WEDNESDAY: Denmark decides to give it a try!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2026

The stigma of "mental illness:" Is this country currently dealing with an unfortunate but dangerous situation involving some form of "mental illness?" 

Last Thursday night, on CNN, Mary L. Trump said yes. Back in 2020, she had offered similar thoughts about a presidential candidate in her best-selling family memoir, Too Much and Never Enough.

Before that, back in 2017, the Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee had edited a collection of essays in which, correctly or otherwise, various medical specialists addressed the same set of concerns. Her book was a best-seller too. Her thumbnail reads like this:

Bandy X. Lee

Bandy Xenobia Lee is an American psychiatrist whose scholarly work includes a textbook on violence. She is a specialist in public health approaches to violence prevention who consulted with the World Health Organization and initiated reforms at New York's Rikers Island Correctional Facility. She helped draft the United Nations chapter on "Violence Against Children" leads a project group for the WHO's Violence Prevention Alliance, and has contributed to prison reform in the United States and around the world. She taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School from 2003 to 2020.

Unfortunately, yes! In 2020, she ended up losing her position at Yale. Wisely or otherwise, Dr. Lee had been breaking the rules.

The rules still say that issues of mental illness, disorder or health may not be brought across the borders which limit the reach of the American political discourse. Journalists have religiously followed that rule ever since (roughly) the 1960s, except during brief periods when the MSM decided they wanted to question the mental health of Candidate Al Gore.

(In such ways, they managed to drag Candidate Bush across the finish line. That story has never been told by major mainstream orgs, because that's the way games are played.)

Just a guess! It's largely the stigma associated with "mental illness" that has helped keep that rule firmly in place. Presumably, that stigma also lies behind this reported change in preferred language in this arena, as reported by the leading authority on such terminology:

Mental disorder

A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.

[....]

Most international clinical documents use the term mental "disorder," while "illness" is also common. It has been noted that using the term "mental" (i.e., of the mind) is not necessarily meant to imply separateness from the brain or body. 

And so on, at enormous length from there.

Stigma is as stigma does, Mother Gump always said—and in the area of "mental illness," stigma can do great harm. For that reason, one of those annoying Euro nations has undertaken a program described by the New York Times in a lengthy report which carries this dual headline:

A Danish Program Takes On the Stigma of Mental Illness
One of Us, run by Denmark’s health ministry, works with people with mental health conditions to share their stories in schools, hospitals and police stations, helping turn fear into understanding.

In his report, Simar Bajaj uses a variety of terms—mental illness, mental disorders, mental health challenges. He mainly deals with people suffering from the ravages of schizophrenia—people who understand, acknowledge and know that, through no fault of their own, they're afflicted with a very difficult mental health condition and challenge.

One such person is Giuseppe Parlatore. Here's part of his role in Denmark's undertaking:

For years after he was diagnosed in 2009, Mr. Parlatore, 42, felt like schizophrenia had swallowed him up, leaving him “more or less a vegetable,” he said. But he has worked hard to manage the voices he hears—making deals, setting boundaries—and to carve out a life beyond his illness.

Today he is one of Denmark’s leading mental health advocates, working with the country’s top health officials to change how the public sees mental illness.

This government initiative, called One of Us, works with people who have mental health challenges—the program calls them ambassadors—to share their stories in schools, hospitals and police stations, with a focus on their recovery.

Why would Parlatore be sharing his story in police stations? Hopefully, so police officers can learn better ways of dealing with the occasional situation in which some person may be responding to their interventions in ways they don't understand and may mistakenly see as threatening.

None of this directly relates to the situation Mary Trump and Bandy X. Lee have said we're currently facing. For today, we'll leave you with a supposition:

People who are "mentally ill" (OldSpeak) didn't choose to be so afflicted. 

Some such people know they have a serious "illness" with which they must learn to deal. Depending on the specific condition in question, many other afflicted people one hundred percent do not.

"No people are uninteresting," the poet once said. He gave it voice all the way down.