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Our first session seemed to me to have gotten a lot of issues out on the table that needed to get there so we can look more closely at them in relation to other things in weeks to come. Thanks all. Glad as well to have the continuing thoughts/reactions/exchanges above. Is from/through all that that we'll get to ... wherever we get to, hopefully some "less wrong" places than any of us started with.

Two aspects of our first conversation struck me with particular force. One was the need to look at issues of mental health not only from a broader cultural perspective but also from a broader historical one (see suggestions in Books and Topics on-line forums). It may indeed be that for many people issues of mental health seem to arise only in developed countries (and in privileged populations within them) and are a "luxury item" that only developed countries have the wherewithal to address. And that view might in turn help to explain why "mental health" isn't treated with the same urgency as "physical health" in the US (and other countries?). "Mental health" as the term is frequently used may indeed be time/culture specific, but many of the phenomena under that umbrella (behavioral phenomena that we currently term schizophrenia, depression, delusions, anti-social behavior, etc) are clearly not. And we almost certainly have useful things to learn from how other cultures at other times understood and dealt with them.

The other thing I particularly noticed from our first session was the centrality of the mind/body problem, how frequently it came up in connection with a variety of other issues. "Physical health" (body?) is essential; "mental health" (mind?) a luxury? What people can't be blamed for (body?) versus what they can (mind?). What doctors are trained to deal with ("body"?) as opposed to what they aren't ("mind"?). Perhaps a change in how we think about the relation between the mind and the body might give us a new and more productive way to look at all these and additional issues as well ("character problems" vs "mental health problems")? And perhaps such a shift is neither so improbable nor so far in the future as some might think? (see The brain as a learner/inquirer/creator: some implications of its organization for individual and social well-being and The mind-body problem: in theory, in life, in politics).

It would be interesting if that also helped with the issue of whether what is needed for a less fragmented and more enlightened approach to mental health is an "attitudinal change" or more knowledge. Perhaps an "attitudinal change" could occur based on the knowledge we have already and that in turn might contribute to finding more useful knowledge? In any case, I think we're all in agreement that we need next to think more about what we mean by "mental health." With the objective, perhaps, of bringing about some attitudinal changes? Would those be in the mind or in the body?