Word: mental
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Gavigan is just one victim of a troubling psychological phenomenon that is harming patients, devastating families, influencing new legislation, taking up courtroom time, stirring fierce controversy among experts and intensifying a backlash against all mental-health practitioners: the "recovery" -- usually while in therapy -- of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse, satanic rituals and other bizarre incidents...
Ignorance: Attitudes are improving, perhaps, but still I hear so many ignorant and callous remarks and actions. With regard to attitudes and acceptance, the Harvard community can be a better place than many for the highly functional mentally ill. (It would be terribly difficult for anyone to last around Harvard if burdened with the gravest forms of mental illness.) In my experience most people here are relatively enlightened and compassionate compared to society at large...
...Good Life: Such medicines are not any part of life's 'telos' (sorry, Aristotle), they are more of a precondition for returning to the world of energy, mental concentration and varied feelings. Some very loose analogies can be found with thyroid medication for those who need it, insulin for diabetics and in fact adequate nutrition for everyone: intake of any chemicals and nutrients to sustain a decent life is not the final goal but the means to be fully capable of pursuing other goods...
Anyone who suffers or thinks they might suffer a signficant mental illness should seek evaluation and treatment immediately. There may be no panaceas, and some conditions will improve or subside with time, but if you suffer very much for any length of time there is hope for improvement if you get medical help; the sooner you start, the better...
...huge variety of more recognizable `physical' illnesses may involve changes in these areas, but the tricky thing about mental illnesses can be the lack of a simple sign on the forehead saying "Help, I'm depressed!" In my own case, it was after being exhaustively tested for a myriad of other possibilities that my perceptive and enlightened M.D. at UHS told me, "The times I have seen such persistent unexplained symptoms have usually been cases of depression...