indulgences in irrational wishes, the surrenders to surmountable fears, the willful acts of self-blindness—such are
the means by which the infection is started, and is subsequently reinforced as the condition worsens across the
years. In some cases, it must be said the factor of evasion appears to be largely or entirely absent; the "complicity"
may be devoid of any element of dishonesty, but may simply entail a policy of repression that nonetheless leads to
very harmful consequences.
An irrational environment can and often does play a devastating contributory role in the development of
psychological disorders. Instead of encouraging the child's healthy cognitive development, many parents do a great
deal to stifle it. But they seldom, if ever, succeed without the victim's cooperation.
There are children who resist such pressures by persevering in their will to understand to achieve cognitive clarity.
They do not destroy the health of their minds in order to "adjust" to an insane background.
The notion that mental health is to be equated with social adaptability is worse than false; it is actively dangerous; it
encourages the development of mental illness.
When a child or an adult is confronted by irrationality and injustice on the part of those around him, his mental
health can depend on his identifying the facts of the situation consciously and clearly. If he represses his judgment,
if he represses his horror or disapproval—in order to alleviate his suffering or to achieve "social harmony"—the
corruption of his consciousness is the price he pays for his "adjustment."
There are many adults who have not resolved this conflict one way or the other: they are caught between their
desire to "belong"—and their still-struggling critical judgment which tells them that the values, beliefs, and way of
life of other people are wrong, are not to be accepted. The fact that they are in conflict, that they have not
surrendered, is a sign of unextinguished health. But these people are often the victims of the "health-as-adjustment"
school. They are pushed by their psychotherapists over the abyss of intellectual self-abnegation into a swamp of
conformity.
Mental health is unobstructed cognitive efficacy. Unobstructed cognitive efficacy requires and entails intellectual
independence. A doctrine that is subversive of intellectual independence is subversive of mental health.