Everyone knows the tale of the Phoenix, the mythical bird who regenerates from its own flaming ashes. Nice trick, that.The idea of re- incarnation is one that seems basic in the human psyche - it appears in virtually all societies. The thought is that we see it in action, symbolically, in people who suffer - and overcome - great adversity.
Dr. Sherwin Nuland is one of those people. A surgeon, he is perhaps uniquely positioned to describe this rebirth via electroshock therapy not just as a man of science, but as a patient. It's an amazing story, that highlights that the Mind is truly an unknowable land.
It's not an easy talk to listen to, because you realize that the Phoenix cannot regenerate without first burning to ash.
UPDATE 3 July 2010 13:24: More on electroshock therapy here.
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i am a rising phoenix, if i'm lucky i'll have feathers when i'm old
There's a cemetery right next to the dog park by the state institution, where volunteers have began to find names to go with the unmarked grave markers from patients that died at Western....this graveyard so far has many marked as dying in 1934, when they did a lot of insulin shock therapy.
The reason the dog park is there, is because it is where the old farm used to be, where the patients could work at a dairy farm, until activists proclaimed "not right to make money off of the patients". then the popular "groups" were started in the '70s.
I'm an activist. I also know that working on the dairy farm was hell of a lot better than making bead bracelets while locked up.
Ted.com and the Last Lecture series, example: http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html
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