ABSTRACT

As doctors who have experienced mental illness, they have been through episodes that are strange and perhaps hard to understand. Like all of us, people with mental illness are prey to all the common psychological defences and cognitive distortions – the mind plays tricks. Cognitive distortions are a bit more subtle but just as normal and just as difficult to deal with. A commonly described symptom, especially in those suffering from depression, although also described in those suffering form a primary eating disorder. The feeling is one of being distanced from or separate from the world, so that people use terms such as ‘being in a goldfish bowl’, or ‘feeling there is an invisible barrier between patient and the world’. The main reason is relief from overwhelming feelings. So often people say that they vomit, cut etc. as a way of dealing with feelings they otherwise would not be able to cope with.