Love is the most healing gift, says Matt Ottley, while the last thing a person with mental illness needs is judgement. The northern New South Wales illustrator, composer and author wants to be understood foremost as a human being, rather than reduced to the type 1 bipolar disorder diagnosis he received in his mid-40s.

Matt Otley. Image supplied.

A stay in a hospital intensive care unit more than a decade ago, during which Ottley experienced “unconditional love and care” followed by the “destructive power of dogma”, would inspire him to write the poetic story of The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness, a tale of survival that is not his own story per se but a reflection of his experiences of psychosis.

Ottley, 59, has illustrated about 40 picture books over his long career, including for half a dozen texts he wrote, as well as stories by various other authors. This latest one, Ottley’s second picture book for adults and young adults, tells the tale of a boy born with a seed that grows into a tree within him.

The boy then turns into a bird, and flies into a...