“From this view, suffering becomes pathology when protective patterns of prediction, resistance, and defence become too rigid, dysregulated, or costly for the person to remain in a flexible, dynamic relationship with the world.” This is a great piece, and a compassionate framing of the challenges within and between Psychiatry and a sometimes anti-psychiatry sentiment. (There is always a middle way, I think.) There is so much here that I wanted to add in terms of quotes further down your essay. In particular, around the idea of the semi-permeable membrane and its role of maintaining coherence. I’m envisioning an extrapolation of this, as our society, in a way, another illustration of a semi-permeable membrane forming boundaries in an effort to maintain coherence (sometimes more, and sometimes less successfully). Part of the “collateral damage” may be how we conceptualize mental health and well-being and “disorder”. I really like how you frame “pathology” as a constellation of factors that cannot be understood outside of the context in which it is occurring.