Understanding other brains

Alan Towers wrote an instructive, poignant comment about the difficulty that he had understanding that his schizophrenic son could not be EXPECTED to “make sense”, if sense was defined by the standards that applied for Alan, or for the wider society. Because so many people who live with psychotic illness or substantial neurological impairment require that their affected loved ones operate by THEIR rules and THEIR logical constructs and world view, they often abandon their children, relatives and friends as uncorrectible and irrecoverable, as lost souls. I’ve had a conversation about this subject with a number of individuals who live with someone who suffers from neurological or psychiatry illness, and know that this misunderstanding can be destructive for all concerned. It is widely prevalent. “Tom just doesn’t make sense. He just won’t listen to me. You can’t tell him a damn thing!” Alice says, almost perpetually irritated and driven to the point of almost total exasperation, as she describes her schizophrenic son. It is hard for her to understand that Tom’s brain is just not capable of making sense all the time, and that failing to do so is not exactly Tom’s fault. Or that it is just damned difficult to win an argument with a brain that is telling itself that IT is ALWAYS right! It reminds me of a story about my Great Uncle Jack. When I was a boy, I heard many stories about this family “black sheep”. Ev...
Source: On the Brain by Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Aging and the Brain Alzheimer’s Autism Origins, Treatments Brain Fitness BrainHQ Cognitive Impairment in Children Cognitive impairments Posit Science Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, et alia Source Type: blogs