We should listen seriousiy to mad people, for, in phrases that are usually clumsy, ill-constructed. and even banal, they try to tell us of voyages of the human soul that make the wanderings of Odysseus seem no more than a Sunday's outing. They tell us of a purgatory from which none returns unscathed. They tell us of another world than this: but mostly we don't hear. because we are talking at them to assure them that they are mistaken. Sometimes, when they might make their escape. we do not heed, or even unwittingly drive them back into hell. The least we can do for these far voyagers is to hear them courteously and try to do them no harm.
From ‘On Being Mad’ by Humphry Osmond in the Saskatchewan Psychiatric Services Journal, 1952.
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