Sherwin Nuland: How electroshock therapy changed me

Summary

In this lighthearted and insightful talk, the speaker humorously explores the history of electroshock therapy, from ancient practices to modern medical advancements. He shares a deeply personal story about his battle with severe depression, describing how electroshock therapy ultimately saved his life after years of struggle. The speaker reflects on the challenges of mental illness, resilience, and recovery, offering hope and encouragement to anyone facing adversity. His story emphasizes that redemption and recovery are possible, even in the darkest of times.

Takeaways

• 😂 The speaker humorously starts by discussing mental illness, specifically electroshock therapy, in a lighthearted manner.
• 👻 Historically, mental illness was believed to be caused by evil spirits, leading to treatments like exorcisms and convulsion-inducing herbs.
• ⚡️ The discovery of using electricity for treatment began with observations of epileptic fits lifting depression, leading to the development of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
• 🐷 Early experiments with electroshock therapy were done on pigs before moving to human patients, starting with a 39-year-old schizophrenic man in Rome.
• 😲 Electroshock therapy proved effective in treating depression, though less so for schizophrenia, and became popular before the development of antidepressants.
• 💀 In the 1960s, the speaker experienced a deep depression due to personal and professional challenges, leading to hospitalization and consideration of a prefrontal lobotomy.
• ⚖️ A resident psychiatrist advocated for ECT instead of lobotomy, leading to the speaker undergoing 20 treatments that ultimately saved his life and allowed him to recover.
• 💪 The speaker credits the ECT for helping him regain mental clarity and control, particularly with his obsessive thoughts, through a personal mantra: 'Ah, fuck it.'
• 🎉 After recovering, the speaker rebuilt his personal and professional life, resuming his career as a surgeon and writer, and found long-term happiness.
• 🔥 The speaker emphasizes the universal themes of recovery, redemption, and resurrection, encouraging the audience to believe in the possibility of overcoming adversity, no matter how bleak.

Q & A

What was the theme of the speaker's previous talk?

The speaker's previous talk was about death and dying.

Why does the speaker choose to talk about electroshock therapy in this talk?

The speaker chose to talk about electroshock therapy because it aligns with the technological theme required for the talk, and it ties into the broader topic of mental illness.

What was the early belief about mental illness according to the speaker?

In early times, people believed that mental illness was caused by evil spirits entering the body, and treatments focused on exorcising these spirits.

How did early medical practitioners attempt to treat mental illness?

Early medical practitioners, starting with Hippocrates, used herbs that could cause convulsions, believing that shaking the body would expel the evil spirits causing mental illness.

What role did Benjamin Franklin play in the development of electroshock therapy?

Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with electricity, such as using a kite to harness lightning, inspired the idea of using electricity to induce convulsions in patients with mental illness.

How did electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) first become a treatment for depression?

In the 1930s, Italian psychiatrists observed that epileptic patients who experienced a series of seizures often saw their depression lift. This led to the development of electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression.

Why did the popularity of electroshock therapy decline in the 1960s?

The popularity of electroshock therapy declined in the 1960s because new antidepressant drugs became available, and patient rights groups raised concerns about the treatment methods, such as the lack of muscle relaxants during convulsions, which caused physical harm.

How did the introduction of muscle relaxants improve electroshock therapy?

Muscle relaxants allowed doctors to induce convulsions without causing physical harm, making the treatment safer by preventing bone fractures and other injuries during the seizures.

Why did the speaker personally undergo electroshock therapy, and what was the outcome?

The speaker underwent electroshock therapy because he was severely depressed and not responding to other treatments. After a long course of therapy, he experienced significant improvements, which allowed him to overcome his depression and regain his life.

What message does the speaker convey to the audience, particularly to younger people, by sharing his story?

The speaker conveys the message that adversity can happen to anyone, but recovery and redemption are possible, even from the most dire circumstances. He shares his story to inspire hope and resilience in others, particularly those who may face similar challenges.

Outlines

00:00

😀 A Lighthearted Approach to Mental Illness

The speaker humorously introduces the topic of mental illness, electroshock therapy, and the historical treatment of mental illnesses, starting with exorcising evil spirits. He highlights the development of convulsive therapy from herbal plants to the use of electricity in the 20th century, tracing how convulsions were seen as a way to treat depression and schizophrenia. A particular focus is placed on early experiments with camphor and the eventual use of electricity to induce controlled convulsions, leading to the first successful electroshock therapy treatment in Italy in 1932.

05:00

⚡ Early Success with Electroshock Therapy

The speaker continues the history of electroshock therapy, describing how it evolved into a popular treatment for depression after a successful case in Italy. Despite initial difficulties, including broken bones during seizures, advances in muscle relaxants allowed for safer procedures. Electroshock therapy remained popular until antidepressants were introduced in the 1960s, but it has seen a resurgence as an effective treatment for severe depression in recent years.

10:01

😔 A Personal Descent into Depression

The speaker shares his personal experience with severe depression, triggered by a failing marriage and childhood struggles. His condition worsened to the point where he could no longer function in his job as a surgeon, leading him to seek treatment in a psychiatric unit. Despite initial assurances from his colleagues, he became increasingly dysfunctional and was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where no treatments seemed to work, leading to discussions about more drastic measures, including a prefrontal lobotomy.

15:02

🧠 Electroshock Therapy as a Last Hope

The speaker recounts how a resident doctor opposed the decision for a prefrontal lobotomy and advocated for a course of electroshock therapy as a last attempt to treat the speaker's severe depression. The speaker underwent 20 sessions of electroshock therapy, and while the initial treatments showed little effect, he began to notice improvement after the ninth session. By the twentieth session, he felt a significant change, gaining the strength to overcome his obsessive thoughts and depression.

20:03

🔥 Resurrection and Recovery

The speaker describes his recovery and the return to a fulfilling life after electroshock therapy. He reflects on the importance of finding mental strength and his simple mantra, 'Ah, fuck it,' which helped him combat obsessive thoughts. The speaker shares how his career and family life flourished after his recovery. He concludes with a message of hope for both young and older audiences, emphasizing that adversity can be overcome and comparing personal recovery to the myth of the phoenix rising from its ashes.

Keywords

💡Electroshock therapy

Electroshock therapy, also known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), is a medical treatment that induces seizures in the brain through electrical currents. In the script, it is discussed as a form of treatment for severe mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia. The speaker reflects on its history and shares his personal experience, crediting it with saving his life after traditional treatments failed.

💡Depression

Depression is a mood disorder characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest, and impaired functioning. The speaker describes his own battle with severe depression, which worsened during a tumultuous marriage and almost led to his hospitalization for long-term care. His recovery from depression through electroshock therapy is a key theme in the story.

💡Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder involving distorted thinking, hallucinations, and a loss of touch with reality. In the transcript, the speaker discusses the early use of electroshock therapy on a schizophrenic patient who showed temporary improvement after treatment. Schizophrenia is presented as one of the mental illnesses that early psychiatry tried to treat with convulsions.

💡Convulsions

Convulsions, or seizures, are sudden, uncontrollable muscle contractions often associated with neurological disorders. Historically, convulsions were induced through herbs or electricity to 'shake' evil spirits out of mentally ill patients. The speaker explains how convulsions became a cornerstone in treating mental illness, particularly through electroshock therapy.

💡Obsessional thinking

Obsessional thinking refers to repetitive, intrusive thoughts that dominate a person's mind. The speaker shares his experience with obsessional thoughts during his depressive episode, describing how he developed rituals and obsessive thoughts about coincidences. Overcoming these thoughts was part of his recovery after electroshock therapy.

💡Prefrontal lobotomy

A prefrontal lobotomy is a now-obsolete surgical procedure that involved cutting the connections to the prefrontal cortex in the brain to treat severe mental disorders. The speaker mentions that his doctors considered performing a lobotomy when other treatments failed, but a resident suggested trying electroshock therapy instead. This decision ultimately led to the speaker’s recovery.

💡Mental hospital

A mental hospital is a specialized institution where individuals with severe mental illnesses receive long-term care. The speaker was admitted to a psychiatric hospital during the peak of his depression, where he underwent various treatments, including electroshock therapy. His description of the hospital experience highlights the gravity of his mental state.

💡Muscle relaxants

Muscle relaxants are drugs that prevent muscle contractions during medical procedures. In the context of electroshock therapy, muscle relaxants were developed in the 1950s to prevent patients from physically convulsing during treatment, reducing the risk of injury. The speaker notes how these drugs made electroshock therapy safer for patients.

💡Phoenix

The phoenix is a mythical bird that rises from its ashes, symbolizing rebirth and renewal. The speaker uses this metaphor to describe his own recovery after electroshock therapy. Despite reaching a point of near-total despair, he compares his eventual resurgence to the resurrection of the phoenix, suggesting that people can recover from extreme adversity.

💡Resurrection

Resurrection, in a broader sense, refers to the act of coming back to life or recovering from a major downfall. The speaker uses this concept to highlight the potential for personal recovery and transformation, as he overcame severe depression through electroshock therapy. He ties this idea to universal human experiences of redemption and renewal.

Highlights

Speaker chooses a lighthearted theme to discuss mental illness, specifically electroshock therapy.

Historical belief that mental illness was caused by evil spirits.

Early treatments involved exorcism and use of plants causing convulsions to expel evil spirits.

Paracelsus found a way to predict the degree of convulsion using camphor.

Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment led to considering electricity for medical convulsions.

Three Italian psychiatrists in 1932 observed that epileptic fits could alleviate depression.

First electroshock therapy was performed on a man with schizophrenia with surprising positive results.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) became popular in the 1930s and 1940s for treating depression.

Development of muscle relaxants in the 1950s made ECT safer by preventing physical convulsions.

Introduction of antidepressant drugs in the 1960s led to a decline in ECT's popularity.

ECT experienced a renaissance in the last decade due to its effectiveness in treating severe depression.

Speaker's personal experience with ECT that saved his life almost 30 years ago.

Description of the speaker's severe depression and failed treatments before ECT.

Against all odds, ECT was suggested and agreed upon as a last resort.

Remarkable recovery after a series of ECT treatments, changing the speaker's life.

The speaker shares his personal mantra 'Ah, fuck it' to combat obsessional thinking post-ECT.

The speaker's message of hope and resilience, emphasizing that recovery from adversity is possible.

The phoenix as a symbol of recovery and the theme of resurrection in various societies.

Transcripts

I'd like to do pretty much what I did the first time,

which is to choose a lighthearted theme.

Last time, I talked about death and dying.

(Laughter)

This time, I'm going to talk about mental illness.

(Laughter)

But it has to be technological,

so I'll talk about electroshock therapy.

(Laughter)

You know, ever since man had any notion

that some of his other people, his colleagues,

could be different, could be strange, could be severely depressed

or what we now recognize as schizophrenia,

he was certain that this kind of illness had to come from evil spirits

getting into the body.

So the way of treating these diseases in early times

was to, in some way or other, exorcise those evil spirits.

And this is still going on, as you know.

But it wasn't enough to use the priests.

When medicine became somewhat scientific, in about 450 BC,

with Hippocrates and those boys,

they tried to look for herbs, plants

that would literally shake the bad spirits out.

So they found certain plants that could cause convulsions.

And the herbals,

the botanical books of up to the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance,

are filled with prescriptions for causing convulsions

to shake the evil spirits out.

Finally, in about the 16th century,

a physician whose name was Theophrastus Bombastus Aureolus von Hohenheim --

called Paracelsus, a name probably familiar to some people here --

(Laughter)

good old Paracelsus --

found that he could predict the degree of convulsion

by using a measured amount of camphor to produce the convulsion.

Can you imagine going to your closet, pulling out a mothball

and chewing on it if you're feeling depressed?

It's better than Prozac, but I wouldn't recommend it.

(Laughter)

So, what we see in the 17th, 18th century

is the continued search for medications other than camphor that'll do the trick.

Well, along comes Benjamin Franklin,

and he comes close to convulsing himself

with a bolt of electricity off the end of his kite.

And so people begin thinking in terms of electricity to produce convulsions.

And then we fast-forward to about 1932,

when three Italian psychiatrists who were largely treating depression

began to notice among their patients, who were also epileptics,

that if they had a series of epileptic fits, a lot of them in a row --

the depression would very frequently lift.

Not only would it lift, but it might never return.

So they got very interested in producing convulsions,

measured types of convulsions.

And they thought,

"Well, we've got electricity, we'll plug somebody into the wall.

That always makes hair stand up and people shake a lot."

So they tried it on a few pigs, and none of the pigs were killed.

So they went to the police and they said,

"We know that at the Rome railroad station,

there are all these lost souls wandering around,

muttering gibberish.

Can you bring one of them to us?"

Someone who is, as the Italians say, "gagootz."

So they found this "gagootz" guy,

a 39-year-old man who was really hopelessly schizophrenic,

who was known, had been known for months,

to be literally defecating on himself,

talking nothing that made any sense,

and they brought him into the hospital.

So these three psychiatrists,

after about two or three weeks of observation,

laid him down on a table,

connected his temples to a very small source of current.

They thought, "Well, we'll try 55 volts, two-tenths of a second.

That's not going to do anything terrible to him."

So they did that.

Well, I have the following from a firsthand observer,

who told me this about 35 years ago,

when I was thinking about these things for some research project of mine.

He said, "This fellow" -- remember, he wasn't even put to sleep --

"after this major grand mal convulsion,

sat right up,

looked at these three fellas and said,

'What the fuck are you assholes trying to do?'"

(Laughter)

If I could only say that in Italian.

(Laughter)

Well, they were happy as could be,

because he hadn't said a rational word in the weeks of observation.

(Laughter)

So they plugged him in again,

and this time, they used 110 volts for half a second.

And to their amazement, after it was over,

he began speaking like he was perfectly well.

He relapsed a little bit, they gave him a series of treatments,

and he was essentially cured.

But of course, having schizophrenia,

within a few months, it returned.

But they wrote a paper about this,

and everybody in the western world began using electricity

to convulse people who were either schizophrenic

or severely depressed.

It didn't work very well on the schizophrenics,

but it was pretty clear in the '30s and by the middle of the '40s

that electroconvulsive therapy was very, very effective

in the treatment of depression.

And of course, in those days, there were no antidepressant drugs,

and it became very, very popular.

They would anesthetize people, convulse them ...

But the real difficulty was that there was no way to paralyze muscles.

So people would have a real grand mal seizure.

Bones were broken; especially in old, fragile people, you couldn't use it.

And then in the late 1950s, the so-called "muscle relaxants"

were developed by pharmacologists,

and it got so that you could induce a complete convulsion,

an electroencephalographic convulsion -- you could see it on the brain waves --

without causing any convulsion in the body

except a little bit of twitching of the toes.

So again, it was very, very popular and very, very useful.

Well, you know, in the middle '60s, the first antidepressants came out.

Tofranil was the first.

In the late '70s, early '80s, there were others,

and they were very effective.

And patients' rights groups seemed to get very upset

about the kinds of things that they would witness,

so the whole idea of electroconvulsive, electroshock therapy disappeared,

but has had a renaissance in the last 10 years.

And the reason that it has had a renaissance

is that probably about 10 percent of the people, severe depressives,

do not respond, regardless of what is done for them.

Now why am I telling you this story at this meeting?

I'm telling you this story because, actually,

ever since Richard called me and asked me to talk about --

as he asked all of his speakers --

to talk about something that would be new to this audience

that we had never talked about, never written about.

I've been planning this moment.

This reason really is that I am a man who, almost 30 years ago,

had his life saved by two long courses of electroshock therapy.

And let me tell you this story.

I was, in the 1960s, in a marriage.

To use the word "bad" would be perhaps the understatement of the year.

It was dreadful.

There are, I'm sure, enough divorced people in this room

to know about the hostility, the anger, who knows what.

Being someone who had had a very difficult childhood,

a very difficult adolescence --

it had to do with not quite poverty, but close.

It had to do with being brought up in a family where no one spoke English,

no one could read or write English.

It had to do with death and disease and lots of other things.

I was a little prone to depression.

So, as things got worse, as we really began to hate each other,

I became progressively depressed over a period of a couple of years

trying to save this marriage,

which was inevitably not to be saved.

Finally, I would schedule -- all my major surgical cases,

I was scheduling them for 12, one o'clock in the afternoon,

because I couldn't get out of bed before about 11 o'clock.

Anybody who's been depressed here knows what that's like.

I couldn't even pull the covers off myself.

Well, you're in a university medical center,

where everybody knows everybody.

And it's perfectly clear to my colleagues, so my referrals began to decrease.

As my referrals began to decrease,

I clearly became increasingly depressed,

until I thought, "My God, I can't work anymore."

And, in fact, it didn't make any difference,

because I didn't have any patients anymore.

So, with the advice of my physician,

I had myself admitted to the acute care psychiatric unit

of our university hospital.

And my colleagues, who had known me since medical school,

in that place, said, "Don't worry, Shep.

Six weeks, you're back in the operating room.

Everything's going to be great."

Well, you know what bovine stercus is?

That proved to be a lot of bovine stercus.

(Laughter)

I know some people who got tenure in that place with lies like that.

(Laughter)

(Laughter and applause)

So I was one of their failures.

But it wasn't that simple,

because by the time I got out of that unit,

I was not functional at all.

I could hardly see five feet in front of myself.

I shuffled when I walked. I was bowed over.

I rarely bathed.

I sometimes didn't shave.

It was dreadful.

And it was clear -- not to me,

because nothing was clear to me at that time anymore --

that I would need long-term hospitalization

in that awful place called a "mental hospital."

So I was admitted, in the spring of 1973,

to the Institute of Living, which used to be called the Hartford Retreat.

It was founded in the 18th century,

the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Connecticut,

other than the huge public hospitals that existed at that time.

And they tried everything they had.

They tried the usual psychotherapy.

They tried every medication available in those days.

And they did have Tofranil and other things -- Mellaril, who knows what.

Nothing happened except that I got jaundiced from one of these things.

And finally,

because I was well-known in Connecticut,

they decided they better have a meeting of the senior staff.

All the senior staff got together, and I later found out what happened.

They put all their heads together,

and they decided that there was nothing that could be done

for this surgeon who had essentially separated himself from the world,

who by that time had become so overwhelmed,

not just with depression and feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy,

but with obsessional thinking,

obsessional thinking about coincidences.

And there were particular numbers that every time I saw them,

just got me dreadfully upset, all kinds of ritualistic observances ...

just awful, awful stuff.

Remember when you were a kid, and you had to step on every line?

Well, I was a grown man who had all of these rituals,

and it got so there was a throbbing, there was a ferocious fear in my head.

You've seen this painting by Edvard Munch, "The Scream."

Every moment was a scream; it was impossible.

So they decided there was no therapy, there was no treatment.

But there was one treatment,

which actually had been pioneered at the Hartford Hospital

in the early 1940s,

and you can imagine what it was: it was prefrontal lobotomy.

(Imitates a popping sound)

So they decided -- I didn't know this, again, I found this out later --

that the only thing that could be done

was for this 43-year-old man to have a prefrontal lobotomy.

Well, as in all hospitals,

there was a resident assigned to my case.

He was 27 years old,

and he would meet with me two or three times a week.

And of course, I had been there, what, three or four months at the time.

He asked to meet with the senior staff, and they agreed to meet with him,

because he was very well thought of in that place.

They thought he had a really extraordinary future.

And he dug in his heels and said,

"No. I know this man better than any of you.

I have met with him over and over again.

You've just seen him from time to time. You've read reports and so forth.

I really honestly believe that the basic problem here is pure depression,

and all of the obsessional thinking comes out of it.

And you know, of course, what'll happen if you do a prefrontal lobotomy.

Any of the results along the spectrum,

from pretty bad to terrible, terrible, terrible, is going to happen.

If he does the best he can,

he will have no further obsessions,

probably no depression,

but his affect will be dulled,

he will never go back to surgery,

he will never be the loving father that he was to his two children,

his life will be changed.

If he has the usual result,

he'll end up like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'

And you know about that, just essentially in a stupor the rest of his life."

"Well," he said, "can't we try a course of electroshock therapy?"

And you know why they agreed?

They agreed to humor him.

They just thought, "Well, we'll give a course of 10.

So we'll lose a little time. Big deal. It doesn't make any difference."

So they gave the course of 10,

and the first -- the usual course, incidentally, was six to eight,

and still is six to eight --

plugged me into the wires, put me to sleep, gave me the muscle relaxant.

Six didn't work. Seven didn't work. Eight didn't work.

At nine, I noticed --

it's wonderful that I could notice anything --

I noticed a change.

And at 10, I noticed a real change.

And he went back to them,

and they agreed to do another 10.

Again, not a single one of them --

I think there are about seven or eight of them --

thought this would do any good.

They thought this was a temporary change.

But, lo and behold, by 16, by 17,

there were demonstrable differences in the way I felt.

By 18 and 19, I was sleeping through the night.

And by 20, I had the sense, I really had the sense,

that I could overcome this,

that I was now strong enough that by an act of will,

I could blow the obsessional thinking away.

I could blow the depression away.

And I've never forgotten -- I never will forget --

standing in the kitchen of the unit --

it was a Sunday morning in January of 1974 --

standing in the kitchen by myself and thinking,

"I've got the strength now to do this."

It was as though those tightly coiled wires in my head had been disconnected,

and I could think clearly.

But I need a formula.

I need some thing to say to myself

when I begin thinking obsessionally, obsessively.

Well, the Gilbert and Sullivan fans in this room

will remember "Ruddigore,"

and they will remember Mad Margaret,

and they will remember that she was married

to a fella named Sir Despard Murgatroyd.

And she used to go nuts every five minutes or so in the play.

And he said to her, "We must have a word to bring you back to reality,

and the word, my dear, will be 'Basingstoke.'"

So every time she got a little nuts, he would say, "Basingstoke!"

And she would say, "Basingstoke, it is!" And she'd be fine for a little while.

(Laughter)

Well, you know, I'm from the Bronx. I can't say "Basingstoke."

(Laughter)

But I had something better.

And it was very simple.

It was, "Ah, fuck it!"

(Laughter)

Much better than "Basingstoke,"

at least for me.

And it worked! My God, it worked.

Every time I would begin thinking obsessionally --

again, once more, after 20 shock treatments --

I would say, "Ah, fuck it."

And things got better and better,

and within three or four months,

I was discharged from that hospital.

I joined a group of surgeons, where I could work with other people,

in a community, not in New Haven, but fairly close by.

I stayed there for three years.

At the end of three years, I went back to New Haven,

had remarried by that time.

I brought my wife with me, actually, to make sure I could get through this.

My children

came back

to live with us.

We had two more children after that.

Resuscitated the career,

even better than it had been before.

Went right back into the university

and began to write books.

Well, you know,

it's been a wonderful life.

It's been, as I said, close to 30 years.

I stopped doing surgery about six years ago

and became a full-time writer, as many people know.

But it's been very exciting. It's been very happy.

Every once in a while, I have to say, "Ah, fuck it."

Every once in a while, I get somewhat depressed and a little obsessional.

So, I'm not free of all of this.

But it's worked. It's always worked.

Why have I chosen,

after never, ever talking about this,

to talk about it now?

Well, those of you who know some of these books

know that one is about death and dying,

one is about the human body and the human spirit,

one is about the way mystical thoughts are constantly in our minds.

And they have always to do with my own personal experiences.

One might think reading these books --

and I've gotten thousands of letters about them

by people who do think this --

that, based on my life's history as I portray it in the books,

my early life's history,

I am someone who has overcome adversity,

that I am someone who has drunk -- drank? -- drunk

of the bitter dregs of near-disaster in childhood

and emerged not just unscathed but strengthened.

I really have it figured out

so that I can advise people about death and dying,

so that I can talk about mysticism

and the human spirit.

And I've always felt guilty about that.

I've always felt that somehow I was an impostor,

because my readers don't know what I have just told you.

It's known by some people in New Haven, obviously,

but it is not generally known.

So one of the reasons that I have come here to talk about this today

is to -- frankly, selfishly --

unburden myself and let it be known

that this is not an untroubled mind that has written all of these books.

But more importantly, I think,

is the fact that a very significant proportion of people in this audience

are under 30,

and there are many, of course, who are well over 30.

For people under 30,

and it looks to me like almost all of you, I would say all of you,

are either on the cusp of a magnificent and exciting career

or right into a magnificent and exciting career:

anything can happen to you.

Things change.

Accidents happen.

Something from childhood comes back to haunt you.

You can be thrown off the track.

I hope it happens to none of you,

but it will probably happen to a small percentage of you.

To those to whom it doesn't happen, there will be adversities.

If I, with the bleakness of spirit -- with no spirit --

that I had in the 1970s,

and no possibility of recovery

as far as that group of very experienced psychiatrists thought,

if I can find my way back from this,

believe me, anybody can find their way back

from any adversity that exists in their lives.

And for those who are older,

who have lived through perhaps not something as bad as this,

but who have lived through difficult times,

perhaps where they lost everything, as I did,

and started out all over again:

some of these things will seem very familiar.

There is recovery.

There is redemption.

And there is resurrection.

There are resurrection themes

in every society that has ever been studied,

and it is because not just only do we fantasize

about the possibility of resurrection and recovery,

but it actually happens.

And it happens a lot.

Perhaps the most popular resurrection theme,

outside of specifically religious ones,

is the one about the phoenix, the ancient story of the phoenix,

who, every 500 years,

resurrects itself from its own ashes

to go on to live a life

that is even more beautiful than it was before.

Richard, thanks very much.