Every once in a while Hollywood comes out with a film that's genuinely thought provoking. One was "A Beautiful Mind" which posited that some mentally disturbed people can cure themselves.
No, wait a minute...that's not exactly right. Forget the word "cure." The film was actually saying that some mental problems don't lend them selves to a cure, and that the best solution for some people was to learn to live with their ailment, sans cure. The guy in the film never stopped seeing people who weren't there. He just taught himself not to acknowledge them, and that allowed him to have friends and hold down a good job.
Like I said, Mel Gibson's character is depressed. Therapy and pills don't work, so he attempts to cure himself by letting a hand puppet speak for him. The puppet can be garrulous and outgoing where Mel can't. The solution works fine. Mel makes a success of his ailing company, and reunites with his family. But there's a problem.....
Everyone's delighted that he's his old self again, but they can't see why he continues with the puppet. He's cured, so why not get rid of the toy? What they don't realize is that he's not cured, and may never be. They're so focused on the idea of a cure that they fail to see the miraculous advance that he made simply by learning to cope. It's an interesting distinction.
I'm no expert about these things, but it could be that even when cures are possible, they're not always desirable. You have to wonder if years of expensive therapy coupled with sedating pills rob some patients of their elan. Are they really better off after that kind of cure? The film posits that small odd behaviors may sometimes be a workable compromise. What appears odd may sometimes be a rational, even heroic attempt to deal with something genuinely scary.
I say "may." I just don't know enough about the subject to know.
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