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I want to introduce this short Article by a young Finnish man that I met in his home city in Finland. I believe that it’s important to hear his tale because it is a positive statement that he ends with a sense of hope. I was
impressed by him during our brief encounter and he and I have continued our social relationship through e-mail. He is in treatment and I have every reason to believe that he will succeed in reconstructing his life. He certainly
shows determination and a willingness to respond to the human contact that psychotherapy owes to every person in treatment.
He has agreed to allow us to publish his very important message. His name is Marcus Herva, his e-mail address is marcus.herva@hyvanmielentalo.fi and he would be pleased to hear from you.
Last autumn I saw the following advertisement at the Cheerful House, Oulu, Finland:
"Conversational Meeting on Good Treatment of Schizophrenia. Californian psychologist, therapist Jack Rosberg visits the Cheerful House on
Monday 26 September 2005."
Mr. Rosberg's long efforts on treating schizophrenia, as well as his Method of Direct Confrontation, were mentioned. I checked the website (www.schizophrenia-help.com), read a few articles, and got
quite enthusiastic about it. So I prepared a little speech, which I sent to the head of the Cheerful House, and which she showed to Mrs. and Mr. Rosberg.
In the beginning of the meeting Mr. Rosberg wanted us, the audience, to
introduce ourselves. His lovely wife whose name was Ann, as I later found out, was sitting there. I looked at her. She winked at me. She looked like a fairy. Then it was my turn to introduce myself. I told that I am a mathematics teacher
and that I have been diagnosed as being a schizophrenic. I asked: "May I talk?". Jack Rosberg answered: "Maybe later, if we have got time." I said thank you.
Mr. Rosberg started his lecture. He mentioned some
people like H. S. Sullivan, Frida Fromm-Reichman and John Rosen, to whom he had written a letter and who had answered to him. He told that theories are for the therapist. It was about confronting people and forming a therapeutic alliance,
and it was about change. Then, at some point, he asked me to come forward. I asked: "There?" He said yes. Since I had prepared my speech, I had asked the reporter of the newspaper of the Cheerful House not to take a photograph of
me. I felt safe. There were not that many people present and I knew the organizing people of the House.
Jack Rosberg started a conversation with me. I told him that I had, as a patient, tried to read Benedetti. I am not used to talk
in English and had some difficulties to express myself, and to understand Mr. Rosberg's English.
Till this moment I remember everything clearly. From this on, it was more about the atmosphere. Jack Rosberg started to ask me some
simple questions. He would ask me questions about my experiences during my psychotic episodes, like: "You thought you were someone else?", and I would tell him: "Yes, like Dr. Faust", and: "You felt that you were
threatened?", I would say yes, and he would tell me that my symptoms are due to this fear, or anguish. Once he asked me something, and I guess he saw my reaction of which I was not at all conscious myself, because he told me: "I
am not making fun of you." It meant a lot to me.
I also told him something about my present situation and about the lady doctor who first of all talks, and secondly talks well, that is, makes herself understood with words. I
have got some kind of problem with words, and it is vital to me that people talk to me the way I understand.
Then Mr. Rosberg insisted upon answering him the following question: What is Schizophrenia? It had to do with the questions
of the speech I had prepared. I thought for a while, and nothing came to my mind. Then I said: "I think it is a historical phenomenon. Some people call some other people schizophrenic, and some day it won't happen anymore."
Now, whether I am schizophrenic or not, I do not know. I do know that certain people have got pretty strong opinions about this matter. They talk about illness, or disease, and all of that.
For instance, I have never lost
my ability to speak and to form meaningful sentences, except once. That was during my first psychosis in 1994. It was my first time in a psychiatric hospital, and they thought I was depressed and gave me some antidepressive drugs. I woke
up in the night, went to the corridor, and looked at the nurse, or maybe there were two of them. I do not know what they saw, but I was not able to talk. Next day they stopped to give me those drugs.
Furthermore, what happened
between Jack Rosberg and me is the direct opposite of some of my experiences during hospitalization.
I have never ceased try to reach to the other, to cry for human relatedness. Only if this cry is strong enough, people might as
well get scared. It can be dreadful in itself, but the more dreadful it is if language does not serve anymore its funtion to communicate, to unite people. If the doctor just watches and observes you, whatever you do and whatever you try to
communicate, then you very easily get the feeling that you have lost the human relatedness.
It takes lots of experience, intellect, and above all, compassion to confront people the way Jack Rosberg does. And I think that he was
able to create a kind of therapeutic alliance between us even in the short period of time of the event. Being direct and effective, that is what it is all about. Of course it helped that I was sympathetic to his ideas, as well as his
decades of experience.
There is yet one more unanswered question, the question whether I have changed.
There was something going on in me already before the event described above. I wrote down that something has moved
inside me. Ann and Jack Rosberg came to the stage at the right moment, so to speak. But then, I go down easily. I find it difficult to establish and maintain meaningful and important human relations. Somehow I feel that they are often
insecure, which makes it difficult to trust people. Or the other way round.
Nevertheless, I think there is hope. I do not know what tomorrow will bring with itself. Nobody does. However, for some reason it does not seem totally
black. There are a few people whom I trust. There are things I am interested in.
There is hope, and some day it will be reality. Whatever it is.
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