I’m done with participating in a mental health system of pathology. In viewing human behavior through ANY lens except one that says “Based on your past experiences, your mind, your brain, and your current experiences, everything you are doing, seeing, saying, believing makes complete sense.”
I was done a loooong time ago. I changed my approach, my beliefs. I immersed myself in interpersonal neurobiology, then the relational neurosciences. IPNB theory asserts that as complex systems (the human mind) we are ALWAYS attempting to move toward coherence. That a lack of integration (often a result of early experiences, but certainly not always!) causes our minds to move toward chaos or rigidity- and that this move toward chaos or rigidity presents itself outwardly at the symptoms we label mental illness.
But even as our systems move into chaos or rigidity, we are always attempting to move back into coherence, connection, and regulation. And sometimes the way we do that isn’t quite as helpful as we’d hoped.
This often looks like symptoms too!!!
What changes when we believe that everything we do is a result of our brain’s shift into chaos or rigidity and then our attempts at trying to regulate and move back into coherence? And that as complex systems, this is always happening. We are ALWAYS trying to move back into coherence. It’s a mathematical fact. What changes?
For me, basically everything.
Centuries of Puritanism, industrialism, capitalism, racism, and colonialism have curated an intergenerational belief based on fear and power that somehow our behaviors are about character or something being right or wrong with us.
The way our body processes sugar is easily considered a simple manifestation of the brain and nervous system, but the way our body processes experiences and then is expressed through behavior is considered character.
What if all our behaviors are just a manifestation of our inner experience? Our brain, mind, body, nervous system?
And what if human beings were always moving toward being their best selves? And what if human being’s best selves were literally designed to be in connection? Relational? Cooperative? Individualistic and collective? A truly integrated mind, brain, and body easily creates a we…a me and a you that comes together for something unique without relinquishing the me OR the you. ALL are important!!!
I slept weird the night into the 4th. I’m not sure why…maybe getting a HUGE project finally done. But I woke up Saturday morning after a somewhat sleepless night (very strange me for….I usually have no problems sleeping a solid seven or eight hours!) with an energy I haven’t felt in a long time- maybe ever. An energy of commitment no longer participate in ANY way in a pathologizing system of mental health. An energy to be a strong voice leading our mental health system away from good, bad, right, wrong, with interventions that dehumanize and preference someone else’s ideas of how humans should be or act.
I’ve been committed to depathologizing mental health for years and years and years. In my clinical work. In my teaching and writing and blogging and speaking and writing.
I’m going to up my game.
If we could truly understand what is driving people’s behaviors, we could easily extend compassion while also having extremely clear boundaries.
We would stop shaming everyone. EVERYONE. Even people committing the biggest atrocities. We would have BOUNDARIES (get those people out of power, put people in jail when needed) but we would also fiercely look at WHY those behaviors were happening. We would stay curious and not shaming. We would then create opportunities of healing and integration, instead of more shaming, pathologizing…which only increase the very behaviors we are trying to stop (mainly, behaviors that hurt other humans).
There’s too much to say and write about this and my thoughts aren’t organized quite enough yet.
Depathologizing people, humans, mental health is our only way out. If we could truly understand the mind and behaviors- including behaviors that don’t inspire connection and community (violence, power, objectification, etc.) – and understand them through curiosity, compassion, and boundaries instead of shame, othering, and continued dehumanizing…we could maybe get out of this mess in a generation. Or two.
And those are my grandkids.
I have to try.
