What is a Nervous Breakdown?

How such psychological stresses can be transforming experiences.

December 22, 2005

Alienation: From a psychitaric term to a societal problem needing treatment.

Believe: When you believe you can do great things.

Canned Reality: A discussion of video games, and television, and their effects on society.

Dealing with Depression: A look beyond medicine for truth.

Exploring and Questioning Madness: Andrew questions what it means to be 'mad' or insane, and how such a categorization both benefits and hurts society.

Feeling Good: What it means to have feelings as humans.

Flashbacks: A look at memories that get stirred up and force us to see today in yesterday's light.

Individual Making Friends: The importance of giving part of the self up to be a good friend.

Judith Kaye's Life Lessons: Some words of wisdom from the NYS Chief Justice.

Legitimate Feelings: How mass-society forces us to have certain kinds of feelings.

Man and His Political Acts: Radical behaviorialism and the class based vote.

Narcissism: Be a self advocate, but remember humanity.

Narrow Minded: We need to think beyond our narrow perspectives.

New Toy Feeling: What it feels like for an adult to get a new toy to play with...

Not My Choosing: So much of our lives are not under our control.

On 'Loners' and the Solitary Life Style: Why so called loners and those who choose to live a solitary life-style are not disfunctional or evil.

Our Own Worst Enemy: Personal reflection on what it means to be an individual and my experience of the world around me.

Passionate Words: Short poem about passion versus anger.

Politics of Self-Reflection: A look at writing and self-reflection and the challenges it poses.

Pyromania: Some thoughts on the love of fire and arsonists.

Redefining Ourselves Beyond Labels: Too often we deny ourselves flexibility by binding ourselves to labels.

Revenge Never Works: One upping another person will never make things better, only worst.

Routine: A Great Danger: We routinely do many things in our lives, without considering the potential abuse that routine creates.

Schizophrenia and Society: A look at how we define this social construct.

Smile a Little Smile: Our faces reveal a lot about how we see our world.

Social Context of Writing: Why our own words seem so foreign over time.

Social Control Breaksdown: Why society can't always protect itself from the individual.

Sublimation: A Way to Truth and Freedom: Reasons why we should try to appease our unsocial desires instead of repressing them.

The 'R.D. Laing Problem': Andrew looks at phenomenology, our notion of experience, and how we see each other and ourselves.

The Colorful World of the Web: Thoughts on the use of color in websites and how it's careful application can promote a desired message.

Thoughts on Autism: Autism is a difficult communications disorder.

Understanding Behavior: How the interaction of environment, experience, and the autonomous individual define interaction.

What Does Anger Mean Today?: A look at 'public' anger as a legitimate reaction to a sometimes disfunctional political society.

What Does Courage Mean Today?: A look at the contemporary meaning of courage in a society that shuns it.

Why Go to Psychotherapy?: Psychotherapy help you find yourself as an individual.

Why I am Crazy: Some lists explaining how I view the world, and mocking the social control notion of psychology.

What is a Nervous Breakdown?

A nervous breakdown is a natural human reaction to what Grey Bateson would have termed a double bind situation.It is when you have to do something, but can't do any of the pratical options, and you can't afford not to choose one of those options. Bateson used that description in the extreme to describe the condition in schizophrenic patients who have suffered from double bind situations for such a long time that long-term deviant behavior is normal to the patient.

Yet, it seems that it could apply to all of us in times of momentary stress. And indeed, as another theorist of the mind, R.D. Laing would have argued, a nervous breakdown could actually be a transforming experience. Indeed, individuals are created in times of crisis. The question always is how can one turn such a crisis into a transforming experience, and use their personal symbolism to make themselves into more of an individual?

Nervous breakdowns are painful, but may very well be part of a normal healthy life. Indeed, a stress free life would not have the powerful forces needed to create an individual. It takes difficulty at a personal level first to overcome difficulty at a greater level. The question must indeed be how can such stresses be used to benifit the individual. There are no such things as bad situations, just bad ways to react to situations.

Conclusions. Anybody that ever comes to a truly bad time in their life, needs not worry about the negativity, but to be encourage to stand up and make positive change. Maybe our society at this time needs to be sheltered from one's psychological weaknesses, but we also need to be tolerant of those who are being changed by the powerful forces within and without them. Remind them at the end of the day, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

From Farm to Trash
From the Trash Series. Added 1/16/07.