| The ability to pretend or to lie is a good prognostic
sign. Delusional life is reality for a patient, not pretension. In severe cases, when
questioned about his delusions the patient cannot deny them or lie about their existence
because he cannot shift to an imaginary assumption. The denial of delusions that are real
to him requires the power to abstract or to shift to a set of facts that, from his point
of view, are unreal. When the patient is able to lie about his delusions, he is in the
process of recovery. He won't have to lie for very long because the delusions will soon
disappear. Silvano Arieti |
Old age is not a terrain we can visit by bus but the end
stage of our adamant individuality, a physical change bafflingly rung upon an immutable
self. In later years, Tolstoy wrote, "I am conscious of myself in exactly the same
way now, at 81, as I was conscious of myself, my 'I', at 5 or 6 years of age.
Consciousness is immovable. Due to this alone there is the movement which we call 'time'.
If time moves on, then there must be something that stands still." John Updike |
| It was not Death, for I stood up, And all the Dead, lie down -- It was not Night, for all the Bells Put out their Tongues, for Noon. It was not Frost, for on my Flesh And yet, it tasted, like them all, As if my life were shaven, When everything that ticked -- has stopped -- But most, like Chaos -- Stopless -- cool -- Emily Dickinson |
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