The video discusses the intricate topic of mental health by bringing Olga Takarchuk, a writer and former clinical psychologist, into conversation. Olga provides insight into how mental health is portrayed in literature, exploring the spectrum of mental states between what is considered normality and mental illness. She also addresses the societal views on the mental health crisis, especially among young people, and the need for collective action to address rising issues such as anxiety and depression.

Olga offers an analogy to describe the current state of mental health, likening it to the four riders of the apocalypse, including anxiety due to global instability, climate change-induced mourning, helplessness, which can evolve into aggression, and the "destructive mind" due to overexposure to information. She posits that a lack of genuine human and environmental connections exacerbates mental instability and that literature could be a tool for fostering empathy and understanding.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. spectrum [ˈspɛktrəm] - (noun) - A range of different positions, opinions, or situations between two extremes. - Synonyms: (range, gamut, scope)

...writes a lot about mental illness and the spectrum that exists between mental, for want of a better word, normality and mental illness.

2. transformational [ˌtrænsfərˈmeɪʃənəl] - (adjective) - Relating to or involving a change or transformation. - Synonyms: (transformative, revolutionary, progressive)

...they feel that we really require transformational change, colle action.

3. helplessness [ˈhɛlpləsnɪs] - (noun) - The inability to act or achieve things due to a lack of power or strength. - Synonyms: (powerlessness, incapacity, ineffectiveness)

So this feeling of helplessness is killing us.

4. dichotomy [daɪˈkɒtəmi] - (noun) - A division or contrast between two entirely different or opposite things. - Synonyms: (contrast, difference, polarity)

...this dichotomy between the need to diagnose and treat versus this view of mental health as a continuum.

5. continuum [kənˈtɪnjuəm] - (noun) - A continuous sequence or range where adjacent elements do not differ significantly, although extremes are quite distinct. - Synonyms: (unbroken sequence, progression, series)

...which is much more of a continuum of never a divergence across the continuum, a spectrum.

6. narrative [ˈnærətɪv] - (noun) - A spoken or written account of connected events; a story. - Synonyms: (story, account, tale)

narrative, every single narrative is good because it's creating like an ox of concentration of facts.

7. utopia [juːˈtəʊpiə] - (noun) - An imagined place or state where everything is perfect. - Synonyms: (paradise, ideal, perfection)

I can write an utopia. What will be later on in 200 years, for instance, if the world will be the same.

8. archaeologist [ˌɑːrkiˈɒlədʒɪst] - (noun) - A person who studies human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts. - Synonyms: (excavator, paleontologist, historian)

You have been called, and I quote, an archaeologist of collective psyche.

9. procrastinate [proʊˈkræstəˌneɪt] - (verb) - Delay or postpone an action; to put off doing something. - Synonyms: (delay, defer, postpone)

...which fascinating procrastinate me because sometimes I feel like in a prison...

10. empathy [ˈɛmpəθi] - (noun) - The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. - Synonyms: (compassion, understanding, sympathy)

Reading connects me with another. People can train us with empathy, showing the world we never have possibility to see, to meet...

A strange mirror - Nobel Week Dialogue 2024 - The Future of Health

So much to get through, right? How do you deal with a topic as complicated as mental health? Well, one way was, we thought was to have a conversation with Olga Takarchuk, who you've met already. Now Olga trained as a clinical psychologist and in her writing writes a lot about mental illness and the spectrum that exists between mental, for want of a better word, normality and mental illness. And she's going to be interviewed by Mariam Klissen. Please welcome them both.

Hi once again. So thank you, Ola Rosling. For those positive things I become better. But first of all, before the first question, I would like to confess that this is only my profession from the very far past. I don't work as a psychotherapist anymore. I devoted myself not to facts, but to imagination. And all my job is just inventing things which are not real. So I still. I'm not sure if I would be good source for information, valuable information here. But anyway, let's start.

I think on the contrary, to be very honest with you, this it's a great honor to talk about the intersection of mental health and literature and your contribution to us thinking about mental health in a different way. So thank you. You know, when you talk to many young people who would argue that we have a mental health crisis, Ola they would say that in order to tackle the rising anxiety, depression, suicide, ideation, self harm, those things that many young people are challenged with today, they feel that we really require transformational change, colle action. And that's being argued both at the individual, family and societal level. You have been called, and I quote, an archaeologist of collective psyche.

So I think you are the right person to ask how can we mobilize collective action? Do we have to all get collectively depressed first? As Ola said, it doesn't work. This is not true. But in my opinion I think that there is a big change in our mental well being, I would say. But depression is a word for me. It's too general and it's easy to just to say depression. It seems to me that there are four riders of apocalypse in our mental health.

Of course the anxiety, this is the first thing connected with the very not stable situation all over the world because of wars, chaotic situation, very quick changes and so on. But also climate changes and loss that we are losing things. And for instance, like species of many animals, every single year, every single month we losing something from the nature. And we are quite aware of this. So we could say that we are in the constant mourning. Mourning which is not expressed not even properly, but at All.

And the third rider is helplessness because we try to protest, we try to do, we try to sign a letter, letters and do everything what we imagine we can do. But it's futile, it doesn't work. So this feeling of helplessness is killing us. It seems to me that the psychologists used to say that helplessness very often becoming aggression. So this is my understanding of this cancel culture. So aggression, you know, towards people very similar to us.

And the fourth rider of Apokalypsa is kind of. How to call it, I forgot the word kind of that we are completely not concentrated all the time. That we are. Cannot concentrate on things we are perceiving, we are exper. Experienced and we. Destruction. Yeah, thank you. This is my destruction, destructive mind.

This destruction, destructive mind is everywhere. And we are, I would say even that the culture is destructive now because I'm thinking of myself when I'm sitting in the evening during the wintertime and watching this series in the television. So they are designed to catch our attention, but they are not working as a process as the human minds are accustomed to be in process all the time. So process is something in time when you have the beginning, the culmination and the resolution of this. And then our energy is working like this.

If we are not in this process, we are taking facts and we are always hungry. So it is like eating, you know, endless eating without like eating of air or like eating something which is completely not valuable for our stomach. So I have this just in mind, this metaphor from Buddhism. I don't know if you have heard that in one word during the Buddhists is hungry ghosts. They have a very big, large stomach and very thin throats, the gullets. And so they try to eat all the time, but they are always hungry, you know, and the greedy, the lust never be satisfied.

You know, it's fascinating because you describe in a very poetic way what I think many young people feel. Loneliness, helplessness and hopelessness which is coming out of some of the self reported things that young people share in anonymous helplines. My question to you is, you have also described mental health, that it's more about relations, interacting, being part of networks and not so much about an inner state. Is that a correct interpretation?

Yes. As I said before, it seems to me that this lack of mental stability, it's coming from disconnection. And we can understand this connection of very rich relationships with the people and other people, but also a relationship with our environment, with nature. So in a way we are staying disconnected, connected only with this strange distracted world in Our telephones, let's say. And in this, you know, bombarding of information and data we cannot complete in our head. So we used to see everything in the small windows. You know, this window is open. Oh, this is the war in Ukraine. The next window is the best shampoo for my hair.

So everything is connected and there is no this, like a frame we could put everything in and create a kind of pattern. Pattern to be understood. Our mind desperately needs something to understand, something to explain to ourselves. So this destructive mind, it's something new and I don't know how to treat it, what to do with this distracted mind. This is not enough to say that just put out our smartphones away. Just forget about spending evenings without this series in the television. I don't know. I don't know.

I am a writer. I can write an utopia. What will be later on in 200 years, for instance, if the world will be the same. But I cannot find a solution. We're not going to wait 200 years. We will. Yeah, that's already now.

Because you, you know, one thing that for dealing with mental health issues often say is something that holds back collective action, is that we have so many definitions. We don't have a common definition, we don't have a common narrative. And as a prior clinician, yourself, once upon a time, you know, the difference between those who really feel like mental health should have a diagnosis and a treatment. And then there is the thing one discover in your writing, which is much more of a continuum of never a divergence across the continuum, a spectrum. And it would be nice to hear your thought, both as a writer and as a previous psychoanalyst, this dichotomy between the need to diagnose and treat versus this view of mental health as a continuum.

Yes, this is. Thank you. That you perceive this, that we see it in my books. And I feel very safe in this kind of word because it seems to me that we should treat humanity, sorry for this big word, as a kind of hive, that every single organism or part of this organism is needed in terms of Darwinian evolution, because we have to have as many possibilities as we can. So every single individual keeps something which is very fragile from one side, but also very important, very precious.

And perhaps this is the kind of preparing ourselves as a society, as a humankind, for the future. You know, it's interesting listening to you because you've said you're not an activist, but you truly are through your writing. And I have to ask you about that, especially since we have many students and activists Here your writing has fueled and inspired both our way to think about what eating, but how we think about our fellow animals and the rights to survive and live.

So how do you view this? And what advice would you give not only to activists, but to be activists and stay mentally healthy? I said that I am not activist from the kind of psychological reasons because I have a. I don't like to be in presence of many people as I am here. I feel a little bit uneasy and I am not good manager of things. I am quite chaotic and so on.

And I treat myself as an activist sitting at home and writing. And even if my writing is not directly devoted, it is not, I hope, so didactic that I think things which I'm describing or touching are vivid to many people and changing their point of view, which I'm very proud of because it looks only that literature has a power still.

Yeah, and it certainly does. And I want to really close by asking you the title that this. You talked about window earlier. You also talk about mirrors. You have described mental health as in a strange mirror. Could you say something about that? It was in a broader context.

I think that what I had in my mind that I always very often thinks about it as I am looking for unusual narrators for my writing. So my. I would like in the future to be able to describe the world from the point of view of let's say fish or bee or, I don't know, tree. That would be incredible to make my consciousness larger, my awareness of the world. And also it will be great to understand the thing we don't understand from the other point of view.

This is really something which fascinating procrastinate me because sometimes I feel like in a prison that we can only see. We can only perceive what we are, what is reflecting through our senses. We can see only because we are reduced to our five senses. We are not able to imagine words from the point of view of the bee, let's say. So this perceiving entire reality like a strange mirror reflecting us in our strange world, we cannot manage really. And so it's making entire situation quite horror like.

So addressing this horror. If you still had patients today, or clients, as you had many years ago, and someone would come to you and said. You said literature is my therapy, what would you say to that person? Is it about reading or writing or both? I think both. During the lunch we had a small conversation with one person. And for me, writing and inventing things, it's for sure making me much more peaceful and making in my distracted mind making a kind of order.

So narrative, every single narrative is good because it's creating like an ox of concentration of facts. So I am escaping from the world of windows open and half open windows and trying to, you know, to make things in order. And also reading. Reading is the second part of this, the second side of this coin. Reading connects me with another. People can train us with empathy, showing the world we never have possibility to see, to meet, teach us how to understand different emotions.

We never had to smell another, smells to see another landscapes so we can travel. So when I was 12 years old, when I discovered Jules Verne and other writers for children, at the time, I was convinced that this business is the most important, most powerful business over the world.

I think that's a good note to end on. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks a.

EDUCATION, PHILOSOPHY, MOTIVATION, MENTAL HEALTH, OLGA TAKARCHUK, LITERATURE, NOBEL PRIZE