December, 20222 min readmental-health

The one about "The Helpful Delusion."

Evidence is growing that mental illness is more than dysfunction, with enormous implications for treatment.

Recent read: The Helpful Delusion.

The idea that mental illness should not be viewed simply as a dysfunction or a problem with the individual, but rather as a natural response to certain experiences or circumstances.

A couple of excerpts:

Depression is probably the best candidate for the first type of function – an adaptation to a current crisis; nature’s attempt to show us that something in our lives isn’t working out, and to motivate us to make the right changes.

Consistent with the evolutionary perspective, people with dyslexia often have a ‘big picture’ grasp of their environment. For example, they’re quicker to notice when a work of art represents an impossible figure, such as M C Escher’s Waterfall (1961). They also excel at ‘divergent thinking’, the ability to come up with multiple solutions to the same problem.

Back