WE EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE with obvious physical health conditions; we sign their casts and send get-well cards and flowers. But people with mental health issues are all too often stigmatized, misunderstood, and ignored. Even those hospitalized with mental health crises often do not receive sympathy, let alone flowers.
As a psychiatrist, I’m deeply grateful when people do their best to help their family and friends suffering from mental illness. Just one caring person can make a world of difference. According to relational-cultural theory, which stems from the work of psychoanalyst Jean Baker Miller, suffering is a crisis of disconnection, while the opposite of suffering is belonging. This
