and depression like symptoms. However, it has non-specific symptoms of these psychological

disorders (Viertiö et al.). The symptoms include feeling hopeless, worrying a lot, feeling guilty, sleeping

pattern changes, fatigue, unexplained pain and some memory problems. The characteristics and the

reason of the distress can vary among individuals and therefore coping strategy is also differed (Kandola).

Psychoanalysis and forming alternative living communities are two different strategies for coping

emotional and mental distress. In this essay, these two techniques will be mentioned for the treatment of

mental and emotional distress.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a therapy that aims to explore unconscious mind and how the unconsciousness affects

our thought, behaviors, and psychological state by talking. It is an exploration of past experiences

influence on the current behaviors and feelings. It includes some techniques developed by Freud such as

dream interpretations, free association, and transference. It is mainly used to treat anxiety, depression,

sexual problems, identity problems and traumas (Cherry). Apart from Freud and his emphasis on the

unconscious, psychoanalysis continued to evolve to treat mental distress from different perspectives.

These different perspectives include Hartmann's ego psychological perspective, Kohut's psychology of

the self, Kernberg's object relations theory, Klein's theory of innate jealousy, and Winnicot's influences on

the mother-child relationship (Yakeley).

According to psychoanalysis, mental distress or insanity is induced by individual experiences shaped by

the unconscious mind and the caregiver relations during the infant's initial periods.

Psychological suffering, according to Freud, is produced by the unconscious' failings to inhibit delusions, 
an attempt to repair a damaged inner self by altering reality, leading the mind to become exhausted with 

disruptive thoughts and emotions. Klein and Bion later suggested that symptoms do not indicate disorder

in and of themselves, but instead represent the defense mechanisms against deeper concerns that cannot

be symbolized or consciously represented (Klein; Bion). Lacan claimed that madness is formed by a

series of defences wherein the parental figure is ignored. According to Lacan, the father plays a critical

role in the child's internal world by interfering in the mother-child connection to facilitate detachment by

presenting the child to symbolic order (S.Vanheule). Other psychoanalysts, including Winnicott, Stack

Sullivan, and Searles, have related the origins of mental distress to early - life deficits and traumas,

particularly in the mother-child bond.(Winnicott; Sullivan; Searles).

The conundrum of this treatment strategy is that its therapeutic material is the same as the therapy entity:

the interaction of two minds, the patient's emotional distress embedded in the psychiatrist's emotional

sensitivity, and the psychotherapist and patient's unconscious connection. The contents of the unconscious

are mostly hidden - latent content - and are only released to us via dreams, behaviors, symptoms, and

slips.   The unconscious' mysterious and transient character contrasts with the concrete nature of bodily

substance, where disorder may be identified, diagnosed, and treated using a positivist science approach.

Symptoms or behaviors mask underlying desires, desires, conflicts, concerns, denials, and adaptive

distortions that are seen as unwanted or unpleasant by the conscious mind. Their phenomenology, unlike

the diagnostic systems of the DSM and ICD, does not serve as a basis for classification.(Yakeley).

For clinicians and their patients, psychoanalytic formulations that consider the unconscious meaning of

the patient's disease and use notions like transference and countertransference can create a cooperative

language that lessens some of the daily difficulties of working with the patient. This field, which

examines the unconscious processes to explain the cause of mental distress as well as its treatment, tries

to understand patients with concepts such as id-ego-superego, helps to reveal the problems by making

sense of their dreams and examining their relationships with their childhood parents, can be very useful

for the solution of mental and emotional stress For clinicians and their patients, psychoanalytic
formulations that consider the unconscious meaning of the patient's disease and use notions like

transference and countertransference can create a cooperative language that lessens some of the daily

difficulties of working with the patient. This field, which examines the unconscious processes to explain

the cause of mental distress as well as its treatment, tries to understand patients with concepts such as id-

ego-superego, helps to reveal the problems by making sense of their dreams and examining their

relationships with their childhood parents, can be very useful for the solution of mental and emotional

stress. If psychoanalysis is integrated with modern medicine's recent approaches and developments in

accordance with modern science, and efforts to make sense of the unconscious and subconscious in a

scientific manner utilizing valid tools, it will encourage our attempt to improve understand and treat the

inner self.

Forming Alternative Living Communities

In 1965, an inpatient center was opened under the leadership of psychiatrist RD Laing, aiming to

revolutionize the treatment of mental illness. This center was intended to become a haven for psychotics

and schizophrenics. There were no door locks, and no anti-psychotic medication was administered here.

People were free to come and go as they wished, and there were rooms reserved for meditation. There

were all-night therapy and role-switching sessions, late-night dinners hosted by Laing, and visits to

famous mystics, academics, and psychiatrists, including Laing's friend Sean Connery. Laing believed that

all so-called insanity begins within the confines of the traditional family structure, so treatments such as

childhood regression through play therapy were encouraged (O’Hagan).

Today, when psychiatry and psychology look to biology to explain mental distress and primarily use

drugs to treat it, Laing's work strongly advocates for a contemporary approach: the meaning of people's

suffering can be understood if listened carefully, and suffering can be lessened if it is understood as a

dimension of our shared humanity. This approach was also supported by other psychiatrists like Thomas

Szasz, David Cooper, and Franco Basaglia (Szasz; Laing). By forming alternative communities like

Kingsley Hall, they were opposed to older treatments such as electro-shock as well as new antipsychotic
drugs. They were quick to condemn psychiatry for using these new drugs as well by highlighting the side

effects of them (Living With Schizophrenia).

From my point of view, the most effective treatment for mental and emotional distress is

psychoanalysis. Because psychoanalysis examines the past and subconscious of patients in different ways

and offers them the opportunity to be treated in a healthy and reliable way. The therapist creates an

empathetic and non-judgmental atmosphere in which the client feels comfortable explaining the feelings

or actions that cause stress and difficulties in their life. Sharing these burdens as a therapeutic partnership

can also help. It has also been shown that this form of self-examination can result in long-term emotional

development. However, alternative living communities such as Kingsley Hall support the anti-psychiatric

approach, preventing patients from accessing appropriate treatment strategies. Such approaches ignore

these aspects of diseases with biological and genetic origins, especially schizophrenia, and argue that they

are caused only by environmental factors. However, modern science has shown that psychiatric diseases

are not only affected by the environment but also by genes. Therefore, these commune living centers that

support the opposition to drugs should be considered dangerous as they restrict or even prevent access to

drugs, even though they have good examples.

CONCLUSION

Many methods have been developed to date to treat emotional and mental distress, two of which

are psychoanalysis and alternative living societies. Both methods have different advantages and

disadvantages; In this article, leading names and ideas of psychoanalysis and anti-psychiatric approach

were discussed and why psychoanalysis is more useful was mentioned.

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