The Classification of Mental Illness in Birds

 

The madman is the person who has lost everything except his reason. CHESTERTON

                                                                                              

We know that the world was there before the infant, but the infant does not know this…the infant has the illusion that what is found is created. D.W.WINNICOTT

                                                                      

Birds are the offspring of dinosaurs; they have existed for around 150 million years. They live instinctually, in the here and now. They cannot act outside their nature because they are nature. Birds don't suffer guilt or shame. They don’t question their own behaviour. They don’t lose themselves. 

 

Birds don’t have Aviatophobia, a fear of flying. Neither do they have Ornithophobia, the fear of birds. Wikipedia lists more than 160 human phobias including:

 

Cherophobia, an aversion to happiness

Gephyrophobia, fear of bridges

Globophobia, an irrational fear of balloons 

Uranophobia, fearing heaven

Koumpounophobia, a fear of buttons

Phobophobia the fear of phobias, or the fear of fear 

 

The classification of human mental disorders includes:

Depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

 

In normal development the self and the body become superimposed, occupying the same physical space. This is not inevitable. If development fails, the self may become located in other places (fragmentation) or may be felt to not exist at all. Or there may be a constant threat of disintegration.

 

There is an unbridgeable divide between one species and another. Humans have always dreamt of flying but acrophobia, the fear of heights, is one of the commonest  phobias. We can never know what it is like to be a bird.