Sublime

The kind of madness I had was different. It was quiet, and very, very dangerous. It was a madness designed to keep me sane.

Now Lina gets these pains, and she believes in her clearer moments that the pains are the heartaches of the past, of being lonely for eleven years. Of being raped. Of being lonely her whole life.

Does that mean that psychiatry leaves no room for divinity? That we’d medicate a person out of what could otherwise be a transformative and saintly life? That we’d subjugate—or, worse, block—some message from God?”

The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we kno

I find my patients much more interesting than their diseases.

My mum had gum disease when she was fully human and, gradually, over the last couple of centuries, her teeth have, one by one, fallen out. The last tooth, a sharp and pointed molar, came out while she slept one night, when I was around twenty, and was there on her pillow in the morning – the last semblance of her demon body, she said, that God had

And what’s more, I would miss the voices if they ever went. In that respect, I should maybe consider insuring them, because if they do ever go, I’d be out of a job.