Blog
Welcome To Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley
©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique
experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you are going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight
attendant comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
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“;Holland?!?,” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’;m supposed to be in Italy. All my life II have dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath,you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has RembrandtsBut everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say ,” Yes, that’;s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things …about Holland.
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
Dalai Lama XIV, Desmond Tutu, Douglas Carlton Abrams (Translator)
Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.
The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.
From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives.
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Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.
Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.
Reviews
I want to wish all of you joy―because there is no better gift. Two spiritual masters, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, share their wisdom in this uplifting book. I promise you, it’s the best $26 you can spend. — Oprah Winfrey
A wonderful and uplifting book from two inspirational spiritual leaders. ― Frost Magazine
Absolutely incredible – lasting happiness in a changing world. — Gaby Roslin
I read the most amazing book last year called The Book of Joy. It’s the most wonderful book of two old men, with beautiful photographs of them laughing together, just talking about stories about humans and how they’ve been uplifted in their life. It really is the book of Joy. I’d just have to take that [to the desert island] because it would make me smile all the time. ― Desert Island Discs
An extraordinary read from two global spiritual giants […] The topics they cover, from the nature of true joy to its obstacles, as well as joy-boosting practices, offer a heartfelt and uplifting read, with practical advice on bringing more joy into each day. ― Wellbeing Magazine
About the Author
Dalai Lama (Author) His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibet. Today, he lives in exile in Northern India and works tirelessly on behalf of the Tibetan people, as well as travelling the world to give spiritual teachings to sell-out audiences. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Desmond Tutu (Author) The first black Archbishop of Cape Town, Tutu has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and today is Chair of a group of former world leaders, the Elders, which aims to tackle some of the world's most intractable problems.
He has helped calm the political crisis in Kenya and regularly speaks out against Mugabe, Israel, the Iraq War and the Burmese junta, but is also noted for his irrepressible sense of humour and deep spirituality. He lives in South Africa but travels widely.
Family and Schizophrenia
R. Srinivasa Murthy and A. Ghosh
Family has been an essential part of the mental health care programmes in India. The emphasis on the family as the single most important source of care is fairly unique for India and contrasts with the emphasis on the professionals and institutions in mental health care in
the developed countries.(Shankar, 1998, Srinivasa Murthy, 1999, Srinivasa Murthy, 2000).
The following aspects are considered in this review, namely, (i) role of family in mental health care in India, with special focus on schizophrenia, (ii) international developments in the area of family and schizophrenia, and (iii) future areas for work. The developments of the last 50 years in the area of family and schizophrenia can be seen as moving from need based response to understanding the family processes and in the more recent times making it an important part of the mental health care programmes of the country.
Mental retardation – Role of parents
Venkatesh K.R.
Karnataka Parents’ Association for Mentally Retarded Citizens [KPAMRC] is 26 years old now. The initiative to start this organization was many fold. The founder parents believed that the strength of the organization lies in several parents coming together for interacting,
exchanging views and putting up a common front for achieving the desired goal, namely rehabilitation of their wards and enabling them to join the mainstream of life, like all others. The ways and means were many. The parents jointly made earnest efforts to move forward in
as many ways as possible for achieving this goal.
The main focus of the parent is his ward, a special person who is also part of the community. Therefore, the Association took the first and probably the most important step to sensitize the people, the community and the society at large about mental retardation and other
developmental disabilities.
Book review “The Barefoot Counsellor”
Author: Joe Currie, SJ
Published by: Asian Trading Corporation Bengaluru, India
“Barefoot Counsellor” reveals its aim by the title; that it focuses on such techniques that can be practised by anyone interested in the field of counselling. And such persons or non professionals can then help the society at large. Peer counselling can work sometimes not if they don’t want to share something very personal which can be shared with a professional unknown person. Book even guides everyone who listens to their close ones feelings, sorrows related to day to day life or relationships etc.
I will take plenty of time & resources to produce man power of professionals in the field of mental health. Until that we have to train non professional counselors who can provide basic counseling services after a training program, to people in need or crisis. World itself is following the phenomenon of engaging paramedical workers into medical units and services at large. Similarly in mental health issues these trained but non professional counselors can handle situations well as available research indicates. Complex or later treatment of course should be handled by qualified professionals.