An interview realized by Bernard Klein, published in "La Vie Naturelle", April 1995

Dr. Mantel, can one suffer without being psychically ill, and can one be ill without suffering?

In a very wide sense, it is legitimate to consider all suffering as an illness. Inversely, one can also say that in all mental illness there is suffering. The depressed will manifest this suffering by interiorising, turning against the self, whereas the excited will express it in the form of restlessness, as an attempt to eliminate inner tension.

And we also find these two same processes in ordinary psychological functioning. In each of us, there may be either an internal reaction, engendering culpability, that is, a turning of violence against one's self-image, and therefore depression, suicidal wishes, etc.; or on the contrary, an external reaction, with mental projections that makes others responsible for our own suffering, and which causes aggression. Fundamentally, the primun movens is therefore the same, but it is expressed in different ways according to the mould of the personality.

Having said this, one must of course take the quantitative dimension into account. As long as this suffering remains quantitatively moderate, one may speak of the ordinary personality, with its habitual levels of consciousness and compensation system which don't function too badly; But when these compensatory systems are defective, the strength of suffering becomes greater, and we may then witness that which we call mental illness.

But in reality one may then apply the term mental illness to everybody?

Yes, I think that only an awakened man, one who is liberated from all forms of interior conflicts, who can qualify as healthy. The functioning of this awakened being is constantly harmonious, and adapted to all situations as he is absolutely no longer prisoner of inner tensions.

Nevertheless, even though there are very few sane beings, every one of us aspires to live this plenitude of interior sanity, and each and everyone, through his existential problems learns to find in himself that which is a harmonious functioning.

It is very important to realise that healthiness (sanity) is not something to acquire, but that it exists in each of us. It is present, but simply unrealised. It is masked by mental agitation, by internal confusion, by the state of contraction in which we habitually live. And this is why I think it is very bad to label somebody in terms of sickness. It is much more positive for him to see himself in terms of a being who is fundamentally sane... but who does not know yet how to live his health.

In this way, by starting with the healthy part and by referring constantly to this fundamental harmony which guides us all, one can offer more opportunities of healing to the patient than if one restricts him in the belief that he is sick.

The mental illness of the ordinary man who believes himself sane under the pretext that he is normal has been termed normosis by some people. What do you think of this concept?

I would like to specify this notion of normosis: It consists of functional, compensatory systems of a moderate state of suffering. They are escape systems. For example you take one or two whiskies in order to feel more relaxed; so you have at your disposal a means of adaptation which functions temporarily, but which cannot be considered a real cure. The conflict remains, suffering persists, but it is hidden. All sorts of compensatory systems exist from food, to sex, to restlessness, which permit one to rid oneself of tension, but which at any moment, through development, will appear insufficient. To go deeper into the roots of suffering then appears as a necessity.

Do you not believe that a civilisation such as that of Egypt in the age of the pharaohs, or any other traditional civilisation, promoted greater mental health than that in our present civilisation?

Yes, but often at the price of a repressive system! Traditional societies are in fact neither better nor worse than our present society. The are simply different models of adaptation which are linked to the level of consciousness of the individuals constituting society during a given period. Traditional civilisation most certainly constitutes a crutch, but eventually it always reveals its insufficiency in the measure that the individuals which compose this society evolve, and from one day to the next question its usefulness. Whatever it is, a society is but a reflection of ourselves, and presents exactly the same limitations, the same resistances, the same areas of friction, the same crises, and the same resolutions of crises as an ego.

Having said this, you must admit that modern psychiatric institutions lack something?

Yes, of course, and I have already emphasised the one which considers the individual to be ill. There is the fact that all psychiatry and a good deal of modern psychopathology are based on a perspective that illness exists, and that one should attempt to find a solution to this illness. When one opens a psychiatry book, one never reads the word "happiness". This word which in fact expresses the most profound desire of every human being, is nonexistent in the thinking of psychiatrists, those who are supposed to be occupied with psychological functioning! This, obviously, is the sign of an extraordinary lack of self-knowledge.

Psychiatry has, it is true, achieved a high level of observing phenomena, at the level of the expression of symptoms. This has allowed a refinement of the capacity to discriminate, and this stage was very important.

However what is missing is an interior observation of processes. Until now, the observer has had a tendency to see things on a level outside himself, to describe processes in a scientific fashion - sometimes in a totally remarkable manner -, but without much consciousness of himself and of his own quest.

Today's psychiatrist is therefore, on the whole, incapable of making a link between his own interior quest for unity and that of those whom he calls patients.

On the level of the expression of symptoms there is nothing to say; this has been well explored! When it comes to connecting these symptomatic expressions to the essential desire which exists in each and every one.... this level is unfortunately totally nonexistent! However, from the moment when we begin to consider symptoms as a necessity on the path of interior accomplishment, all psychopathology will take on a completely new and extraordinary meaning, as you discover that that which one call's "sickness" is but a stage in the psycho-spiritual maturation of the human being!

But, of course, one must not lose sight of the fact that this is simply a stage and that it is, first of all, necessary to come out of it.

As a consequence, it is important to the therapist that the person who is suffering should be able to see that which is happening in a larger dimension, as though she could contemplate her destiny in a single blink of the eye, as though she could extract herself from herself...

And this, in order that she becomes conscious that her suffering is a teaching, an enrichment which permits her to give herself little by little to the means of resolving her state of conflict and of finding the correct interior attitude which no longer generates suffering.

In fact everybody is searching for this interior attitude which does not create any tension. Each person is searching for it clumsily, including the so-called mentally-ill individual who has been shut up in a psychiatric hospital for thirty years.

What kind of prevention could one wish for in this field?

The prevention one could wish for is obviously at the level of the ordinary man. In ordinary functioning, the goal must therefore consist of learning to use every situation as a tool for self-knowledge. (since personality dissolves itself in the opening). Indeed, the more you live in openness and availability, the more you live in the reality of the present moment, and the less the conditioning of your personality (which generates a state of conflict) will have influence.

Prevention consists then of a kind of education, of self-knowledge based on the information given by the observation of interior experience, and a more meditative opening in daily life.

It would consist of an awakening of our meditative nature within the ordinary world, within activity.

Is that not rapidly simplifying the process? Are there not many crises, sometimes violent, or long lasting, which are produced specifically in this process of awakening?

In a certain manner, there is no difference between the crisis of the so-called psychotic and the crisis of spiritual emergence. They may take place at different moments, but the process is the same! The interior quest is the same! ...And one must not believe that people are incapable of understanding it! People, including the most simple, will tell you that what they wish for is peace, happiness, and to live in a state of tranquillity.... Anybody can understand this, because it is evident. But we have become so used to not seeing things in this way, that it becomes invisible.

Luckily, it is still possible, simply by speaking of this evidence, to awaken, here and there, something....