We know very well why people become mentally ill. What we don’t understand is why people survive the traumas of their lives as well as they do. We know exactly why certain people commit suicide. We don’t know, within the ordinary concepts of causality, why certain others don’t commit suicide. All we can say is that there is a force, the mechanics of which we do not fully understand, that seems to operate routinely in most people to protect and to foster their mental health even under the most adverse conditions.
