An interesting article from Will Hall, who is an advocate for better mental health treatment -
And when I finally do meet the people carrying that terrible, stigmatizing label of schizophrenia, what do I find? I find - a human being. A human who responds to the same listening and curiosity that I, or anyone, responds to. I find a human who is above all terrified, absolutely terrified, by some horrible trauma we may not see or understand. A human being who shows all the signs of flight and mistrust that go along with trauma. A person who may seem completely bizarre but who still responds to kindness and interest - and recoils, as we all would, from the rough handling and cold dismissal so often practiced by mental health professionals. Listening and curiosity might take skill and affinity, to be sure, when someone is in an alternate reality. But that just makes it our responsibility to provide that skill and affinity. Do we really want to add more force and more violence to a traumatized person’s life, just because we were not interested in finding a different way?