Preface - Understanding Other People's Lives

Chapter 1: People I Met in New York

The distance between two people
Homeless in New York, Homeless New York
I can't believe he's gone
Time to walk down memory lane together
Saving one life
Being the parent of a minority child
Granny Almond

Chapter 2: Empathy Takes Effort

Don't you know what that feels like?
It can happen to anyone.
walk in her shoes
Somewhere between empathy and sympathy
Beyond empathy, sharing pain

Chapter 3: A Life Unbreakable Even by a Brand

I like all the resident doctors
Bipolar disorder is just a part of me
It's okay if it's not okay
Is addiction a matter of will?
Suicide is not an extreme option.
Can suicide be prevented?
Thank you for your courage.

Conclusion - Goodbye, New York
References

Professor Jong-ho Na of Yale University's Department of Psychiatry tells us
A story of empathy and connection

Denmark has a human library.
Like any other library, this place lends books for free for a certain period of time.
The difference is that you are lending a ‘person’ rather than a book.
The rental period is also a bit different.
I can talk to the person I borrowed for 30 minutes instead of 1-2 weeks.

This library is maintained by the volunteering of valuable time by people of all ages, including minorities, people with AIDS, immigrants, people with schizophrenia, the homeless, transgender people, and the unemployed.
This project, which began with the goal of alleviating stigma, prejudice, and hatred toward others and reaffirming the meaning of understanding, respect, and coexistence, is now operating in over 80 countries around the world.

Professor Jong-ho Na of Yale University, who studied psychology in college and then became a psychiatrist with the hope of making a practical contribution to suicide prevention, calls himself a "librarian" of the human library in his first book, "The Human Library of a New York Psychiatrist."
The author wrote this book in the hope that it would “build a bridge between patients and others, like a human library” (p. 11).
As a psychiatrist, I especially wanted to introduce the stories of people living healthy and happy lives with mental illness, the "warm patients."

The book features the stories of various patients the author met while working as a resident at the Mayo Clinic and New York University, and as a fellow in addiction psychiatry at Yale University.
Literally, they are all different in race, gender, age, occupation, and sexual identity.
What they have in common is that they are all socially disadvantaged and minorities.

The reason for telling their 'story' on their behalf is clear.
Because I believe in the power of story.
The author states, “The most effective way to reduce public stigma and prejudice against the socially vulnerable and minorities, including mentally ill patients, is to meet and talk directly with members of the groups who are the targets of stigma or discrimination (p. 8).”
The point is that simply by having the person I am prejudiced against introduce their own meaningful life in front of me and share a story with me, I am able to break free from the prejudices I have been unconsciously holding onto.


In fact, the book includes a passage where a woman who deliberately borrowed a "Muslim" to chat with in Copenhagen says, "Are you really Muslim? You don't match the image I had of Muslims at all." (pp. 9-10) This is the moment when stigma and prejudice crumble.

A homeless lawyer, a drug-addicted grandfather,
Even immigrant youth suffering from PTSD.
A new world guided by human librarians

Life, when seen from afar, is a one-act play filled with tragedy, but when seen up close, it is a series of comedies and tragedies.
If you read Chapter 1 of the book, 'People I Met in New York', you will definitely see that.
Chapter 1 features stories of patients the author met during his residency.


A successful Manhattan lawyer who suddenly became homeless (page 21); a grandfather who was thought to be a drug addict but was suffering from 'persistent grief disorder' after losing his beloved wife (page 37); a young man who immigrated to the United States trusting his only blood relative and ended up suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) (page 50); a homeless man and his small pet who came to the hospital emergency room in need of a place to sleep and food (page 31).

Convenient words like “homeless,” “drug addict,” “immigrant,” and “mentally ill” obscure what brings joy to the people they refer to, when they are happy, what hurt them, and why they struggle.
In Chapter 1, the author shines a microscope on the lives of some people who are not captured by the word.
There is a mother who cries and laughs at her daughter's story, even though she is in a situation where she is almost unable to lead a normal life due to severe schizophrenia.
There is a grandfather who carries around a picture frame containing a picture of himself and his wife from their happiest days in a plastic bag.
There is a young man who is homeless on the streets, but he is trying his best to protect his pet.


Readers who look into the 'human book' guided by the author, a human librarian, will experience stepping into a new world, as is often the case with the act of 'reading.'
Moreover, you will realize how violent and lazy generalizations are the words that are easily dismissed as 'that's how it will be' by lumping someone with a specific word (for example, homeless people are lazy, addiction is a matter of will, people with mental illness are dangerous, immigrants are also dangerous).

A weighty question for a society with zero empathy.
Is it possible to empathize with someone in a different situation than me?

If Chapter 1 tells the story of people with flesh and blood, Chapter 2 raises a weighty question about 'empathy.'
The author experiences two different things at the Mayo Clinic and Bellevue Hospital, and experiences the impossibility and possibility of empathy.


First, when a white patient made a racist remark toward the author, and the author's supervisor, who was also white, condoned it, the author was struck by the question, "Is empathy only something that can be demonstrated in similar situations?" (p. 79). In the hectic emergency room, seeing an emergency medicine professor spend more than 30 minutes with an "alcoholic doctor" for the first and last time, with tears welling up in his eyes, solidified the idea that empathy can only be expressed "to the extent of one's own experience." (p. 92) He experienced firsthand the impossibility of empathy and the helplessness that comes from selective empathy.

So, is it possible to empathize with someone even if you haven't shared the same experience? An incident that changed the author's skeptical view on this question follows.
Jacob's mother, who was struggling to raise her autistic son alone, regularly visited the emergency room, complaining, "My child is hallucinating. Please admit him."
Most medical staff viewed them as 'people whose circumstances are pitiful, but who should be discharged quickly because they do not have auditory hallucinations.'
Someone said, “I know how difficult it is to raise a child, but we shouldn’t decide to hospitalize a patient based solely on pity.”
But one professor was different.
Living with his husband as a gay man, he had his first 'family meeting'.
And it says this:


“I didn’t have the courage to adopt a child, so I don’t have any children, but I want to hear and learn about how my mother raised her children.”
The meeting lasted about an hour.
Jacob's mother calmly spoke about the hardships and pain of living as a single mother in New York, and the professor listened quietly.
Finally, the professor asked, “Can I give you some advice?” and handed me a pamphlet about autism parent groups and recommended outpatient treatment.
After that, Jacob and his mother never went to the emergency room again. (p. 112)

This incident was a symbolic event that made the author realize that 'one can empathize even without experiencing it.'
The author says:
Empathy is not something you are born with, but rather something you can develop through learning, will, and effort (p. 127). The only way to change a "divisive society" where protecting others' rights is misunderstood as a violation of your own rights, into a "connected society" where protecting others' rights is considered a form of protecting your own rights, is to restore "empathy."
In that sense, reading this book, which awakens the possibility of empathy, may be the first step toward recovering the ability to empathize.


How the stigma attacks the party
How can I stop it?

Chapter 3 explores three forms of stigma (p. 154) and discusses how common stigmas and misconceptions surrounding schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, addiction, and suicide attack those affected, and what we can do to break free from them.

As a psychiatrist, the author devotes a significant portion of the book to dismantling the stigma and stigma surrounding mental illness.
Alleviating stigma is the author's ultimate goal in writing this book.
Because I have witnessed countless times the negative effects of stigma.
The stigma surrounding mental illness is particularly pernicious because it discourages individuals with mental illness or their families from seeking or delaying treatment (p. 155).

The author points out that while the social stigma has eased significantly since it became known that "brain biological mechanisms" directly influence the development of mental illness, many people still misunderstand addiction as a matter of "willpower," stating, "Few mental illnesses have as well-understood brain mechanisms as addiction" (p. 162).

The declaration that 'suicide is not an extreme choice' even feels like determination.
People who attempt or contemplate suicide are often gripped by a sense of despair and helplessness, believing that no matter what they do, their lives will never improve. They say that at the moment of attempting suicide, suicide feels not like an option, but like the only escape route to end the suffering of reality. (p. 170)

The author asks:
Is it appropriate to use the word 'choice' when referring to someone who feels they have no choice?
People who die by suicide are often thought of as "selfish," but the author argues that defining suicide as a "choice" is dangerous because it reinforces this prejudice.
People who attempt suicide are not selfish, but rather feel they are a burden to their family or loved ones (p. 171).

Professor Choi In-cheol of the Department of Psychology at Seoul National University read this book and said, “Many problems in life come from misunderstandings, stigmatization, and hatred toward people.
People with psychological problems, racial minorities, and sexual minorities.
“If we could just get rid of the misunderstandings about these, our lives would be free,” he said, recommending the book, saying, “This book will give us a taste of that freedom.”

Stories connect me and you
Why we need to listen to more people's, more diverse stories

Are the so-called socially disadvantaged or minorities living in a completely different world from me?
Will I ever be called by that term?
That's not necessarily the case.
Depending on the time, place, and situation, anyone can find themselves in a weak position.
Just like the author, who was a middle-class man (mainstream) who graduated from a prestigious university in Korea, ended up becoming a minority (non-mainstream) as an immigrant of a minority race when he moved to the United States.


That's why, following the guidance of the author, a New York psychiatrist and human librarian, I'm doing it for myself, not for anyone else, to listen to more people's stories, empathize with their lives, and ultimately connect with them.
Because it creates opportunities for me to connect with others instead of being labeled or ostracized.


If, after reading this book, when I meet someone different from me in my daily life, or when I have difficulty understanding someone based on my values, I can pause for a moment and listen to their story before judging them, then, as Professor Kwon Jun-soo of the Department of Psychiatry at Seoul National University College of Medicine, who read this book first, said, “The world we live in will truly become that much better.”