To...Everyone,
I wanted to mention an article in last Sunday's New York Times. I thought I had it with me, but of course I don't! Anyway, I'll bring it for next time but here's what it said: a recent study, the most comprehensive of its kind, concluded that nearly half, that's NEARLY HALF, THAT'S NEARLY HALF (are ya' listening?) of all Americans will suffer some form of mental illness in their lives. When Jeanne and I wrote The Panic Diaries, it was very hard to get solid numbers on the statistics of how many people are suffering. We decided that the pieces of the pie don't add up and that there must be a couple of pies - but none of the pies all put together came up with any number like this - that's 150,000,000 people. YIKES!!!!!!!

So what's to be done? Well, talk about being less alone than you thought, huh? That's the good news - the other good news (in my view) is that if THAT MANY PEOPLE have "mental illness" then maybe there's something wrong with the model and the language and all the things that go along with that. I think we need a broader concept of mind and richer understanding of the impact of experience and how a person comes to get stuck inside of fear or fall into depression or dissociative disorders. There are some people working on this - you can only believe that with "the most comprehensive study of its kind" coming out with such an incredible number, more and more people - from the President down to the corner doctor and the swanky shrink or the narrow-minded psychiatrist - will start paying attention and thinking and rethinking our current approach to "mental illness."

-Julie