How we think about mental health is wrong and its not helping us recover and thrive

I hate the term ‘Mental Health.’

I hate it with a passion.

For many, many reasons.

But lets start with the fact that its not ‘mental’ health that is causing depression, anxiety and a host of other medicalised terms for which the only approved treatments are pills that have never been proved to be anymore effective than a placebo.

And yes, I do have the research to back that claim up.

And I have the personal lived experience too. But I’m not here to argue about that but to share what I think and what a cohort of leading edge researchers, psychologists, doctors and clinicans, now believe is the truth about ‘mental’ health.

Firstly, its emotional. Not mental. Emotions, feelings drive thoughts. Heal the emotional causes of your despair and you will start thinking healthier thoughts.

Scientists have been trying to find the source of thought for centuries and still haven’t located it. They have dissected god only knows how many brains and can tell us things like the hypnothalmus controls hormones and its critial to keeping the body in homeostasis. And that the amgdala are the fear and reward centres of the brain. But they can’t tell us how they work, neveer mind answer the biiger questions such as where thoughts come from, where our mind is.

No-one has ever held a mind in their hands or been able to point to a part of the brain and say here’s where the mind resides.

And science has come to accept that our hearts and our gut have equal intelliengence and influence, so our mind and our thoughts may not necessarily originate in our heads. I know when I haven’t eaten in ages and start craving food, I’m not thinking from my brain.

Another reason I hate the ‘mental health’ term is because it enables the medical profession to put a boundary around physical and ‘mental’ health as if they are entirely separate, We are one being, with different parts, and each is dependent on the others to function well. We don’t class our stomachs as being separate from our body, nor our sexual organs, even though they have tremendous infulence over our behaviour, sometimes almost involuntarily so.

Our ‘mental health’ is just as much a part of our physical health. Its time we treated the person not the symptom.

The ‘Power Threat Meaning Framework‘ takes what was my personal guiding philosopy and has codified it into an Alternative, Nondiagnostic Conceptual System. 

People experience what have been labelled as ‘psychiatric symptoms’ because of environmental factors, such as poverty, illness, threat of losing a job, their home, family crisis. You get the idea.

Changes in brain chemistry don’t just happen. there is a trigger, an inciting circumstance and prolonged exposure to that threat leads to the body’s stress response becoming habitual.

What I mean by that is that when we face something in our lives, especially if born into poverty, or being brought up with intolerance baked into the system of governance (which, lets be honest, is almost worldwide), or experience childhood abuse and neglect; that chronically challenging situation has us living in stress constantly and that changes our brain chemistry which makes us feel worthless, defeated, fatigued and other psychiatric sypmtoms that would get you a depression, anxiety, bi-polar diagnosis or similar.

Using the term ‘mental health’ means governments and health care systems and pharmacuetical companies and psychiatrists get to label people as being ‘wrong’ or ‘sick’when in actual fact, its the systems of governance and society that are unfair and wrong and people are being asked to live in conditions that are appalling with no way out. Partly because of the impact their conditions are having on their emotional, physical and spiritual health.

You can’t achieve your way out when you’re struggling every day to get by.

Its time to have an alternative understanding and for the medical establishment to stop playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with people’s lives. I mean, think about this, there are tests that can be run to test for diabetes, and a holistic lifestyle alternative to medication is available for some.

That doesn’t exist with ‘mental health.’ There are no tests, just diagnostic guides, limited if any alternatives to medication for life.

The medical profession should be asking ‘Why are you feeling like this?’ But unfortunately, even if they did, many of the causes are outside of their ability to alter, just as they are for their patients.

The social model needs to be changed, the power structure needs to be pulled down and replaced by something more inclusive, supportive and compassionate. Billionaires and corporations need to pay taxes that are comensurate with their wealth. Wages need to be increased in line with property values. Young people need to be given opportunities to build lives that matter. Actually everyone does, regardless of age. Universal income with volunteering opportunites would be the start.

All that is, of course, outside my personal ability to influence but if more of us start to challenge the system, then it will fall sooner.

And in the meantime, look after your emotional, physical and spiritual health. You are a being of so many layers and aspects you may not have even dreamed of. Each plays a part in your well being. Start delving into a practice of self exploration. Get a guide to help you, and question everything you find until it feels true for you.

If you wnat more information on the’Power Threat Meaning Framework’ you can start here.

https://www.bps.org.uk/power-threat-meaning-framework/introduction-ptmf

Love,

Cynthia xx