I've moved my blog to a new location within my own website:
Please visit me there.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
The Crazy Factor
For anyone interested in people, the auditions for the TV talent show The X-Factor are essential viewing. People who clearly have no talent for singing queue in their thousands for a chance of fame. Why? Is it just for a laugh? A more exciting pastime than just mooching round the shops for the day? A desire to be seen on television just for the glory? (Life certainly seems to be fulfilling Andy Warhol’s 1968 prophecy “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”) Are they deluded, genuinely believing that their tuneless croaking sounds good? Have they been the victims of a family conspiracy that refuses to tell them the honest truth about themselves? Or do they have mental health problems that mean they are out of touch with reality?
Sometimes it is easy to spot the answer. A cheery wave and a laugh to the camera from a glory-hound who just wanted his few minutes of fame. A look of shock and betrayal on the face of someone who has never been told the truth. The rage of a young man who for the zillionth time in his life has been told he’s useless. The distress of a girl whose fantasy has just come crashing down, as though the handsome Prince has looked up at her in the window of her tower and exclaimed “Sheesh, you’re ugly” – and ridden on.
So many little cameos of shocked self-realisation. These are emotions I see all the time in my therapy room. But there I am providing a supportive environment where people can safely dismantle false perceptions of self. The X-Factor, by contrast, is brutal. Two minutes to spread your wings and allow your dream to take flight, and then for most a brutal firing-squad as you are shot down in flames.
It is fascinating television, which often leaves me sad and sometimes feeling rather guilty, embarrassed at being a voyeur of the crumbling of young dreams.
The disappointed many return to reality. Some will have support as they pick up the pieces, others will not. The X-Factor seems to have started to realise the implications of this, probably as a result of Susan Boyle, star of 2009’s Britain’s Got Talent show, apparently having a nervous breakdown in the face of intense media pressure. Consequently they have thrown out one of this year’s successful auditioners, Shirlena Johnson, over concerns about her mental health.
If you didn’t see Shirlena’s performance of Duffy’s hit ‘Mercy’, then you missed one of the best performances ever on a pop talent show. Pop? Well, it’s pop, Jim, but not as we know it. Shirlena’s rendition discarded Duffy’s lyrics and replaced them with her own stream-of-consciousness words; it was emotionally intense, mesmerising. I was absolutely engaged, rivetted. It wasn’t pop – it was a truly shamanic performance.
Simon Cowell’s reaction was 'You are completely crazy but I like that. You are fantastically nuts.' From a quick trawl round the internet, that seems to be the general opinion. Some loved her performance, others found it terrible, but everyone seems to agree that she’s crazy.
Well, here’s one dissenting voice. She’s not crazy – well, no more than any of us are.
What is ‘crazy’?
Mental health is not a clearly-defined concept. It can be defined negatively as the absence of a major mental disorder, or more positively as the ability to find satisfaction in work, play and loving relationships.
That sounds fairly reasonable, but people go through life never having had a truly fulfilling relationship; never discover their dreams and work towards fulfilling them; never rise above being a wage-slave surviving hand-to-mouth; and leave play behind in childhood.
And how safe is our definition of mental illness? It is well-known that the mental health system has historically been used as a form of social control. For example, women used to be put into insane asylums because of their promiscuity. Many people have been labelled as having a borderline personality disorder for simply not following socially acceptable behaviour. Of course there are genuine mental illnesses, but mental health is generally regarded as a continuum, a spectrum of behaviours.
When you strip away all the jargon, mental health is effectively defined as the ability to function within this society.
‘Sanity’ is a socially-defined concept.
In other times, other places, crazy people were regarded as having been touched by the gods. They were cared for within the community, even regarded as having the ability to step in between this world and alternative realties – shamans, in other words. Psychologists who have worked with acculturative stress (culture shock), especially where ‘primitive’ societies come into contact with Western technology-led consumerism see this more clearly than we do.
In 21st century Britain there is no room for shamans. In the world of manufactured pop entertainment, there is no room for Shirlena.
Normality is what we consider normal. It actually has little to do with health – and if you think our society is either psychologically healthy or actively promotes emotional well-being, then I have to say - you really are crazy.
Sometimes it is easy to spot the answer. A cheery wave and a laugh to the camera from a glory-hound who just wanted his few minutes of fame. A look of shock and betrayal on the face of someone who has never been told the truth. The rage of a young man who for the zillionth time in his life has been told he’s useless. The distress of a girl whose fantasy has just come crashing down, as though the handsome Prince has looked up at her in the window of her tower and exclaimed “Sheesh, you’re ugly” – and ridden on.
So many little cameos of shocked self-realisation. These are emotions I see all the time in my therapy room. But there I am providing a supportive environment where people can safely dismantle false perceptions of self. The X-Factor, by contrast, is brutal. Two minutes to spread your wings and allow your dream to take flight, and then for most a brutal firing-squad as you are shot down in flames.
It is fascinating television, which often leaves me sad and sometimes feeling rather guilty, embarrassed at being a voyeur of the crumbling of young dreams.
The disappointed many return to reality. Some will have support as they pick up the pieces, others will not. The X-Factor seems to have started to realise the implications of this, probably as a result of Susan Boyle, star of 2009’s Britain’s Got Talent show, apparently having a nervous breakdown in the face of intense media pressure. Consequently they have thrown out one of this year’s successful auditioners, Shirlena Johnson, over concerns about her mental health.
If you didn’t see Shirlena’s performance of Duffy’s hit ‘Mercy’, then you missed one of the best performances ever on a pop talent show. Pop? Well, it’s pop, Jim, but not as we know it. Shirlena’s rendition discarded Duffy’s lyrics and replaced them with her own stream-of-consciousness words; it was emotionally intense, mesmerising. I was absolutely engaged, rivetted. It wasn’t pop – it was a truly shamanic performance.
Simon Cowell’s reaction was 'You are completely crazy but I like that. You are fantastically nuts.' From a quick trawl round the internet, that seems to be the general opinion. Some loved her performance, others found it terrible, but everyone seems to agree that she’s crazy.
Well, here’s one dissenting voice. She’s not crazy – well, no more than any of us are.
What is ‘crazy’?
Mental health is not a clearly-defined concept. It can be defined negatively as the absence of a major mental disorder, or more positively as the ability to find satisfaction in work, play and loving relationships.
That sounds fairly reasonable, but people go through life never having had a truly fulfilling relationship; never discover their dreams and work towards fulfilling them; never rise above being a wage-slave surviving hand-to-mouth; and leave play behind in childhood.
And how safe is our definition of mental illness? It is well-known that the mental health system has historically been used as a form of social control. For example, women used to be put into insane asylums because of their promiscuity. Many people have been labelled as having a borderline personality disorder for simply not following socially acceptable behaviour. Of course there are genuine mental illnesses, but mental health is generally regarded as a continuum, a spectrum of behaviours.
When you strip away all the jargon, mental health is effectively defined as the ability to function within this society.
‘Sanity’ is a socially-defined concept.
In other times, other places, crazy people were regarded as having been touched by the gods. They were cared for within the community, even regarded as having the ability to step in between this world and alternative realties – shamans, in other words. Psychologists who have worked with acculturative stress (culture shock), especially where ‘primitive’ societies come into contact with Western technology-led consumerism see this more clearly than we do.
In 21st century Britain there is no room for shamans. In the world of manufactured pop entertainment, there is no room for Shirlena.
Normality is what we consider normal. It actually has little to do with health – and if you think our society is either psychologically healthy or actively promotes emotional well-being, then I have to say - you really are crazy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
