At Chestnut Lodge, psychoanalytic insight was often achieved by upending a person’s story: the therapist uncovered the unconscious conflict or fantasy around which the patient’s life had always secretly revolved. A biochemical framework for suffering can operate as a similar jolt, prompting a person to let go of an interpretation of the world that has made him or her hopeless. But to have a new explanatory framework foisted onto one’s life is not always healing or generative. It can also feel diminishing, a blow to one’s identity and worldview. “Where is the sensitive side of psychiatry?”
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