Unlocking the Mind: A Journey Through Human Emotions and Mental Health (1970s)

[Music] we've learned a lot about it that world out there in fact For Better or Worse we've created most of it we've made tools and we've manipulated nature change our surroundings here on Earth and even off of it but what a curious creature man is from what he's learned down through ages has concerned things other than himself oh yes of course we have learned a good deal about the human how it works we've learned to diagnose how to treat them and yet when we get up here in this area gets a bit more difficult and yet the mind is the very thing that makes man unique it accounts for all that is out there and of course what goes on in here in this very private place that each of us has determines how we function out there in the everyday world but it's difficult to learn how the mind functions because what goes on in here is so abstract when a malfunction occurs it's harder to diagnose after after all you can't x-ray an emotional crisis or take the Pulse of a bruised ego however one way or another most of us recognize thing up here isn't working quite right and we express it in everyday conversation for instance when we're telling about a particular experience we've had so here I had been rehearsing the presentation for 2 days but when they called on me I absolutely went blank I got the sashed out everything's fine then I see this chick man I see this chick at and I just flipped out was gotten along before and I still don't know exactly why but I absolutely blew my top I had 14 people coming to dinner and the cook tells me she's leaving well I came unglued we say this drives us wild or this breaks us up we say one guy has a good head on his shoulders and the next he's out of his gourd we've developed a pretty spectacular way of talking about our mental state and I suppose that's as good a way as any of expressing our tensions frustrations anxieties our moments of fear of Happiness well-being after all you can imagine the problems we might have communicating our emotions if we all use textbook jargon when I initially encountered you I suffered a temporary a catatonic reaction triggered perhaps by fear of rejection syndrome but now that we're related ing I'm undergoing an emotional catharsis I feel a compulsion to establish a direct one-to-one feedback relationship I do not share the interpersonal psychodynamics of your fantasy so knock off this irrational Behavior what's rational and what isn't rational is sometimes simply a matter of viewpoint none of us has all the traits of rational thinking and behavior all of the time there are many different degrees of of mental health just as there are physical health for instance do you ever have days when you feel like this or like this and at other times we become more like certainly sometimes we feel like this and on other occasions quite the [Music] opposite of course we all have this common every one of us is after all only human but when we get over those passing feelings we can laugh at them because we've all had them and part of being human is having our own idiosyncrasies our own viewpoints our own differences as part of what makes us unique your head what [Music] is not just because the next fellow is different that doesn't make him abnormal or irrational are crazy for example what is considered normal in one segment of our society may seem quite peculiar in [Music] another the way one person reacts to something isn't necessarily the way another person [Music] does these differences enrich our world by accepting them we can enrich our lives I don't we get a few pictures in this Bame my grandmother that guy even in our individual experience we find these contrasts what may be acceptable behavior in one situation may not be appropriate in another [Music] situation of course most of us most of the time can agree on what is appropriate and normal what is real all we have to do is use our heads right all right let's try using our heads on this which rectangle is smaller the one on the bottom sure seems smaller doesn't it let's see just as an optical illusion can trick our eye and cause us to misjudge reality tension and anxiety can distort our perception and the senator predicted bipartisan support for the initiative on the local scene police are still searching for the so-called doorbell gunman the mysterious armed Intruder who has terrorized five young women in as many weeks in his latest attack the gunman followed his pattern of ringing the doorbell of a Midtown apartment and for in [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi Mrs Johnson mom sent me over to borrow a cup of sugar anxiety or tension can be useful too somewhat like hunger and thirst not only are they natural they're necessary to human [Music] survival these are reactions which help us protect ourselves when we're conf fronted by a dangerous situation without them we might not be able to react effectively in an [Music] [Music] emergency sometimes we voluntarily put ourselves in situations where we'll feel tense and anxious like when we go to a sports event or watch Adventure films or read murder mysteries [Music] we call it getting a thrill and it's both a stimulating source of pleasure and a mentally healthy way of blowing off steam from other tensions that may have been building up in our lives it's the tensions and anxieties we haven't chosen for ourselves the ones that are unpleasurable above us the most and we all have them whether we're aware of it or not sometimes we think of this as being unique to our times we've even given our contemporary seed a name The Age of Anxiety but every age has had its own stresses and worries to cope with our ancestors had plenty of reason for tensions of Their Own from the threat of attack by saber-tooth tiger to the threats of flood and drought and famine from the imagin dangers of Witchcraft evil curses black magic to the very real hazards of plague pestilence and slavery so being concerned with our soul in the times in which we live is nothing new nothing unusual the difference is today life is more complex conflicted demands are made on us change is so rapid that an answer that seems right one day may be wrong the next traditional codes of dos and don'ts are constantly being challenged we're surrounded by threats to our safety our wellbeing our happiness we're all confronted by these threats to our peace of mind to be alive is to be subject to stress so we all have anxieties intention at certain times in the course of Our Lives it's Norm to be a little more sensitive uptight like when we're on Theo major changes in our life stages such as adolescence menopause or when we make a big change in our style of living perhaps marriage birth of a child or when we lose someone we're close to sometimes too for very personal reasons we have strong reactions reactions that might make very little sense to another person for instance if as a small child a very small child you'd been separated from your parents in the park for the rest of your life you might feel very real Panic anytime you were alone in a large open space and you might not even know the reason why you feel that way J is the next guy might not know why he has some particular fear for instance an exaggerated fear of heights George now you know you shouldn't be up there with that broken arm you aren't in any shape to try something like that Larry come up and paint that ceiling for George you know I'm afraid of heights I get dizzy that's ridiculous and you just give right up there look I can't help it being on a ladder bothers me that's the nuttiest excuse I've ever heard of there's nothing wrong with you except you're lazy you know that when we can make allowances for the other guy's problems of attitude and behavior as easily as we can for physical problems we take an important step toward our own mental well-being of course there are times when we all get worn out edgy perhaps a Siege of trouble exhausting work we can't seem to reason things out or we get frustrated we had caught in an impass a conflict we can't seem to find a solution when these things happen sometimes we can't control our feelings even lose control of our actions it's quite normal to have these bouts of anxiety and tension and while they may be unpleasant and even painful they're not cause for concern so long as we can bounce back from them as long as we can successfully adapt we can continue to learn and [Music] grow but some of us sometimes can't seem to bounce back can't seem to recover our balance we find that our lives have become an entire series of crisis instead of occasional passing emotional upsets we have prolonged periods of intense anxiety and tension or depression we can get so caught up in these troubles that they can cause even more worries and it becomes a vicious circle we can find that we're constantly down on the dumps for no apparent reason getting terribly concerned over insignificant Trifles becoming belligerent Moody suspicious mistrustful or escaping into Daydreams and fan or feeling guilty or worthless or unwanted these are only a few of the symptoms that tell us that our problems May no longer be just an upset or a disturbance but an actual illness just as there are many different symptoms there may be many different reasons even scientists who specialize in the human mind are unsure of the cause of some forms of Mental Illness but whatever the cause whatever form the illness takes tell telling a mentally ill person to snap out of it without some professional help is the same as expecting someone with appendicitis to forget about it when emotional upsets become frequent and persist and Shake someone severely when they start interfering with his ability to deal with his family or his job or with other people it's time to get help if a physical problem is left alone it may get worse the same thing is true for other problems too I've still got this pain in my side you know had it about a month now last couple of weeks I've hardly been able to hold down anything I bet I haven't had a good night's sleep in 10 days I'm telling you Frank you ought to see a doctor and find out what goes on there yeah yeah I guess maybe you're right hey how about you things looking up a little don't ask boy the kids the wife the in-laws the boss even the janitors got it in for me around here I can't sleep nights I can't eat I can't even keep my mind on my job I'm cranky you know I'm I'm depressed all the time I don't know it's like I'm on a downhill slide over the last couple of months everything cracking up around me most part is I don't know when it's going to stop I'm telling you you ought to see about getting some help find out what's going on yeah I guess you're right you might think that needing help with such problem sets a person apart makes him very different from everyone else not so in fact one out of every four people will find this out from very personal experience because one out of four has someone in his immediate family who at some time will have a disturbance serious enough to require professional attention once a person starts getting that help it isn't long before the problem start clearing up and the person who seeks help has already taken an important step toward his own personal growth I think I might have been mentally ill or emotionally ill before that but I think the divorce precipitated the the action of getting help I guess about a year and a half ago I just completely went into Solitude like I just wasn't paying attention to anybody I went from school to my job and home and the thing in itself caused the fear of being uh treated by a doctor because I felt that I was getting messages from outer space or uh maybe uh secret messages that nobody should know and I didn't want anybody to be asking me questions about it my U firstborn son was 2 years old and I we realized that he was hyperactive and wasn't responding and reacting the way other children his age were well I was forgetting everything that I learned in school and I all I was doing was just you know m around I quit the job and uh went home and locked all the doors and pulled all the drapes and took a bottle and um started to drink and got depressed or got depressed and started to drink I really don't know which and made a suicide attempt a lot of things were facing me like bills and troubles and uh a lot of people had a lot of uh different gripes about me and I was upsetting the household my son is is the uh is an special school for emotionally disturbed children and at the beginning uh we noticed it because he wouldn't talk and whenever I show up on the scene he'd start crying and screaming and like I said I remember very being very whiny and I would cry easily and I'd be just depressed all the time just constantly depressed and I gradually went into a deep depression and that was the diagnosis that the doctor made when my friend took me for help I don't know how I came to you know realize that I wasn't happy or whatever but uh I just you know thought it'd be a good thing to go see a psychiatrist or something so uh I looked into them and you know I found one I've been told and I I think it's true that the illness that I've experienced throughout my life for 30 years has been what they call cyclical in other words every 3 years it starts up so uh I began to eventually learn that that when I needed help there was a place to get it Mark is my oldest and uh I have five other younger children it was very difficult for them it was confusing for them we started out on the basis that it was a family problem which it was and the only way to help Mark was to help all of us it was a family therapy situation all seen individually you know I thought it really would be too late but the treatment is something that it's really helping me out quite a bit I was um determined not to face reality and thought that as long as I didn't have to think about anything and could had my friend the bottle with me it worked out pretty well for a while but then it led to very serious things after the suicide attempt is when I knew right then and there that I needed help desperately and then I uh it was recommended to me and I accepted it daycare I didn't know at the time that the hospital would be uh quite like it is which has helped me quite a bit I do know that one of the big things that I had and apparently a lot of the parents have in this field with uh emotionally disturbed kids there's a great guilt feeling that the parent has he feels that there something I've done or haven't done that this poor kid is suffering now you know and and therapy helps to alleviate that somewhat for example when I first went to the psychiatrist you know I was sort of scared of her because she could I sort of felt that she could see me much clearer than I could see myself it was a scary thing to do but it was really worthwhile I'm ever going and just not getting anywhere for so long because it's just so hard to I think the hardest thing is to face yourself and to face what you think is so horrible all the things you've repressed all your life I I think I've just accepted myself better i' I was raised with thought that I was physically very ugly and uh I've had to learn to say to myself you are not terribly ugly people would turn away if you were that you've never done anything like this before you I don't know you think I'm not nuts what do I have to go talk to this guy for that that kind of stuff you know it's okay my kid yeah you take him twice a week but leave me alone but uh after a while it became something I'd look forward to uh for example uh what somebody wants to talk to me about my troubles for an hour they'll listen remarkable you know now I think uh that she's an asset um it's a good deal to have her I can take advantage of you know her skills her knowledge and what she now knows about me me it's it's not a scary thing it's you know it's a good thing the therapy that I'm in now the weekly meetings I am able to release anger that I am not able to release on my job or at home because I live alone but um just accepting myself and and uh doing what I enjoy doing without trying to meet a pattern I think I've been very fortunate in the therapists that I have and the counselors that I have because they've given me like homework to do you concentrate on one little thing at a time and overcome that and uh I'm still doing homework I feel a lot different I feel I feel like um I'm not as lost as I was and it's brought out of you slowly they try to bring all this anxiety or whatever your trouble is out into the open with others and they talk to you about it they talk about your problems they talk about their problems and everybody else's problems and how one person is like another person and slowly you pass that stage after a while and you start doing your own talking I thought of it first and now I see how it helped me and how it's helped Larry that uh it's good to know that people can seek out that sort of thing now that it's not a mysterious thing as it used to be in the so-called Dark Ages before mental illness was recognized as something not to be ashamed of or feel guilty about people who have known me uh said how can you bear to say that you've been in a mental hospital I said well the same reason I tell him I was in the hospital for my appendix I said it's an illness and I'm not ashamed of it the medication that they have today that's available today uh these things are much more easily helped and and uh there isn't a lot to be afraid of today what my psychiatrist is doing now is showing me uh a better way or rather helping me cope with life in general we're able to go on to the next goal and we're able to cope with with that together they can completely wrap you up into a brand new life that's what the whole thing is based upon is your life people's feelings well I've regained an awful lot of self-confidence I know and um I really think I like myself a lot better I like myself better than I ever did before I like myself better a whole lot better I feel very lucky if you got a problem take it to a doctor that's the first step and it's not a matter of money or connections or anything else you yourself have to realize that yes there is a problem and I'm going to do something about it to look in that mirror and say that yeah it's you you got the problem now what are you going to do about it you know the point is when help is needed help is usually available and it makes a big difference in solving problems that might seem [Music] ins peace of mind happiness enjoyment satisfaction mental health is a matter of getting it all together it has to do with how we feel about ourselves how we feel about other people how we're able to meet the demands of Life contrasting reactions moods viewpoints eccentricities quirks tensions anxieties different mental States at different times deep feelings strong emotions these are all part of a human condition and so are the problems they sometimes give us now it's very human to try to solve those problems by ourselves when we can it's also very human to get help from others when we need it and there are people who do need help in putting together the puzzle of their lives fortunately there are lots of people who can help people who are specialist in human problems people who are trained to either give treatment when needed or suggest those who can after all the Quest for Peace of Mind is universal so there are many different doors it's simply good sense to choose someone who has experience in training and helping people find Solutions and whatever those problems may be you can be sure there are others who've had the same kinds of problems so there's always someone who can land a hand if we have trouble finding that someone troubl making a choice is always another alternative get in touch with the local Mental Health Association they can suggest people to see tell us what resources are available in our community mail out information to [Music] us that's their business opening doors for people who need help to people who can [Music] help and whether we get help in a personal crisis or hand it by ourselves The Experience changes us a little when we come through it we find we've grown we've learned we've become a little tougher and maybe a little bit wiser instead of finding crisis out there we begin to see [Music] challenges that's quite a world not always an easy one far from a perfect one and we all see it differently but getting to know how we fit into it getting to know oneself that is the most important and exciting of all human adventures and if we should need help getting to know ourselves it's good to know that there are people around who can give us a hand [Music] oh [Music] a [Music]