Living Weller Than Well

Iliff Commons

By Michael Hooper

I’ve long been fascinated by the works of Dr. Karl Menninger. His books about mental illness are still relevant today. He is a clever writer about illness, treatment and recovery. He writes with authority, often using real life examples from his practice.

In 1963, Viking Press published The Vital Balance, The Life Process in Mental Health and Illness by Dr. Karl Menninger, with Martin Mayman and Paul Pruyser.

The book includes my favorite quote by Dr. Karl:

“Not infrequently we observe that a patient who is in a phase of recovery from what may have been a rather long illness shows continued improvement, past the point of his former normal state of existence. He not only gets well, to use vernacular; he gets as well as he was, and then he continues to improve still further. He increases his productivity, he expands his life and its horizons. He develops new talents, new powers, new effectiveness. He becomes one might say, “weller than well.”

The author says this doesn’t always happen nor does it happen often enough. But it does happen and every experienced psychiatrist has seen this happen.

The author gives several examples of famous people who suffered severe illness and recovered, and then went on to do great things. Abraham Lincoln suffered from melancholy; on his wedding day after the guests assembled, Lincoln did not appear. He was found in his room in deep dejection, obsessed with ideas of unworthiness, hopelessness, and guilt. What Lincoln achieved after his illness “is part of our great national heritage,” the authors wrote. 

The book cites the lives of John Stewart Mill, Helen Keller, and psychiatrist William James. They suffered from severe mental illness and hardship, yet all of them went on to recover and do great things in their lives.

The author says illness is not the only way to learn. An enlightened person may on his own aspire to improve himself, to become weller than well, to reach out constantly toward a more perfect way of life. Benjamin Franklin was this way, trying to reach moral perfection in the areas of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.

I think another example of a person "weller than well" is the movie, A Beautiful Mind, about a brilliant mathematician who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, based partly on the real life of John Nash.

I could relate to that movie because my father, Charles Hooper, was a brilliant mathematician and scientist who also struggled with mental illness. My father suffered from depression, but his condition seemed to get better as he got older, especially in his 60s. He was very productive in his later years because I think he had achieved his own version of being "weller than well."

I have met many people over the years who have suffered from mental illness. In most cases therapy along with psychotropic drugs stabilize their life. But these drugs seem to hold some brilliance back, in my opinion.

There is a play called, Standing on My Knees, about a bright young woman, who falls in love with a man, she stops taking her medication and is filled with all kinds of poems, romance and excitement. She burns brightly. Without her medication, she is prone to mania. She crashes and burns and then has to start all over again in recovery.

Sometimes drug therapy seems to be the only way to stabilize some patients. But if you could go without the drugs and somehow parlay that energy, excitement, passion, and mania into something useful and beautiful and lovely, perhaps it’s worth it even if there is a crash? 

Nevertheless, I'm inspired by Dr. Karl's description of the transformation:

“He increases his productivity, he expands his life and its horizons. He develops new talents, new powers, new effectiveness.”

I went through a struggle in my teenage years; my life became a lot better after I got through that period.

I have a friend, a gifted learner, who became a PhD who discovered a gene that causes deafness and blindness; he picked up French in one semester, he plays every stringed instrument; and is now taking classes on how to record his own music. His model is Leonardo de Vinci, the Universal Man who was good at everything, science, art, poetry, theater, architecture, military strategy.

In my own life, I took up oil painting. I took classes, I painted every day, I read books, I studied artists. I got involved with the local art scene. I have displayed art in a few shows. I can say my art is now owned by collectors in Topeka, Paris, Austin, and Lincoln, Neb. I am still learning and expanding my horizons in this field, trying to figure out new ways of doing things. I have a couple of other passions that I want to explore further, including Puerto Rican culture, language, food and music; swimming, hiking and exploring, sailing, book writing and maybe poetry.

If going through a struggle, remember there is an extraordinary opportunity for you on the other side of an illness or hardship. We should all work toward being weller than well.