ABSTRACT
Living creates sadness and despair nowadays labeled and monetized as “clinical depression” and other “disorders of mood.” This chapter talks about that trauma, stress, distress, and life itself produce profound difficulties and, in human terms, staggering consequences, is true for “madness” too. There is simply no good reason to suppose that “madness” is a disease, any more than there is good reason to suppose that despair or severe anxiety are diseases. We all deal with many stressful events in our lives—divorce, rejection, redundancy, bitter disappointments, bereavement and various kinds of failure. Even positive events—winning the lottery, for example—can be stressful. Much evidence has now accumulated to suggest that like other mental health problems, psychosis can be a reaction to such stressful events and life circumstances, particularly abuse or other forms of trauma. Experiencing multiple childhood traumas appears to give approximately the same risk of developing psychosis as smoking does for developing lung cancer.
