support therapy

Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Fri, 03 Apr 1998 08:40:01 +0000

	`...Mental health is a mystery, still, and so much of it is due 
	to the chemical soup swimming in our bodies and our brains...'

	Tim obviously knows a great deal more about mental illness than 
	the rest of us. His psychiatric buddy who `completely fixes' his 
	patients with the same facility that his medical colleagues fix 
	their diabetic patients seems to have made a convert.  
	(Incidentally, I wonder how many people there are on the list 
	with diabetes who lives have been freed by insulin, who never 
	have to worry each day about their diet, can forget their blood 
	levels, their exercise, their monthly attendance at the clinic ...?)

	I hope his reassurance & advice to Helena to keep taking 
	the medicine doesn't come across as too condescending.  I'm afraid 
	if I were in her shoes I should feel ever so slightly stigmatised 
	or even `weekened'.

	Actually, I feel a tiny bit stigmatised myself with that final 
	little scream: 
		`...eek, I sure hope we don't sound like a "mens' club"; yuck!..'  

	What's that meant to mean ?  You can scarcely move around here 
	for the throngs of beautiful lady Ozzies - but even if it were 
	otherwise what's so terrible about men's associations ?  I hope 
	Tim doesn't feel inclined to make this kind of crack about the 
	Roman Curia or the Dalai Lama's outfit.

	Scottie B.