What's in a name? ...that which we call a rose
By any other rose would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

When people who are not in therapy speak to me they frequently express the same concerns. For many there is the fear of being stigmatized. If they seek help, they may feel (-or be called a range of hurtful names-inadequate or crazy) and are therefore afraid to seek out a professional who might be able to help them. Confidentiality is another issue many people raise. In this age of Internet access, people want reassurance that if they seek help there will not be a permanent record, and, if there is, they want to know what will be on it and who will see it. A third, and very reasonable, concern is how their diagnosis will be determined. Anyone who has ever had backaches knows that the diagnosis and prescribed treatment varies depending on whether you see a surgeon, chiropractor, massage therapist, or personal trainer. The person you select can affect the rest of your life. For this reason, I want to tell you about what a mental health diagnosis means.

Mental health is a continuum. As we deal with personal loneliness, demanding bosses, shaky finances, or just an intense bout of the blues-whatever the personal hurdle of the day-we maintain an illusion that somewhere someone else is having a perfect life. If only we could be like them or even change one thing, like losing weight or earning more money, life would be perfect for us, too. This is simply not true. Everyone has problems. Remember a poem many of us read in high school, Richard Cory, about a man who seemed to have everything but, to everyone's surprise, killed himself.

Most of us are sane people who merely experience occasional rough patches when life becomes so difficult that we feel that we are going crazy. Every year one out of five families has a family member who seeks help. We all go through periods of upheaval or life stage transitions that produce physical or emotional symptoms of distress. If we do not cope well under duress, we may temporarily regress and experience periods of instability. Sometimes we are caught in the web of a loved one's issues resulting in the conjuring up of feelings and behaviors of our own that are new and unwelcome. Do we "gut it out" alone, or ask for help? If we ask for help, we fear that we may be labeled, that the information will be recorded as indelibly as our personnel, academic, or traffic violation records.

I understand this concern. Three decades ago, when I was still in training, the secrecy that surrounded having "a mental problem" was so great that it was customary for a therapist, most often an analyst, to have separate entrance and exit doors to protect the identity of patients. In contrast today, even in a location such as Washington, D.C. where high profile patients might be expected to hide that they have sought psychological help, I am often struck at how easily my clients meet and greet one another in the waiting room as they enter or leave my office. I wish this sense of camaraderie could be felt by all those who are brave enough to seek mental help.

The unrealistic images regarding mental health that we see on the big and little screen and other forms of entertainment and media do little to allay our fears. We laugh at Woody Allen's characters, analysands who amuse us with a never-ending smorgasbord of neuroses, who are hopelessly less together than we are, even on our worst days. We watch Ally McBeal as she goes through therapy, charmed by her delightfully wacky I-am-woman-hear-me-obsess truthfulness. Yet, we wind up in an internal war as part of us identifies with her and cheers her on, while another part of us assures us we are more together than she. Instead of being bombarded year after year with the same old neurotic clichés, it is refreshing to see a character who benefits from psychotherapy, like Will from the movie Good Will Hunting, who is a hurting human being and whose transformation we can see and understand. We feel sane when we can identify with an individual who is not a caricature or a joke.

We gain encouragement from real live people who talk easily about how therapy has helped them. In her performances, Barbara Streisand sings about how psychotherapy has helped her handle her insecurity. Presidential candidate George McGovern has written about how, in the tragic aftermath of his alcoholic daughter's suicide, his family benefited from professional help. With hindsight, he suggests ways he might have lived his life differently. The writer William Styron's memoir helps us to understand that, with help, one can continue to be creative even after a total break-down. When well known and well functioning people whom we admire and respect speak out about their own mental health journeys, it illustrates that mental health is not a static condition but a continuum that we all travel, and that it does not necessarily mean that we are damaged or dysfunctional.

This column's for you,

Dr. D.

Dorree Lynn, PH.D.

These articles are provided for informational purposes only. No materials posted here are intended to constitute medical advice, which by necessity, must relate to each person's individual situation. This site does not constitute a patient-professional relationship. You are urged to seek help from a local mental health professional concerning your specific circumstances.

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