Mental Health
Despite Darger's unusual lifestyle and strange behavior, he has not generally been considered mentally ill. This topic is addressed in the biographical film In the Realms of the Unreal, in which Darger, while certainly described as eccentric, is also mentioned to be "in complete control of his life". MacGregor, in the appendix to his book on Darger, speculates that the most fitting diagnosis is autism, of an Asperger syndrome type.
Read more about this topic: Henry Darger
Famous quotes related to mental health:
“A major misunderstanding of child rearing has been the idea that meeting a child’s needs is an end in itself, for the purpose of the child’s mental health. Mothers have not understood that this is but one step in social development, the goal of which is to help a child begin to consider others. As a result, they often have not considered their children but have instead allowed their children’s reality to take precedence, out of a fear of damaging them emotionally.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysands to foist their problems on to the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defence. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)