We are living at a time when mental health is a frequent subject in the news and entertainment media. Still, to be diagnosed with a mental illness carries a difficult burden of stigma, as if to have a mental illness makes the sufferer a lesser version of a human being.

In this section of the website, I will be offering brief summaries of materials, along with links and citations, that explore the multiple ways in which mental health has the power to capture our imaginations and to explain things we find difficult or mysterious.

Where current scientific research is focused on materialist explanations of mental states via neuroscience and brain function, and while those unfolding discoveries are compelling, equally important are the social and cultural context through which we employ psychological language and concepts to make sense of our experience of self and other.

I hope to provide an alternative perspective to the prejudice that comes with thinking of mental illness as a deficit. I will also reflect on my own experience as a therapist, both the joys and challenges of the work. My hope is that these musings will place some of the experiences usually categorized as mental illness into a broader vision of the diversity of human experience while also nurturing a respect for the psychological suffering that is endemic to our time.