After a breakdown, many people will say that they don't know how they'd ever have gotten well if they didn't fall ill.

During a breakdown, we have not gone mad. We behave oddly, but deep inside, there is a search for health. If we can get through our crisis, it can dislodge us from a toxic status quo and call us to rebuild our lives more authentically.

A breakdown is an attempt of one part of our minds to force the other part into growth, self-understanding and self-development that we refuse to undertake. In essence, it's an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well.

There is then a danger to merely medicalising t...