hile going to/coming back from the city center, I had to pass by a hospital situated in a fairly wide area where I witnessed the presence of poor people walking around in the garden, who clearly are different from so called ‘normal’ healthy people.
These people walking around in their assigned areas for all to see are identified in society as ‘psychiatric cases’.

Insanity is described as the quality of a person who turns completely against society, who even may not identify with moral values and who exhibits extremely mixed emotions peculiar to himself. For normal people throughout the centuries, this term“insanity” has been a symbol causing fear and needing to be avoided. In today’s psychiatric terminology ‘psychosis’ is defined as breaking with reality, making false assumptions, withdrawing into one’s shell, cutting ties with society and depending by animal instincts.
‘Neurosis’, however, is generally considered to be among the tolerable disorders due to the fact that it shows symptoms related to misinterpreting impulses and thoughts.

There are several evaluations collected under the name of “insanity”.
It’s possible to come across many examples of psychiatric practices, ranging from that in the USA, where repeated attempts of the black slaves to run away from where they worked was treated as a disease called “drapethomany” to that in Moscow where a handful of intellectuals who protested the Russian Army’s conquest of Czechoslovakia were imprisoned in nut houses...
Today, just like in the old days, there are citizens who want to be declared “insane” reports to avoid unwanted obligations (appointments, for example). For the person branded “insane”, it offers an ideal opportunity to extract himself from his responsibilities and the “normal” requirements of social life...

More over, the number of people who attempt to have their old and rich relatives certified insane to gain a large share of the inheritance before the poor people have even died are not few.
In other words, it is possible, with the help of that hidden face of psychiatry, to label these poor unfortunates “insane” and characterize them as not being able to cope with the dominant social order.

Not being able to behave according to the norms and values of the individuals forming a particular society, and demonstrating sudden and determined opinions and behaviors contrary to what others are accustomed to lie at the heart of the subject. Instinctive, unpressured and unconditioned behavior can be observed in certain people because their braincortex which organizes the necessities of “diverse” life is almost completely nonfunctional. It’s as though these people experience no stress at all; thus, psychosomatic diseases seldom affect them...

When we go back to the past, we can see that many famous people are remembered as “insane”. Hitler, who is described as a butcher of people in Germany, which can be considered as the homeland of psychiatry, Nero who set fire to Rome , and certain Ottoman Sultans who mercilessly had their brothers killed so as not to threaten their sovereignty, are some of the most significant examples.

The truth of the matter is that, being able to think beyond our basic premises and norms will take us from limited beings to expand our horizons limitlessly and boundlessly. It is necessary to distinguish this type of behavior from insane behavior. There is an expression frequently used among people:
“A person can not become “wise” (veli) unless forty people call him “insane.”

Istanbul-August 23^th 2000
http://afyuksel.com