The Wonder of The Human Person - Some Books to Ponder and to Read: Shorter Notes II

My Copies of  these Books

Ivor Browne is in the news of late because he has published his collected writings, which span a period of fifty or more years as Ireland's leading psychiatrist.  This second book from his pen is simply called The Writings of Ivor Browne: Steps Along The Road: The Evolution of A Slow Learner (Atrium, UCC, 2013)  Previous to this he published a memoir entitled: Music and Madness (Atrium, UCC, 2008)  Therein, Browne tells the story of his unusually controversial and long career in psychiatry in Ireland.   I have had the privilege of hearing Ivor once and of having read several articles from his pen as well as many reviews of his work.  He was utterly sincere, passionate and inspiring as a speaker. He is also a wonderfully sensitive and compassionate human being and a marvellous Irish psychiatrist who has a broad humanitarian vision of the myriad possibilities of the human race.

Ivor was always a radical in the truest sense of that word.  He had and still has a propensity to get to the heart or to the root (radix = root; hence radical) of any problem.  What an achievement for a radical to get to the very top of his profession and remain radical!  I found a quote from Ivor on the site of the voluntary mental health organization Grow which is excellent in its sheer simplicity:

“To solve a problem, you need action by the person with the problem, you need the knowledge that’s appropriate to this specific situation, and you need the love, trust, motivation and objectivity between the people involved that creates the energy to move the process forward. That sums up what we as professionals should be all about. It also sums up what GROW is all about.” 

Book 1:  Music and Madness (Atrium, UCC, 2008)  

This memoir is divided into seven parts, which follow the chronology of his life.  While each section follows this pattern, this book is rightly called a memoir as it could in no sense be called an autobiography.  It is indeed filled with interesting things, both trivial and character-forming, about his personal life, but all the while we are very much in the presence of a wise old man ruminating on his professional and personal interests, both in his own mental health and that of all others whom he has met up till now in the course of his long life.  There is also much wisdom in these pages and an honesty, integrity and congruence that would put any of his readers to shame.  One would expect no less from an exceptional human being and a talented professor of psychiatry who is also a psychotherapist.  This is a book we read for insights into the human condition, and any purchaser would be disappointed were they not there aplenty.  

Like Dr Ronnie Laing, for Ivor, the patient is what psychiatry is all about.  The first task of any good psychiatrist is to take the patient seriously and to listen to his or her story no matter how mad, bad or sad it may be.  He also shows his deep dissatisfaction at the institutionalised and drug-dominated approach to psychiatry, though, of course, he stresses that medicines of various types all have an important role to play in maintaining mental health, as do all the forms of psychotherapy.  He also laments the drift of Western society into materialism and consumerism.

I love Ivor's take on psychosis and schizophrenia because I know several people with the latter.  He informs us that the textbooks describe schizophrenics as being emotionally blunted (Ivor's term) and as having very flat, indifferent personalities, almost expressionless. (My words and my own observations, not Ivor's):

Since then, I have had a number of similar experiences with people who were apparently emotionally blunted and I have come to realise that it is not that schizophrenics are incapable of feeling but rather that they are unable to maintain the normal boundedness between themselves and others, as they are far too open and vulnerable to being invaded by others in their vicinity.  The are unable to control the influences in their environment and their way of dealing with this is to take the drastic step of cutting off all relations with other persons.  My understanding of this inner world of the psychotic only developed gradually over the years. (Ibid., 59)

And, then, we have this astute observation after some years of practice:

It was the first real lesson I had in family psychiatry, for the truth is that, as a rule, the whole family is involved in psychiatric illness, although the main pathology may be channelled into one member.  Not only is the patient as a rule not able to stand up for himself, but also the families are not competent either.  (p. 63)

Ivor discusses many varied themes in this memoir, all concerned with good, decent mental health and well-being.  Overall, it is a riveting read that deals with his obsession with music (a good obsession indeed) and with madness and its lack of understanding in today's world.  No words of mine can really do justice to this fine, uplifting and inspiring book written with a compassionate desire to help others. 

Book 2: The Writings of Ivor Browne: Steps Along The Road: The Evolution of A Slow Learner (Atrium, UCC, 2013)

This is a wonderful book that charts the development in thinking of an Irish Professor of Psychiatry over fifty years, roughly from 1958 - 2008, in the service of mentally ill patients in the Republic of Ireland.  The papers are arranged chronologically and are best read in that order if the reader wants to get a sense of the development of ideas in a brilliant, creative and compassionate psychiatrist.  However, they can be read as stand-alone papers because that was the way they were written for various conferences, talks and journals - in other words, they are what one would call occasional papers.  Colm Tóibín's comment on the dust jacket is succinct and correct: these papers "are important documents as they display a single mind developing ideas over half a century; they are a vital contribution to the history of psychiatry in our time."  As a philosopher, I love Ivor's humble subtitle: "Steps Along The Road: The Evolution of A Slow Learner."  Socrates would be proud of this title, given his humble but searching approach to knowledge.  In his introduction, Ivor underlines the central themes and preoccupations of his research and practice, viz., (i) the organic and interrelated nature of everything in the world, (ii) the desire of all - especially patients - to achieve independence and autonomy, (iii) the importance of being a "bounded" human being, (iv) the importance of every person's taking responsibility for him or herself if they can at all, and finally (vi) the significance of our relationships with others.

There are many surprises in this book, chief of which for me was his thesis that there can be and ought to be "a therapeutic community within society," a thesis he adumbrated as early as 1969, over forty years ago.  There are other brilliant gems in this book, and one such gem that sparkled for me personally was his descriptive definition of the self, again in an early paper from 1970:

When we turn to humans, the situation is completely altered: what we recognise as the "self," the essential of our personality, is only there in potential and has to be built up from the experiences in which we are immersed from the moment of conception onwards.  This is not merely a descriptive statement, but literally means that the "building blocks" of the "self" are digested and internalised from the surrounding environment.  (pp. 53-55)

This book is compassionate and compelling and will keep any reader who is interested in mental health and the well-being of the human person enthralled for hours.  One will also gain not a little wisdom and practical advice from your engagement with the text, and indeed with this humble and compassionate author.