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Non-Verbal Behaviour in Mental Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Denis Hill Sir
Denis Hill Sir*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
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Extract

It is a paradox that during the years of psychosocial development each man has to achieve an identity, a role in which he can feel secure, and yet poets and philosophers tell us that man is forever seeking to diminish the isolation which a personal identity imposes. Without the development of a personal identity and a role in life the individual remains a social isolate, a dependent parasite or a social deviant. Yet, once achieved, identity brings a new awareness of separateness from others and a need to merge the self with others, to identify with someone or something else. This would seem to be a main objective of love. It has been said that human love is the supreme act of communication with another, a merging of identity, and poets speak of communicating with nature or with God in like terms. Romantic and sacred literature abound in metaphors and images describing the bliss which such activity offers. If it is true that while we have a need to develop a sense of personal selfhood, an identity and a role, we have a further need to diminish the separateness such awareness imposes, how do we go about it? The contemporary answer is, of course, by communication, by relating to others. The better the communication we have with others, the greater our sense of belongingness, the less the pain of individual isolation. It is not necessary to emphasize that a cardinal feature of all severe mental illness is either a loss or a distortion of the individual's communicative capacity. But I would like to emphasize that the debate as to whether failure of communication is either a cause, or an association, or a consequence of mental illness is not my theme.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 124 , Issue 580 , March 1974 , pp. 221 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

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