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ysilverman's picture

"Maybe we want always to

"Maybe we want always to encourage at least some element of possibility and agency?"

 I just feel there is a fundamental disagreement here based in how much agency a person has when they are lost in the muck/mire of severe emotional discomfort. I certainly believe that life is about encouraging an element of possibility and agency -- but I don't agree that helping to lessen severe suffering discourages that.

I still feel that we are, in some ways, glorifying what mental pain/suffering might actually be.

 Addendum: I more carefully reread what Professor Grobstein posted, and in fact, I feel like correcting myself, in that I agree more than I disagree. I think my knee-jerk annoyance occured because it did seem that there was a sense of "glorifying", as I mentioned above. Still, as I said even earlier, I simultaneously believe that even as we work to overcome/live with mental differences we can also grow and change with them, and that those experiences are crucial to what makes perceived positive change as much as perceived negative. So, I won't strike my initial post from record, but ... I will up-end its tone.

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