The Rwandan Way

A good friend sends this short piece on how they handle depression in Rwanda. I think it illustrates my belief that mental illness was dealt with far more effectively in the days before psychology. The whole community gets together and they sing and drum it out.

If you read older writings, there was a general understanding before modern times that any and all forms of mental illness were transitory. Now, psychiatry and psychology finds them all, in principle, incurable." That is quie an indictment.

I can see all kinds of reasons why the communal singing and drumming would work against depression.

It reconnects you with the community, reconnects you with the spirit, with meaning, with art.