I can't resist responding to Derek Smith's letter (Deseret News Readers' Forum, Aug. 23) questioning the effectiveness of mental health treatment. He wondered, ". . . if you hired a professional to help you with some problems you're having with your business, and those problems increased after you paid him a lot of money, wouldn't you fire him on the spot?"
I suppose if people who struggle with mental illness could make an executive decision to give pink slips to their personal demons and replace them with less troubling third-world neuroses, reduce their inventories of fears and automate new, happy thoughts, then yes, their bottom line well-being probably would improve.
Unfortunately, people with mental illness cannot simply be "directed" to be well. People who struggle and regress in their treatment are not guilty of failing to follow good advice; they are engaged in a human process of healing that generally is not neat, orderly or, for that matter, linear.
I have a mental-health suggestion for Mr. Smith: A daily dose of compassion greatly reduces the urge to sling self-righteous arrows at people one perceives as "less than."
Janice Perry Gully
Salt Lake City