TED Talk: “Eleanor Longden: The Voices in My Head”
This insightful TED Talk shares one experience from the spectrum that is schizophrenia. Eleanor Longden discusses her encounter with voices, her years of treatment, and her road to recovery. Her conclusion? Recovery is not just possible, but inevitable.
What strikes me most about her experience is the remarkable way she deals with her mental illness. She makes it part of who she is and integrates it – befriends it in a sense – in order to facilitate recovery, and she does this with an inspirational greatness.
The poignant point she makes about switching from a model that sees mental illness as a negative asterisk next to one’s name to a model that sees mental illness as the result of life experience and a way to cope with those experiences is surely an invigorating idea. Especially in terms of reducing stigma, this new model of mental illness may be particularly helpful.
If we, for instance, take a more humanistic viewpoint in addressing mental illness, it seems likely that stigma may be lessened. Indeed, if mental health professionals alone switched to this mindset – that mental illness is a way of coping with life events – then perhaps the effect would begin to trickle down to everyone else, especially the patient. At the very least, it’s excellent food for though.
This video certainly speaks of the ability to empower oneself, a message that can apply to everyone. What role might this play in the battle to end stigma? What role does it play in everyday mental health awareness?
