This review is many months overdue, sadly. The topic is pretty heavy for me, and you’ll have to forgive me for how emotionally-charged this review is going to be. I’ll explain why later on.

So, The Wisdom of Mental Illness. I requested it from NetGalley specifically because, as a mentally-ill person, the book’s allegedly about people like me. Of course I’m going to need to read it. So, how does it measure up?

Yikes. There’s some positives here, but precious little. The author does a decent job discussing the (frankly awful) American pharmaceutical industry and how it relates to the usage of psychiatric medication. My perspective? I do agree that many psychiatric medications suck.

While we can do better, I’d expect little else from the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. I’m thankful for Seroquel when I needed it, but am equally grateful I didn’t take it long term. I would hope that the future brings better options for people like me.

While Hughes seems to think the use of medication implies or depends on a biological model for mental illness, I disagree. The drugs are volatile and unpredictable, but many can be useful, regardless of whether they “cure” the illness or not.

I’m open-minded about drug use, even some of those awful laboratory chemicals. I also think the lines between self-exploration, cure, and alleviating symptoms (all three) can blur significantly at times, depending on the substance.

The author discusses what he calls the “pathologization of normal life.” This idea gets tossed around a lot, especially in books like this, and especially in the past few decades. It’s almost entirely a fallacy. It doesn’t really hold water.

True, something like “social anxiety disorder” sounds (to neurotypicals) like a universal experience rather than an actual condition. The truth is that when social anxiety becomes pathological, those suffering often get brushed off, not needlessly pathologized. Even getting other people to acknowledge there’s a problem (and get them on board with your recovery) can be extremely difficult.

Why? It’s primarily because of misinformation like this. If people think psychiatry is “pathologizing” normal experiences, they’re much less likely to take it seriously when a loved one expresses depression, anxiety (or even mania).

Most people with mood and anxiety disorders (like myself) have had the experience of someone saying to us, “everyone gets sad sometimes,” or “<I> get nervous sometimes, too, but I don’t treat it as a disorder,” etc. This response has become so common that we (people with mood and anxiety disorders) often joke about it, and how frustrating it can be.

It is true that, in cases of psychosis or suicide attempts, a person can be (sometimes) forced into treatment, but only if they’re dangerous to themselves or others. You won’t be locked up for normal human behavior that’s been “pathologized.”

As many neurodivergent folks know, even obtaining basic mental health treatment can be difficult if there’s not a perceived crisis point. Here in America, there’s a critical shortage of all mental health professionals - psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, and then some. This is especially true in rural areas, and it can lead to situations where someone (in crisis) waits six months for an appointment with an already overtaxed mental health professional.

With few people able to afford comprehensive (or even basic) mental health services, it’s hard to argue that we’re all at risk of being “pathologized” for our quirks.

Interestingly, it seems there’s not as much discussion of mental illnesses that aren’t either mystical shamanic psychosis or Jungian deep dive depression. Some of the other authors providing accounts have experienced illnesses like anorexia nervosa, but this is framed as resulting from said Jungian depression or societal pressure interfering with shamanic awakenings.

The author claims that there’s an epidemic of “narcissism” and entitlement because of selfies, social media, and participation trophies, though. Those darned millennials, no doubt! Not a particularly original, nuanced, or insightful take. I half-expected him to bring up avocado toast! I guess that particular illness (narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness, after all!) doesn’t contain Hughes’s preferred brand of wisdom.

Some of the other authors who contributed do mention eating disorders and other experiences. It’s worth noting that some of these people seem to be former clients of Jez Hughes who came to him for “shamanic healing.” Many of them had terrible experiences with psychiatry, and it’s not my place to invalidate the healing they found elsewhere. Still, in a way, these folks are self-selected; you won’t find stories from people like me in here, because that’d torpedo the concept.

In a way, the book is a sales pitch for Hughes’s particular means of coping with mental distress. When Hughes highlights the abuses of modern psychiatry, it’s mostly to set up his “shamanic” alternative in a positive light. He puts a bit of effort into attacking the more biological claims of psychiatry, too. Specifically, the author claims that there’s “no evidence” that mental illness gets passed on in genetics.

Uh. The evidence is actually quite clear that it does have a genetic component.

Some will argue that any evidence of a genetic origin could just as easily point to a traumatic origin for the illness, given that trauma bonds are a thing within families. I do believe there’s an element of that in some cases, but there’s overwhelming evidence of an actual genetic component in many cases.

Hughes, on his website and elsewhere, namedrops the science of “epigenetics” to explain why some people need to come to home for ancestral healing. This isn’t a well-understood field, but it doesn’t undo the evidence we’ve seen of a genetic component.

When every child in a family (including those raised elsewhere) end up experiencing the exact same alternating cycles of depression and elation, you do have to consider the possibility that bipolar disorder could be passed down from family. I’ve definitely seen it in my own family, but the stigma made it hard for people to openly discuss.

In many instances the author describes how psychiatry makes people think they’re broken or inherently devalued due to having a diagnosis. Hughes seems to, in particular, associate this with the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness. And, he’s right - that sometimes happens. The stigma’s real.

He wants to do away with that stigma by reframing mental illness as “shaman sickness.” The problem is that it’s a false (and dangerous) dichotomy. It’s perfectly possible for us to acknowledge we have a diagnosis (chemical-inspired or otherwise) without automatically jumping to the conclusion that it means we’re broken.

We can accept our neurodivergence and love ourselves, even if we’re popping meds rather than living out the New Age movement’s romanticized notion of madness. While it may not be the intention, his approach does contribute to existing stigma.

But, once again, as I’ve said before, this is all just a way to set up psychiatry as the devaluing inquisitor so that Hughes’s “shamanic” alternative seems the only reasonable choice for someone wishing to keep their sense of self intact.

If you’re seeking other (in my opinion, better) books on mental illness, psychiatry, medication, and that sort of thing, I’d say this one pairs well with The Day the Voices Stopped as a counterpoint, and Muses, Madmen and Prophets as a better take on the subject in general.

Before I go, I think it’s wise to just be blunt here. I have a lot of trauma surrounding people trying to convince me my mental illnesses were spiritual in nature and interfering with my treatment because of it. Several times I ended up in life-threatening situations. If this review is a bit “off,” that’s why. You can say I’m biased, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve seen where some of this can lead.

Jez Hughes has written a strange and fascinating book. I reread pages, I copied out passages, I got frustrated at the repetition and occasional overemphasis on the same things but I was never bored. The book is a slanted look at mental health and the psychiatric "industry" by ignoring the way these things are dealt with in the west. It takes the view that shamanism and indigenous peoples have mental health issues but they deal with them very differently.

It’s the Foucaultian argument about who decides who is mentally ill? Where do we draw lines? If you think we don’t, then remember how often the diagnosis manual has been rewritten. We need to be visiting these issues. Three decades ago the average age for the onset of depression was 30. Today it is 14. Mr Hughes argues that everyday life is at risk of being pathologized. We are being sold forest bathing and spiritual awareness courses and books because we have detached ourselves from the things that matter.

If we think in the west that we handle mental illness well and have answers, then why are double the number of women on antidepressants than men and why are black people four times more likely to be detained under the mental health act than white people.

Shamanism is essentially concerned with survival of the tribe. It is not to do with individual enlightenment or spiritual development - a misinterpretation in the modern world. Shamans often fight against their "calling" as it is an onerous burden. But the author shows how their practices help in some cultures in dealing with difference and ‘possession’.

The book is full of research and at times drifts a bit from the argument but it is definitely thought provoking and I will be reading more by this author.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley

Other ways of viewing mental illness – a spiritual perspective 3.5 rating, raised

This is certainly an interesting approach, one which gives more agency, and less purely mechanistic, biochemical fixing of something seen as broken.

There is far more of a focus in Western medicine in seeing almost every variety of human emotional and mental response as potentially a pathology which might be broken, and can be fixed by biochemical means, as whatever is going on, has biochemical, neurochemical markers. So…there is a lot of fixing the faulty chemistry of an aberrance seen as an individual problem.

There have been other cultures which have seen ‘madness’ as something which may have wider origins than the individual, and, indeed, perhaps even a mark of being touched by the divine, with the sufferer being broken by taken out of a place of comfort in order to grow into being one who is divinely tested and transformed. The breaking of the safe illusions and deceits which most of us inhabit on a day to day existence, may allow dialogue with the sacred, and lead to the ability to heal others. That is, the shamanic journey.

There’s a lot of interest in shamanism in the West, and no doubt some of it is because we have a predilection for the quick fix! Whether than is the cosh of the Western pharmacopeia or the flashy transformations of psychedelics!

Hughes has been on this challenging journey himself, to a place of breakdown, and a place of healing through shamanic wisdom, and is now a shaman himself.

In many ways, this is a different version of the ‘antipsychiatry’ movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Society itself as the broken, and those who individually are broken by something the rest of us more or less live somewhat equitably within, are the sane ones, though suffering, and we are the deluded and numbed off from reality.

My somewhat challenge with this book is twofold – one stylistic, one its theories and conclusions.

Stylistically, there’s a lot of repetition and effectively the same things said, over and over

Nor do I believe that every mental and emotional breakdown and challenge is divine. That old Romantic view of the divine madness of the artist, that all of this is a prerequisite of creative genius. Some individual madness certainly is a sane response to the insanity of a world which is often collectively aberrant - and neither shamanism nor pharmacological drugs are going to provide solutions to what may be caused by, for example, racism, inequality, poverty, disempowerment etc. And some individual madness IS the result of endocrine malfunction, kidney failure, etc.

Maybe NO overarching solution, one size fits all response is the answer

A challenging and, yes, thought provoking read, which is rather as it should be!

The book is inspired to think differently about mental illness. I always were interested in non traditional medicine, but never were thinking about spiritual experiences changing people's lives. It was nice to get some insight on the things I didn't know before.

This book was interesting to read. I didn't completely agree with the information around the anti-psychiatry movement, but it raised some insightful points. It was interesting to reflect on psychiatry from a perspective other than western. There was a fair bit of repetition of content, which could have been streamlined. Nevertheless, this was a worthwhile read.

This book was more interesting than I expected it to be. There was a lot of content around the anti-psychiatry movement which although I don’t agree with it, does raise some interesting concepts. It was also really interesting to see psychiatry from a perspective other than the white western perspective we’re used to seeing. However, I did think there was a LOT of repetition of content in this, as well as it feeling a bit pushy in places.

A fascinating insight into mental illness. This book explores how the ancient path of shamanism can help us to understand the nature of mental illness, recasting psychological breakdown as a potentially transformational experience. What we label as pathological could actually be an initiation into a better relationship with ourselves and the world.

This was an interesting look at how mental illness and spiritual experiences have crossover. It focuses on shamans' experiences in particular with a mix of anecdotes and quoted references. This book got me thinking about both spirituality and mental illness in a slightly different way. Good read.