I just finished reading Sylvia Nasar’s biography of John Nash: the brilliant mathematician who did his best work in his twenties, was schizophrenic from his thirties to his fifties, and then spontaneously recovered in his sixties and went on to win the Nobel Prize.

Nasar says three things helped Nash recover – his own persistence in trying to get better, the support of his wife and friends, and the natural body changes that come with aging. He had not been taking any medicine, or in fact any kind of treatment, for his condition for the twenty years prior to his recovery.

The support of his wife and friends and no drugs: now that is something that is difficult for a lot of us to accept, and it goes against political correctness. In the film version  Nash’s character claims that newest generation of antipsychotic medicines ‘don’t cure (him), but they help.’ The real John Nash, when asked if this was true, denied it, and attributed the ‘quote’ to artistic license.

Many ‘advocacy groups’ for mental illnesses praised the film, but Nash’s real experience (as opposed to the film) goes against their current official stand on psychopharmacology - that drugs are necessary to cure mental illnesses. It seems to confirm what anti-establishment psychiatrists like Peter Breggin have said: recovery from mental illness needs a ‘healing presence’ - one element of which is love and acceptance - rather than a prescription of medicines.

Nash himself has said he was lucky he refused to take his medicines and could get away with it. Taking antipsychotic medicines over years leads to a kind of mental fog, and causes tardive dyskinesia - distressing abnormal movements and tics - that would have made his gentle reentry into normal life impossible.

Of course, love alone is not enough. You need knowledge, skills, and resources. Medicine alone is not enough either, and it can actually be harmful.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more about mental illness and recovery:

1. The need to reduce the stigma of mental illness

2. Men avoid seeking help for mental illnesses

3. Twenty million Indians have mental disorders

4. Understanding mental illness through gene-environment interactions

Mahesh Bhatt a film director of the Indian Bollywood is not unknown for creating controversy prior to release of his films and create a small stir on the media. A very cheap and sometimes effective way to seek pre-release free publicity. This time his stir has gone a little too far involving someone who loved him, confided in him and shared her most personal moments.

‘Who Lamhe’ his current release is partly based on his own intense relationship with the 70’s volumptuous diva Praveen Babi. The story is apparently about her schizophrenia, loneliness and depression.

To make the film noticed and get talked about the director has released bits from the personal notes that the lonely actress sent to him in all confidence. Mahesh has conveniently exploited these weak but very personal moments of the actress and released them to a newspaper in Mumbai.

In an interview to a news channel he claims that he was only trying to convey the message that schizophrenia can be treated by love and not ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy). Claiming that the dairy was his personal property he could use it anyway he
wanted. He felt there was nothing wrong in his act.

This stand and attitude makes one wonder on the current values and examples that are set by our celebrities. It was one of the most pathetic display of vulgar sentiments in a interview that I have witnessed in recent times. How low can one get to win publicity one wonders.

Praveen Babi was a dignified and a very gracious lady suffering from Diabetes and Schizophrenia. She came from a royal background and in her time became the darling of the media and Bollywood so much so that even the magazine Time featured her on its cover. She always kept a distance from scandals and her illness seems to have made her a bit of recluse. She passed away quietly last year.

If Praveen Babi was looking down from the heavens she maybe wondering ‘why she trusted her life with a man like Bhatt’. Must make her wonder who is more sick – she or him.

In recent times it is usually the media that offers large sums to get the juicy bits of personal life of a celebrity- as was in the case of Princess Diana; but this is must be the first instance where a celebrity has exploited his own moments to get this type of cheap publicity. He cannot hood wink the public by giving statements on medical condition and talk about that beautiful word called love.

Mahesh to you love only has a commercial meaning even if it means putting your own love in the glare of media and creating sensationalism. Have some respect for the dead person you claim to have loved. Please leave them alone. At least don’t say to the whole wide world that by ‘love alone’ one can help a schizophrenic patient.