![shrink brain](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/shrink-brain.jpg)
Encouraging the Unwell
Fragile Nation
by Tanveer Ahmed
Connor Court, 2016, 212 pages, $24.95
_____________________________
Tanveer Ahmed demonstrated his commonsense optimism in his memoir The Exotic Rissole (2011). That book ended with his success, on the third attempt, to convert his medical degree into qualifications to practise as a psychiatrist. Fragile Nation is his report on the mental state of the nation, based on his subsequent professional experience.
The first and most obvious thing about the book is that it is surprisingly cheerful and hopeful. Ahmed is fascinated by people and by the challenges his work presents. His predominant theme is that his patients are not helpless victims, no matter what the cause of their suffering, but people who have somehow lost the ability to live fully. He sees his task as guiding them to ways of rediscovering the ability to cope with life’s vicissitudes.
He finds that such guidance, offering a proper balance of sympathy and firmness, and reminding his…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins