No Mind is an Island. On ‘mental illness’ and the reciprocity of minds

by Peter Raabe

Abstract

This essay disputes the approach to so-called ‘mental illness’ in which the individual patient is presumed to be the locus of his or her ‘disorder,’ and should therefore be treated with mind-altering drugs. My position is predicated on the conviction that no one’s mind is a totally isolated island in the dynamic sea of human interactions and cognitions, and should not be treated as such.