Do Less to Heal. Do More to Grow? ($)

In our society, health and power equals money. Change is discouraged.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
― Epictetus, philosopher

Our Disintegrated Notion of Self

To be healthy is a whole state. It is not different projects for different ends. A fundamental problem that pervades Western mental health is the equation of what’s abnormal with what’s pathological. But it’s more than just this, it’s the inclination to define anything that generates conflict as illness. And along with this is the equally unbalanced trend to celebrate anything that generates stability and wealth. To celebrate power itself.

When this is boiled down to therapy, you’re left with a syrup that inevitably says, “do less of what gets you less power, and do more of what gets you more power.” And, for the most part, power equals money, and standard therapy works to support this.

Is it a coincidence that no mental illness is considered to be an economic advantage, and all character traits that generate economic advantage are excused?

Seekers of enlightenment will remove themselves from social circles, but have you ever heard of a psychotherapist eschewing the consensus? Do you know of any doctors who advertise their years spent in seclusion? A few have, and those in their profession respond with suspicion or rejection.

Carl Jung's Red Book chronicles his inner journeys from 1915 to 1916, and the book is considered his major work. "The years ... when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this,” he said. Yet there is no mention of it, training for it, or encouragement to do it in any psychotherapeutic training I know of. Jung never revealed this work, and it's unclear if he ever intended to. It was published posthumously by his estate in 2009.

Consider how entirely differently we view mental health depending on its context:

Q1: How do we treat manipulators who undo our plans, in contrast to those who further them?
A1: A pathological liar in the first case, a successful politician in the second.

Q2: What name do we give perpetually combative people who everyone finds threatening, versus those same people who further our plans for wealth and security?
A2: Oppositional/defiant in the first case, and warriors in the second.

Q3: What do we call a warrior achieving victory in the field, versus the same person attempting the same thing when living among us?
A3: A hero in one case, a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the other.

Q4: People who are always equivocating are called one thing when they help us, and something else when they’re unreliable and disturb our plans. How do we describe them?
A4: A deep thinker in the first case, and a person with a personality disorder in the second.

All of these dichotomies are questions of scope, of knowing how to behave. These decisions of scope are circumscribed, and it's not up to you. You're taught what's expected with the object of teaching you how to think.

No one really tests your thinking, but your behavior is always under examination. You're admonished to support the social mold, and think of it as something that protects you. So what happens when mostly untrained and unstable people feel the social mold is broken?

One's Proper Role

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM, encourages us to make distinctions based on personal impairment and pervasive disregard. These are both outcome-based, not thought-based criteria. The DSM advises us to base our distinctions on “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture” (DSM, 2012). It does not clarify whether these cultural expectations are related to process or outcome, but it assumes that if you don't follow the protocol, it's your mind that is at fault.

This dichotomy in how we view sanity and behavior leads us to confusion. We're taught opposing categories, the positive as opposed to the negative. We are not taught to discern complementary parts of a whole, such as a root and branch. The difference lies in the rigidity of the conflicts, not in the distinctions between things.

Distinctions are fluid, and further our exploration. Conflicts are rarely useful because they can't be reconciled. For example, cultures may be compatible, but enemies, by definition, are not.

We don’t understand the underlying cause for these thought patterns. We are only encouraged to look on the surface. As a result, we can never heal one or enhance the other because we are not engaged with either at a meaningful level.

To preserve this status quo, counseling and coaching are kept apart. It is part of our Western social norm to reward psychopathology when it serves the commons, and curtail it when it interferes with expectations.

What's expected could be an individual’s ability to support themselves, their family, community, or country. A citizen who cannot repress their rage is dismissed from their responsibilities. But a soldier who will not express their rage is also dismissed. It’s not your presentation that’s problematic, it’s the context of it.

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