Looking Beyond the Illness and Into the Heart of the Patient

By: Peggy Cunningham, NCC, LPC

“Real success is finding your lifework in the work you love.” - David McCullough

I often marvel at how lucky I am to be able to come to work every day, being in the place I want to be, and doing the thing that I love to do.  I feel passionate about working in the behavioral health field and providing the best care we can to those who seek our assistance.  I also am glad to see the progress we have made in destigmatizing mental illness.  There was a recent commercial on TV where several celebrities are seen with family members or friends with an identifiable mental illness.  The message “These are real people with real feelings with real lives’ and people who love them.”

Silencing the Bell of Suffering

By: Peggy Cunningham, MA, NCC,LPC

I am familiar with a mental health organization that has a bell that it rings at an annual event.  The bell is made of chains that were from old psychiatric state hospitals, or “Asylums”, where a lack of understanding of mental illness and often ineffective methods of treatment had us treat these individuals in inhumane ways.  When this bell rang you could almost hear the voices and the cries of those who were chained and suffering from mental illness. It was a very eerie.  We have made progress from those days but still have much progress that needs to be made.

I have long believed that people fear that which we don’t understand and mental illness is one of those areas many people fear.  Mental illness is an impairment that can affect how one thinks, feels, socializes, and behaves.  The precise causes are not always clear.  Those who suffer from mental illness are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors. Their behavior is often unpredictable and bizarre.  One is embarrassed, baffled and afraid by how mental illness plays out in the here and now. Those who are mentally ill suffer from a disease of the brain.  Mental illness is treatable with medication and various forms of therapy.  One would never be embarrassed by someone who suffers from diabetes, heart disease or diabetes and would never hesitate to seek medical assistance.  Yet when it comes to mental illness we hesitate to recognize it or seek help. 

Those who suffer from mental illness are not predestined to a life misery, criminal behavior or disability.  Those who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety or any other mental illness are not predestined to become mass murderers.  These individuals have thoughts, feeling, love, hurt, cry, and work.  It is the responsibility of each one of us as individuals and as a society to embrace and support those who suffer from mental illness and to offer encouragement and assistance to their families.