Wordscapes® (David Turner, Registered Trademark Owner) Mental Maps

One big difference in very healthy people is that they can be more comfortable with their "madness" than the rest of us. But of course for them it isn't "madness", but just the wilder, more spontaneous reactions that we keep under tight control in case they get out of hand. They can handle it all, and put it all to use.

In my life, I realized how aggressive I was underneath the surface, and as I accepted these feelings they turned into a power source of energy.

Healthy people can take responsibility for their own feelings, they don't try to blame other people for them. So they are bound to get on better with one another. If you can see your own limitations, you'll be more understanding of the limitations of others. So you won't start thinking they're more wonderful than they are, and therefore finish up being disappointed in them. And you don't exaggerate the bad things either, so you won't behave in a provocative way yourself, as if you're expecting trouble, and thereby create the trouble unnecessarily.

Life treats you as you show up for it. If you approach your day with aggression and negativity, you'll find people respond to you in an aggressive and negative way. If you're going through the day with a cheery mind-set, you'll find people are more inclined to respond to you in a cheerier fashion.

Statistically, 80 percent of the people on the face of the planet aren't particularly healthy, and most of the remaining 20 percent aren't very healthy. Everyone is reassured by their own value system that they're as healthy as can be. At the lower end of the health scale, families with a schizophrenic member will usually see themselves as perfectly all right apart from that person. It's hard to get them to admit to any problems at all, even of the kind that average people take for granted. In other words, they present themselves as extraordinarily healthy. Except of course for the one in the family who's gone 'bad' or gone 'mad' - the family scapegoat.

Moving up the mental health scale, paranoids would, for example justify genocide by the idea that they are purifying the human race. Murder, terrorism and expropriation become "ethnic cleansing", and like the Mafia, they'll put an enormously high value on loyalty, but no value at all on anyone outside 'the family'. They would justify this by saying that they're just looking after their own families, and they might claim they were toughening people up, teaching them about reality. And if they're a little bit healthier, but still basically operating in a paranoid way, they'll be very attracted to the idea of the survival of the fittest.

Now moving up the mental health ladder, we come next to depressives. They'll put a very high value on kindness, and sensitivity, and tolerance and understanding. But they'll tend to disapprove of confrontation and direct, forceful criticism. They'll tend to see ordinary healthy assertiveness as unpleasantly aggressive, and confidence as arrogance. So they'll be likely to admire and indeed justify certain kinds of weakness. Their great heroes and heroines will be folk who suffered a lot, writers with consumption, political martyrs, misunderstood thinkers.

And of course, anger tends to be taboo for depressives, unless expressed against authority, or on behalf of others. And violence of any kind at all is intolerable.

Moving up the scale, we reach obsessional people. They'll put a very high value on order, cleanliness, control and conscience. They'll be uncomfortable with spontaneity, either their own or other people's. Their heroes will be administrators, accountants, traffic wardens and linguistic philosophers. And of course, they give great importance to hard work and tend to be less at ease when they haven't got things to do, or if there's humor about, or when people are being high spirited.

Enjoying yourself too much is seen as self-indulgent. So, we've talked about the self-justifying value systems of schizophrenic folk, of paranoid folk, of depressive folk, and of obsessional folk. Now further up the scale we find mid-range people like us. How do we see ourselves?

We mid-rangers are usually more aware of our limitations, and more able to accept responsibility to ourselves, our emotions and our own problems. But because we are in a big majority, and in the absence of any criteria by which to judge ourselves differently, we tend to regard our way of operating as absolutely 'normal' and 'natural' and 'healthy'.

Mid-rangers would likely find the openness and warmth of the healthiest people out there as rather odd at first, and might start wondering, "What are they up to? What are they hoping to get out of this?" And we'd probably imagine that they were rather naive, and feel a bit sorry for them because they might be easily conned. At any rate we'd be likely to think they were taking rather foolish risks, being too trusting, not protecting their own interests enough. but then, we'd almost certainly see their emotional independence and capacity for separateness as a lack of caring, as rather selfish, and as a sign of not being really involved and loving.

Regarding their discipline, we'd probably feel that the parents were being too indulgent with the children in asking their opinions so fully, but at the same time we'd probably be puzzled that the children accepted the parents' decision so cheerfully. We'd almost certainly feel that the 'healthies' discussed some things that were better not talked about, or at least were rather tactless or insensitive, in the way that they were able to voice their negative feelings. And we'd certainly find the lively '3 ring circus' atmosphere too chaotic and disorderly and worry that things would get out of control, or that they were out of control already! And we'd probably feel that some of their views on life were rather harsh and bleak, that they showed a tough and very unromantic attitude towards illusions that we value highly. We'd also be confused and critical that the 'healthies' handled change so well, because in mid-range families it's a great compliment to be told, 'You've never changed,' or 'You're just the same person you've always been.' It's rather a strange compliment. 'You've been on the planet all these years and you've learned absolutely nothing. You're fantastic!'

The mid-range family doesn't like that the person has done it on their own - it's their own personal improvement. The change is not family property, as it were, so when people change it feels threatening to the clinging 'togetherness' that the rest of the family equate with love.

If the mid-range people, who after all form the bulk of the population, feel this way, then the healthier should be unpopular, you would think. Yet they get on strikingly well with their neighbors because they are sufficiently sensitive and considerate about the feelings of others, and are able to fit their behavior to the company they're in by making their behavior more "mid-range". In mid-range company they choose to 'do as Rome does', rather than push their philosophy of life down other people's throats. So you never know they're 'healthies'.

Now finally, we move up the mental health ladder to the 'very healthies'. The healthier people are more willing to admit to their limitations and are more open to the possibility of improvement. For example, by later middle age, 40 percent of the Harvard Study subjects had visited psychiatrist because of one problem or another. This was a group that had been originally chosen as the most healthy and independent students.

Generally, people who are more healthy are quite happy about seeking help if they need it temporarily, and that the less healthy are more resistant. It follows from the different types of defenses people employ. Even the most criminally insane people consider themselves normal and judge others by the amount of deviation they display off their reference points of normalcy. People who are really crazy, or who are using 'immature defenses', can't face reality and tend to live in fantasy instead. They'll blame others for everything that goes wrong, so they won't see any need to change themselves. It's the people with neurotic defenses, who are aware of their inner difficulties and struggling with these, though in ways that are often ineffective and lead to a lot of pain, who are more likely to see the need for therapy for themselves.

An the more healthy they are, the more likely they will be to seek out therapy of some kind if they need it - unless, that is, they already understand themselves pretty well and can get whatever help they need from friends.