To understand mental illness we must appreciate the fact that every one of us is a conditioned individual. This is inevitable because no matter which society one grows up in one receives a powerful conditioning effect from the cultural value system, the language and traditions of that society. It means that every one of us is brainwashed by the society we live in as we grow up. It also means that every one of us will have acquired values, traditions and beliefs of that group and have some distorted perception of reality to start with. Our perceptions then change as time and experience forces us to move on. It is up to the individual to wake up and clear up those perceptions during one’s lifetime or die becoming a copy of the people around them.
Normally we all go about our daily activities despite our somewhat distorted perceptions. This is …