How all psychiatrists could begin genuinely to help their clients

 

Introduction

Orthodoxy works brilliantly for preserving orthodoxy, but for what else?

What I present here is basically a collation of material already scattered around on this site, to provide a focused explanation to psychiatric / 'mental health' workers as to how they could really be helping many of their 'patients' instead of the current muddling-through by trying to suppress supposed 'symptoms' (implicitly of a 'mental illness'). In practice, however, what follows here is expected to prove very helpful to many people generally, including non-professionals (yes, including 'service users'), to facilitate their gaining a proper understanding of how their issues need to be addressed.

For the most part, psychiatric workers are well-intentioned people who are aware of a big range of what they see as 'mental health' issues that disrupt people's lives, and genuinely want to help them.

However, in my own experience many such workers — especially the nurses and other lower-tier workers — feel somewhat uneasy about and stressed by their day-to-day work despite their generally putting on an exemplary brave face about it all, because they really do recognise that the help they're able to give people is only making the best of a bad job, and in particular they have at least an inkling that the whole 'medical model' approach to their 'patients' is misguided and not addressing their issues in any worthwhile way.

They'd so much like to be able to do better for their 'patients', yet their available methods are no more than a particularly wobbly sticking plaster to hide the real cause of the problem — whatever that may be. That was certainly the picture that emerged strongly during my own dealings with the local psychiatric / mental health services. The trouble of course was that nobody there was daring significantly to challenge the stultifying stranglehold of the 'mental health' orthodoxy — not least because it appeared to them that they didn't have any really useful alternative to put forward in place of the current 'mental health' modality, so they couldn't be seen to have a strong case for the much-needed radical change.

What I aim to show here is that, even in the face of that behemoth of an orthodoxy that we call 'mental health', there's NO good reason why any psychiatric / mental health worker, at any level, should have to put up with that unsatisfactory situation. The latter isn't only appallingly harmful for the 'patients' but also stressful and unsatisfying for the relevant caring professionals, in that the whole psychiatry / 'mental health' mindset prevents them from ever genuinely helping anyone in the ways that they really need (as distinct from 'want').

ALL orthodoxies are burdensome scourges upon the affected people, and are for dissolution pronto, and replacing with plain down-to-earth common sense and RATIONALLY-based outlooks and methods.

The intrinsic bankruptcy of the 'psychiatry' / 'mental health' mindset, and need for a fundamental alternative

The problem is the intransigent unwillingness to recognise and therefore to address the real issues. This all comes down to the materialist-reductionist belief system, as I explain further below, and results in the insane — yes, insane! — strongly defended tradition of looking for 'symptoms' (of a supposed 'illness') and then labelling the person with a supposed 'condition' based on the particular 'symptoms', and then 'treating' the hapless patient victim to try to suppress those 'symptoms' — without any mention or consideration of an at least possibly addressable underlying cause, except perhaps, for apparently non-addressable physical defects.

Anyone who does try to speak out about addressable underlying causes, or what is really going on for the 'patient', is dismissed as stepping out of line, and even discredited by labelling them with a supposed 'mental health condition' themselves (such as a paranoid or schizophrenic or schizotypal tendency) for considering at all that there is or must be an underlying cause that needs to be addressed.

One of the great iniquities of the current psychiatry mindset is that it happily accepts and even encourages all manner of genuine human dysfunction (naturally, including the psychiatrists' / doctors' own ingrained dysfunctions) that, usually on the basis of cultural / social norms, is widely deemed to be 'normal' and therefore supposedly healthy, but which in reality is seriously limiting and harmful to all affected people, both directly or indirectly.

 

Taking on board the genuine mental health mindset

Presenting the REAL alternative to psychiatry and so-called 'mental health'…

The basic understanding of how to address / resolve ANY problem, ANY issue

What is so bizarre is that the psychiatric / 'mental health' Establishment have so far been unable to get their heads around the most basic and fundamental principles of addressing ANY issue!

So, here I, an arrogant lowly one-time 'service user' clearly acting above my station, will now do the 'unthinkable' and actually start showing them how to begin doing their job properly, and genuinely and fully beneficially. I don't mean that as any sort of personal slur upon anyone; rather, I'm speaking bluntly of the issues / problems that have so far beset psychiatric workers at all levels, and the need to get taking the bull by the horns in addressing the current lamentable situation.

Personal blame isn't part of the equation here, any more than is diplomatic soft-talk, for I well understand that at all times the workers in the 'mental health' setup have been doing the best they knew how (or dared to do, in the face of Establishment and peer pressures to conform to established ideas and (mal)practice!), taking into account all the circumstances.

The fundamental principles of addressing any issue are few, and are perfectly simple common sense.

1. Have an open mind at all times, free from beliefs, belief systems and preconceived notions. Materialistic reductionism is a belief system, so it itself must be set aside and dissolved, along with any other belief system. Always, without exception, belief (including disbelief, which is also a belief) blocks any ability to see what's actually there and what's actually going on.

2. Make observations to establish the details of what's happening, which is regarded as an issue or problem, without interpreting, labelling or 'diagnosing' (which would all be applying beliefs or preconceived notions). Also hold up to rigorous scrutiny your reasons for considering the particular happenings to be (indicative of) an issue / problem, for often a person's unusually superior functioning in some way would otherwise get misinterpreted as a problem, as indeed has happened for me.

   1. Make further observations, as far as possible, to establish the details of what is happening to cause the observed adverse happenings.

   2. Make further observations, as far as possible, to establish the details of what is causing those apparently causative happenings — and so on, drilling down through the chain of causality till you can start having some understanding of the most basic underlying observable cause(s).

3. Construct a working model / hypothesis that explains ALL relevant observations, in such a manner that it points to effective means to resolve the issue(s) (see further below). That working model may need to postulate an underlying cause or causes that can't be observed directly and can only be speculatively deduced — especially in the case of 'mental health' issues, where most aspects of the issue would be non-physical anyway (and thus not recognised from within the materialist-reductionist belief system).

   Including such a postulation should not be avoided unless you already have all observations so far fully and completely explained in the most helpful ways. After all, like the rest of the working model, every part of it would come under scrutiny as it's tested through use of the resultant methodology.

4. Develop / apply methods for resolving the issue(s), based on that working model.

5. Observe the effects of the methods, and modify the methods / methodology as necessary to increase effectiveness of those methods or replace them with more effective ones.

6. Modify or even replace the working model if the methodology based on it isn't fully resolving the issue(s), but always with a positive and constructive intent. That is, you don't seek to dismiss the working model but instead you seek to amend it as necessary for better effect. Actual replacement would only be in extremis — where it's determined that the actual foundations of the working model are preventing it from allowing the required beneficial outcomes from methodologies based on it.

Creating a working model based on actual observations and interpretations that properly explain all of those observations

One big problem for more or less all psychiatric and 'mental health' workers at present is that they're blindly seeking to be, and indeed in many cases are posing as, supposed experts on the human 'mind' — but without the slightest understanding of what 'the mind' really is, and indeed with a whole belief system (i.e., materialistic reductionism) that completely misrepresents its true nature.

So, if you're going to have a working model of the human 'mind' and human nature, then it's essential to get a genuinely helpful understanding of the nature of 'mind' and of experience itself, before you can even begin sensibly to seek to assist yourself or anyone else who supposedly has some sort of mental dysfunction. And then again, it's essential to gain a proper understanding of what really is dysfunction, so that one doesn't include, for example, unusual but actually better functioning in one's definition of 'dysfunction'.

In this respect, psychiatrists', psychologists', and indeed almost everyone's perception of what is and isn't dysfunctional in human outlook and behaviour is immensely distorted, and needs setting aside in favour of a rationally worked-out working model of what a fully, perfectly, functioning human being would be like.

So, let's have a quick run-down on the main big requirements for a working model that's genuinely fit for our purpose.

First requirement — Understand the nature of reality itself, or there will be trouble!

Okay, I can already hear the 'WTF?!' chorus from plenty of people who immediately imagine that I'm stupidly demanding the impossible of them! But actually that's not my intent at all. It's true that a full conceptual understanding of the nature of experience and 'reality' is intrinsically beyond anyone in the whole of 'Existence', but yet there really is a certain level of understanding that's easily within our grasp, and is crucial to a proper understanding of how to approach and handle issues of 'the mind' (and a whole mass of other issues too!).

To avoid unnecessary duplication, I refer you here to On the nature of reality and truth — Too simple to believe! :-), in which I explain how it is that consciousness and the simple fact of experience itself is the only fundamental reality that we can ever know — i.e., not 'the physical', which is actually secondary to it, nor any of the versions of 'reality' (all spurious, because they're just beliefs) claimed to be 'the Truth' by religions and spiritual traditions.

Then, armed with that understanding (i.e., if you've really understood and not just rote-learnt the concepts without understanding), you'd see straightaway what's wrong and pressingly needs changing in the whole psychiatry / 'mental health' mindset and methodology, which is trying to respond to people's dysfunctions of experience and behaviour as though they're simply another version of physical illness.

Second requirement — Our working model must include some proper understanding of the true nature of what people keep calling 'the mind' — or there will definitely be trouble!

The catch is that "what 'the mind' really is" is something that nobody in the whole of 'Existence' could ever genuinely know, though, as with the nature of 'reality', there is a certain level of understanding that's available to us. Indeed, when you do eventually have that understanding you no longer recognise 'the mind' as a particularly meaningful concept anyway, for the very concept of 'the mind' is part of the materialist-reductionist belief system, and is uncomprehendingly used simply for those aspects of our consciousness / mental functioning of which we're superficially aware.

It's better to think in terms of 'consciousness' or 'awareness' rather than 'the mind'. Indeed I often go further and refer simply to a person's non-physical aspects — about which in truth we can't ever know more than next-to-nothing! At least that helps keep things simple for us, and helps keep to a minimum the amount that we need to learn!

In practice, I normally prefer to use the term 'mindspace' in place of 'mind', so making it clearer that it's just part of a much vaster and more comprehensive — er, well, whatever it is or/and isn't! — The point here of course being that we can't particularly usefully define 'awareness' or consciousness itself, because it's all based in non-duality, which is beyond all concepts, and so is intrinsically impossible for us consciously to understand or indeed define.

In coining the convenience term 'mindspace' I had in mind the parallel to your computer operating system's desktop. That's the bit where you actually experience things and can work with them consciously / conceptually — but, at least superficially, it tells you little or nothing about what's going on in the whole show that constitutes your 'system'. So, 'mindspace' is a 'virtual', not real object, defined simply by a clearly observable set of functions, whereas 'mind' is nonsensical because in its normal usage it's referring to an actual thing that simply doesn't exist — a figment of (almost) everyone's imagination (and, more importantly, belief systems)!

Once you've got the 'right' understanding — i.e., the understanding that would prove most helpful for addressing all the issues that we and other people experience — you'd recognise that we can't distinguish between consciousness / awareness on the one hand and reality on the other. That makes perfect sense if you've taken on board the first requirement above, because we need to understand that consciousness / awareness itself is the only ultimate 'reality' that we could ever know. Within non-duality, as far as anyone could ever tell, no distinction between the observer and the observed is perceivable.

Full understanding of the latter — i.e., by direct perception rather than just intellectually 'knowing' it, which latter would be little better than a belief — comes to nobody but through the perceptual shift that's widely but unhelpfully called 'spiritual enlightenment'. I say 'unhelpfully', because it's wrongly got associated with spirituality, and is actually nothing to do with the latter.

Also the term 'enlightenment' itself is highly misleading and gives very much a false impression of what the particular perception change really is, so that the world is replete with people who've had all manner of subjectively wonderful or uplifting but in functional terms adverse and harmful experiences that get reported as 'blissful', 'euphoric', 'revelationary, 'spiritual' or 'awakening' experiences (actually all illusory manifestations donated gratis by the garbage), and believe that those (decoy) experiences indicate that they're 'enlightened'.

Genuine 'enlightenment' — what I prefer to call gaining of 'fundamental clarity' — is much more subtle as an experience (one could say, unbelievably subtle!), though far-reaching in the change of inner viewpoint that it brings about in the whole life experience. It occurs naturally at some point during a comprehensive genuine self actualization process, which latter is what the methods presented on this site promote.

Third requirement — Our working model must include an accurate working model of the basic or fundamental nature of a 'perfectly' functioning human being, or there will be trouble indeed!

One of the great limiting factors, not only in psychiatry but in most schools of psychology / psychotherapy too is an ill-informed and ill-conceived notion of what an 'okay' person is or would be like. Because it's assumed that most people are sort-of 'okay' unless they manifest particular already recognised 'symptoms', there's an almost universal lack of understanding of how dysfunctional virtually everyone is (i.e., including virtually all the people who are widely regarded as 'doing just fine' and having great mental function) — and thus, how much potential and indeed need each person has for improvement far beyond any notion of mere 'recovery' or (re)attainment of any sort of 'normality'.

I and many others who've worked in resolving / clearing (as distinct from simply hiding) stored emotional issues have found that our mental functioning improves in all sorts of ways, and continues to do so as long as we keep dissolving those issues and so lightening our load of them.

This has consistently led me and a fair number of others to conclude, as a working assumption, that the fundamental nature of each one of us — our real, genuine potential, then — is to be fully rational, aware, positive, constructive, creative, free from beliefs, patterns and attachments, and thus open-minded and flexible in approach to all situations. On this clearly observable basis, ANY human functioning that falls short of that working model needs to be seen as dysfunction, generally needing to be addressed.

It needs to be understood that I'm not putting this working model forward as 'fact' or 'truth', because nobody anywhere could know such a thing. The point here is that in my own real life experience and, for example, the experience of other people who've got using my methods based on this working model of the underlying nature of each one of us, we all obtained similar improvements in our lives, which have gone far, far beyond any psychiatric / 'mental health' worker's notion of 'recovery'.

Indeed, Re-evaluation Counselling, which was my first means for clearing emotional issues, back in the period 1972–81, was consistently demonstrating that our potential super-duper mental functioning could be progressively opened up through the clearance of emotional issues, and thus that that potential was something real and not just some fancy theory.

Because we're talking about opening up at least some degree of our full potential, actually it makes no sense to continue thinking of achieving just a supposed 'okay' state as any sort of goal, for that would allow all sorts of preconceived notions, i.e., of what 'okay' represents, to limit a person's progress, so hugely selling one short. That's why the working model of the nature of a human being must be of no less than a perfectly functioning one. Then there's no room for a limited view of what we're aiming for.

It's not that anyone would actually achieve 100% functioning in any aspect of their life, but just that the self-actualization process can then be open-ended and enable us to achieve maximally good functioning, given all the person's circumstances from time to time. That way, you get the best out of what you've got and what is achievable, never mind how much or how little that may be in practice.

I'm not at all laying down that anyone should or must attain that apparent perfection, but rather, that that 'perfection' is our essential direction pointer, and helps ensure that, if we're notionally aiming for it, we don't go selling ourselves short of whatever degree of self-actualization really is in our best and deepest interests.

Associated requirement — Drop any notion of 'normality' being something desirable!

Genuinely good overall mental functioning is a considerable rarity and thus is statistically extremely abnormal! Therefore anyone who points themselves or others towards normality as anything in the slightest desirable is sticking a great big spanner in the works of any genuine self-actualization process — the real healing that everyone needs. Any notion of normality, therefore, needs to be completely, 1,0001%, excluded from our working model!

Yes, this may seem at first to be a very bitter / disquieting pill (sic) to swallow! Nonetheless an important need for anyone on a self-actualization process (and thus for anyone to resolve their so-called 'mental health issues'), is to point oneself squarely away from the imagined comfort of 'normality' and conformity.

I don't mean this as a promotion of compulsive, rigid, pattern-driven non-conformity (which would be just the flip-side of a conformity pattern), but I do mean, to follow one's self-actualization process through with clear and deliberate disregard for all the societal and peer pressures to be (more) 'normal' and thus to distort and attenuate one's self-actualization process. In other words, you remain true to yourself, not to what appear to you to be other people's expectations or supposed requirements of you*. That may need quite a bit of encouragement, as it's clear to me that not that many people have the mental tenacity to prevent them from getting deflected by such pressures, away from where they really need and mean to be pointing themselves.

That may appear from the outside to be an intimidatingly lonely prospect, but the reality is that the self-actualization process, in progressively dissolving one's emotional issues, dissolves the underlying cause of loneliness feelings, so that one becomes fully comfortable with one's own company and thus can greatly enjoy and genuinely benefit from a fair amount of solitude, while still enjoying one's passing interactions with people. One doesn't then crave for actually seriously unhealthy, attached relationships, and has a joyful freedom that most people (primarily 'sheep') are too unaware to see as anything other than a frightening and lonely purgatory if not hell!

Fourth requirement — Our working model must include an accurate working model of what is, or has gone, wrong to have caused all the human dysfunction we observe — or there will be trouble all along the line!

If you don't understand the dysfunctions and their cause(s), you're not going to get far in turning them around! Simple! Note that I do NOT include any requirement to make supposed 'diagnoses', and indeed I warn against doing so for anything that's 'of the mind'. Sticking a label on something or somebody in no way actually brings genuine understanding or addresses or enables the addressing of an issue — even if the label is called a 'diagnosis'!

Unlike countless other people, many of whom pronounce themselves as experts simply on the basis of various beliefs or all-too-often ill-based professional training and qualifications, I myself have actually been doing my homework over this, which it appears that nobody else had done, even possibly in the whole of human history — at least to any particularly full or useful extent. Indeed I had to do so for my own very survival, because of the tremendous and potentially life-threatening shenanigans I'd fallen into with what I nowadays call the garbage.

As apparently no-one else had the mental capacity to genuinely understand what was going on, I myself had to make up for their own poor mental function and fill the void of good thinking that all the professionals and everyone else had maintained — and had to go through an unedifying catalogue of hells and hardships in the process!

It could thus hardly be surprising to you now to learn that you've got a lot of initial homework to do yourself if you really want to understand about that part of my working model that explains what's causing almost all the human dysfunction that we observe (i.e., the garbage, and the underlying misconfigurations within deeper consciousness*), and describes its mechanisms and apparent origin and underlying 'true' nature.

Fortunately you don't have to go through all the disruptive and often hellish shenanigans and ordeals that I got dragged through, because you can read on this very site something of what I went through, complete with my annotations that make it a seriously educational experience — and indeed in some measure even entertaining! For a read of my own, most educational, experiences, go to the first section on my Original Writings page, and work through those mostly long pages. You will keep finding links to take you to further reading, such as directly about the true nature of 'the forces of darkness' (i.e., the garbage).

Fifth requirement — The whole and all parts of the working model must be compliant with Occam's razor — or there will be BIG trouble!

Throughout, it's essential that all interpretations and working hypotheses incorporate the simple principle known as Occam's razor, by which always the simplest hypothesis is chosen, which (usefully) explains ALL the relevant observations. That doesn't necessarily mean that the correct hypothesis would necessarily be simple, but just that it doesn't make sense to produce or choose one that's more complex or elaborate than is supported by the observations accumulated so far, for that would tend to lead one into very serious problems*.

In other words, to be present in the hypothesis at all, every single detail or aspect of the hypothesis must have earned its place there through being supported by the observations, and be usefully playing its part in explaining them — otherwise we'd be entering the realms of 'story' rather than a genuinely valid hypothesis. Thus, as further observations are made, the hypothesis may need further details or complexity added in order to account for the new data — but we still keep complexity to the minimum required to explain the current, now expanded data set.

Helping people, using the methodology based on the working model

So, you've got one hell of a task first, to build up a proper working model before you can genuinely help anyone much…? — Well, yes, indeed you do!

— That is, if you insist on 'reinventing the wheel'!

As you'd most likely have realized by now, thank goodness, you're spared necessity for that purgatory because the working model that I built up and use for myself is available to you to take on board right here on this site, complete with my whole methodology based on it.

However, for it to be fully effective it's necessary that you take full responsibility for maintaining your 'copy' of that working model and resultant methodology for yourself, and keeping it 'live'. Otherwise you may just be taking it on as a convenient belief system and bunch of rituals, and thus at least blunting its effectiveness. So you need to keep every aspect of the working model under review, and ensure that it really does explain all your relevant observations, and is maximally effective for you.

If you do think it would be better for you to 're-invent the wheel' in this matter, I caution that you wouldn't have the necessary observations / data to make a worthwhile job of it unless you go through the sort of disruptive and sometimes hellish experiences and hardships that I went through and wouldn't wish for ANY human to have to experience, never mind how many people they've robbed / raped / murdered / eaten (etc….)! You'd also need to be enlightened first in order to have a sufficiently detached view of the very difficult and potentially confusing experiences you were being subjected to.

First requirement — Be well-established in using the methods on yourself in an ongoing fashion, to be opening up your own occluded better functioning!

If you're not already well-established in doing that, you've got no business to be claiming to be helping people in the first place, because you can't possibly be helping them in any really significant way until you fulfil that primary requirement. Instead, you'd still be operating in I'm okay — you're not okay mode, maintaining a disempowered state in every client — a chronic lack of self-command — which would continue to block any ability of the client to get using the methodology.

Good (NOT 'normal') functioning and an active self-actualization process of your own would always tend to be catalytic and inspire others. Ask yourself to what extent you're currently any sort of helpful role model for your clients — and be totally honest with yourself about the real situation! Recognise the importance of your being an A1 role model for everyone around you of the whole self-actualization process in action, with inspiring outlook and everyday-life activities to show for it!

Associated requirement — The above requirement includes being proficient in Helpfulness Testing, so you can find out what are your own uniquely most 'strengthening' (healthy) choices.

Yes, Helpfulness Testing, too, is essential to train clients to carry out — at least, as far as they have the mental capacity yet to manage it. Until you or anyone else is able to use Helpfulness Testing effectively, you / they don't yet have proper self-command, and you / they would still be making all sorts of 'weakening' (unhealthy) choices in your/their lives and could easily be covertly misdirected by the garbage into distorting or abandoning their self-actualization process.

It's Helpfulness Testing, rigorously applied, that enables a person to keep on an even keel despite all the garbage's attempts to divert him/her into ineffective or indeed harmful sidetracks. Never mind how weird or mumbo-jumbo Helpfulness Testing may appear to you at the moment, the reality is that, despite all the pitfalls and difficulties I've experienced in using it, it's been in an important sense the kingpin of my whole self-salvation from a potential very nasty fate at the 'hands' of the garbage, and of my building up my whole working model and methodology.

Another tremendous thing about Helpfulness Testing, when rigorously and awarely used, is that by that means you as a mental health professional could get very helpful pointers as to what are the best choices at the present time for any client you're currently dealing with — i.e., if the person hasn't yet learnt to carry out Helpfulness Testing him/herself — and often be able to pinpoint particular issues that they need to work on or 'zap' at that time.

Second Requirement — For all issues of 'the mind', replace the whole concept of 'recovery' with 'opening up one's potential' or 'opening up one's currently occluded good functioning'!

What use, seeking to help a person just to get over some crisis so that they can function again as they were doing before (and so still being a prime target for future similar crises) — still in a serious state of dysfunction, but perhaps sort-of 'happy' to be like that because they're supposedly 'normal' and don't know any better, and you haven't pointed them to the ways in which they actually need to be turning their lives right around?!!

In place of 'recovery', then, think 'bringing about ongoing improvements in one's functioning and life experience'. — But that would need to be based on the working model of human nature that I've pointed to above, otherwise that 'improved functioning' would undoubtedly mean being driven towards some sort of conformity to somebody's limited, belief-based notion of human nature and good functioning.

It can be said, of course, that in practical terms when one is dealing with a patient crisis, recovery (from that crisis) has to be the immediate aim. That of course is true, but even then, if the right working model is being applied all along, addressing a crisis would be done differently by anyone who is using the truly beneficial working model and methods to start with. They'd use an approach and methods that are not only addressing the crisis but are also helping one to start aligning with an altogether more helpful view of oneself and one's true nature and needs, which would be helping one to move beyond all notions of mere 'recovery'.

That would make the crisis resolution normally more effective to start with, and would be helping the person big time, long-term, far beyond any consideration of crises. The 'crisis' then would be seen in its true colours — as a great 'STOP' signal and positive turning point and big step forward for the person instead of simply a problem that needs to be recovered from or hidden.

People who take up my methods have a funny way of rapidly dissolving (would-be) crisis events themselves as a result of their having the 'bigger picture' and incorporating their own crisis dissolutions as necessary within their whole self-actualization process, then normally having no need for professional assistance.

Indeed, for the most part attacks get dissolved before they could ever become crises — at least often within minutes of first getting noticed. In every case, these people's life experience has become a whole lot better than it ever was previously in their whole life, and they report having become more rational and balanced, and less reactive and 'driven', with regard to various aspects of everyday life.

My web page Crisis emergency self-help — Life upturn the SMART way achieves results for people that, frankly, make a laughing-stock of the 'achievements' of every psychiatric unit and service and every individual psychiatrist in the world, and so presumably saves national health budgets a considerable amount of money in the process.

Associated requirement — Drop completely the whole concept of 'illness' and 'mental health' from your mindset, and think 'self-actualization' and 'life upturn'

In superficial linguistic terms, of course it can be seen as 'correct' to talk of the non-physical issues people experience as being 'mental illness' — though clearly a LOT of people even without my more challenging insights are very uncomfortable about that, and so the euphemism 'mental health issue' has quite widely replaced 'mental illness'.

However, if you stop actually to think about it, 'mental health issue' means nothing different from nor better than 'mental illness', so this is just a typical bit of fig-leafing — i.e., issue-avoidance! And similarly, the term 'psychiatry' and 'psychiatric' have widely been replaced with 'mental health'. Brilliant and 'enlightened', don't you think?! — Except that, apart from the odd small details of improvement, basically it's the same horrendous system of treating people's issues as though they were physical illnesses, so that 'mental health' actually means both 'mental illness' and 'psychiatry'! What a big deal!

Once you're using a proper working model of human function and dysfunction, and associated methodology, as I present on this site for you to take away and use for yourself, then there are no two ways about it — you drop the whole concept of 'mental illness' and 'mental health' — not just the terminology — without any further fig-leafing with euphemisms. It's then necessary for you to use a different terminology that properly describes your new modality and methods.

If for some reason you don't want to use the term 'self actualization', which is the most succinct and appropriate term I could come up with, you'd need to find another term that means just that, and not some synonym for 'mental health' or 'psychiatry' all over again!

Yes, of course, 'self-actualization' is effectively synonymous with 'self-realization', which latter is very much associated with spirituality and the (insidiously harmful) extensive use of formal meditation, but it's actually high time that self-actualization / self-realization was got far more widely on-track, away from the distorted and limited versions of it that are embraced in the whole 'spirituality' arena.

Let's all play our respective parts in emancipating the term 'self-actualization' and showing what a fundamental and vital process of life improvement and upturn it really is, with nothing in the slightest airy-fairy about it!

Third requirement — Look at what's actually happening; NO MORE rules-based working (looking for 'symptoms' and then identifying a supposed 'condition', to which you give a 'diagnostic' label)

As you have here on this site an extremely helpful basic working model to take away and use, it should not be too onerous for you to get looking at what's really going on. The point here is that you DO NOT have to, and indeed need not to, spend really significant time concerning yourself with the details of what any client is experiencing, because, as I explain in many places on this site, those details, however exotic-sounding and seemingly weird, are all just the 'froth' coming from a boringly simple and repetitive small set of mechanisms, and it's these simple mechanisms that the client needs to dissolve. You can't do the latter for them, but if you become experienced in using the methods on yourself you would be able to guide a fair number of people in using the methods themselves.

We're talking here about the need for grounding the awareness and dissolving the relevant primary illusory realities (using Grounding Point) and also using the Feedback-Loop Zapper procedure to stall the feedback loop mechanism and initiate healing of the specific vulnerability that the garbage has been using in order to build that particular attack feedback loop — and, in so doing, you initiate the beginning of the healing of that vulnerability.

If you pay significant attention to the details of the perceived manifestations or the 'story' that the client is picking up, or/and regard them as actual 'symptoms' and thus supposedly 'significant' because the client does, then you've lost the plot, and sweet little garbage can then merrily tie you in knots of misinformed confusion!

Fourth requirement — Operate NOT as a 'doctor', practitioner, therapist, or indeed a 'helper' (as currently understood), but instead as a demonstrator / trainer to get people progressively getting using the methods daily to clear their own issues and turn their own lives right around

Here we hit upon another of the great fallacies and iniquities of the whole psychiatry / 'mental health' mindset, in that everyone in the whole show remains unaware that one of the fundamental needs for anyone to become clear of their troublesome or/and limiting issues is to develop one's own self-command and to use the methods on oneself. It's strictly a do-it-yourself methodology, and that's why the professionals' role has to be completely changed.

As already remarked, you can't use the methods upon somebody else; you can only train / inspire them to learn and use the methods on themselves. — And if you're not proficiently using the methods on yourself, and gaining great life-change benefits from doing so, then, sorry to say, you'd be no inspiration nor useful role model, and so in that case you're not yet fit for that job!

Of course, the prospect of such change of role for established doctors and consultants in particular would initially seem very threatening to most of them, but it's essential that they clear such fears and attachments from their respective systems ('minds', to use their seriously flawed terminology) and in due course take on their new and genuinely greatly beneficial roles.

— And the methodology that I present on this site is the obvious way for them to get cracking with clearing that trash from themselves and making something much more enjoyable and genuinely useful of their lives (think particularly of Grounding Point and The Work.)

Just consider which unspoken dictum would inspire clients to get using the requisite methodology (Is one of these yours, by any chance?)!

This?…

(I'm okay and you're not okay)
…You need to take some tablets, and if those don't work sufficiently, maybe a bit of ECT would be indicated…

Or this?…

(You're okay too!)
…Look how I've been turning my own life around, and it's my interesting little task to show you how to do that joyfully and painlessly for yourself! (including undoing much of the harm that psychiatric treatments have done to you)

As they say, It's a no-brainer — surely??!

Associated requirement — Not to 'play ball' with people's supposed 'need' for help

Trying to 'help' people who think they 'need help' (except in the case of various physical issues) is generally harmful for both would-be 'helper' and the person wanting the 'help'. Trying to 'help' is weakening and draining for the supposed helper, and, done at all frequently, harms his/her not only mental health but physical health too. It's also harmful for the person wanting the supposed help, because it reinforces that person's pattern(s) of personal powerlessness and lack of personal command and self-responsibility.

That's one of the reasons why psychiatric patients are for the most part in such a dire state and so unmotivated for any genuinely positive change in their lives.

So, the only way you can genuinely help is to inspire, and, as necessary, give some training to, the person to resolve their own issues. It's important that all interactions are on the basis of your expecting the other person to exercise full self-command and get on with using the requisite methods and to keep to a minimum their coming back to you with questions that they could work out themselves.

If you want an example of a healthy and mutually maximally beneficial approach to dealing with would-be clients who are actually quite unnecessarily wanting to make demands on one's time and attention, I recommend a (probably rather entertaining) read of the appallingly long screed on the Contact page on this site.

Inevitably some people still ignore the relevant notes on that page and still contact me asking for 'help' or asking unnecessary questions. Because all the help they need is already on this site, I really do refer them back to the notes on the Contact page, or in some cases ignore the message altogether or send the person packing with a gentle but firm 'flea in the ear'.

I'm doing them a considerable service by maintaining my boundary like that, because it would be harmful rather than helpful to them if I responded as they were wanting me to. A good proportion of such people do get the message then, at least 'sort-of', and are appreciative of my having given them that little boot up the arse to motivate them more towards the essential self-empowerment! — and certain of them have subsequently made eventual big strides in their self-actualization process through use of my methods, so I must have been doing something right!

Limitations upon what can be changed for the better…

If what I've presented above seems to you to be too good to be true, actually that's because in some respects it really is, as I've presented it above! — Well, no, it isn't entirely too good to be true by any means, otherwise I'd not have spent time writing this page — but the reality is that, as things are at the moment, only a small, albeit very important, proportion of clients would properly take up the methods and get on with a genuine self-actualization process under their own full self-command as I myself have done and a small proportion of visitors to this site have also done.

Even a high-end super-fast car can't travel at more than 0 km/h if the would-be driver isn't motivated to do the necessary to start it up and then drive it! Do you therefore conclude that the car isn't much good?

Just the same consideration applies to this self-actualization methodology. A considerable proportion of people, on being made aware of this methodology, respond with something like Well, I suppose, yes, the methods would work for some people…, implying that of course the methods wouldn't work for those individuals, or indeed most people. The reality is that, subject to various individual customizations of detail, the methods can be reasonably expected to work for ANYONE, to whatever extent they actually and properly use them!

The big cause of most people lacking motivation or/and actual mental ability to engage with this methodology (at least, in an effective manner), or indeed genuine self-actualization at all, appears to be what I call soul programming, which keeps the affected individuals (who I often refer to as 'sheep') to various extents basing their life experiences on 'received wisdoms', beliefs and preconceived notions, rather than doing any much thinking for themselves or taking proper responsibility for themselves.

Most but not all people with that handicap would still be able to benefit to a fair extent, even though nothing like fully, by being guided through using certain methods like Grounding Point and Self-Power Walking, but many of them wouldn't use the methods, at least much, or effectively, once back at home. However, even that much, and some instruction / demonstration in genuine grounding of their awareness, would do MUCH more for them than the current horrendous 'medical model' druggie approach, without doing any of the harm that medication and ECT do to brain function and usually even physical health long-term.

So we're NOT at all talking about a real down-side of this methodology — especially as I don't know of any alternatives for those people, that would get better results for them. It's just that different people each have their own individual level of capacity for self-actualization or genuine life upturn.

Indeed, a certain modest proportion of people with initial obstructive awareness / motivation blocks to effectiveness of this methodology, if given training and encouragement over a period so that they keep using the methods to the best of their current ability, would succeed in progressively weakening / dissolving their obstacles and so become increasingly effective and motivated in use of the methods.

I've seen this in action with certain individuals who first came to this site appearing to me to be more or less hopeless cases — and they didn't even have anyone to give them individual training, as that's not something I myself have time / resources to give except in very rare and special cases.

Indeed, with this modality the whole psychiatric hospital (replacement) atmosphere and experience would be immeasurably better than it is at the moment, because of the completely different professional / client relationship, and the way that the whole mental health service environment would be geared to encouraging their clients to self-help and self-heal, and to keep away from 'medication' as far as possible, rather than to be a passive pill-popping 'patient'. Thus many people who currently couldn't make sense at all of the contents of this site would gain at least some idea that they really can do something about any issues that they do have, and that that's light-years better than how things are for such people at the moment.

Even just to be given some degree of understanding that their particular troublesome manifestations are illusory, however real they appear to be, and are actually caused by this unseen influence that's best called 'the garbage', which itself is nothing more than programming in 'thought energy' (like a computer virus) rather than being any malevolent or intelligent conscious being, can and does have a profound and rapid stalling effect on many of their immediate crisis events. This is because their crisis feedback loops have incorporated an illusory reality in which the subjectively perceived manifestations are actually 'real' and made to feel compellingly so.

Over time, many people have written in to me telling me that even their just taking on board that notion from a first reading in this site had suddenly empowered them and stalled their immediate crisis and was clearly making it more difficult for further crises to occur, at least at a similar level of disruptiveness.

For me, those reports were no surprise at all, because my own experimentally taking on board in April 2007 the notion that the 'astral beings' and any other non-physical manifestations that were giving me grief would be just illusory phenomena caused by an unseen influence that itself was just a parallel of a computer virus, immediately increased my self-empowerment and grounding, considerably reducing the intrusiveness and disruptiveness of those manifestations.

That effect wasn't least because at last I had a clearly observed handle on the likelihood that I really was onto a meaningful and soundly based direction for some sort of means to resolve or at least greatly minimize the whole issue of the interferences and attacks I'd been experiencing. — And, boy, was I right about that!

So there's at least some real hope for everyone?

Maybe, but sadly, maybe not quite everyone. Not only are some people very heavily soul-programmed, so that they'd be particularly difficult to reach with any different life outlook or self-actualization methodology, but some of the people who come to the mental health services have various sorts of hard-wired chronic difficulty in distinguishing between 'reality' and illusory realities, or/and difficulties in understanding consequences of their actions (resulting in their being locked into various antisocial outlooks and behaviours), which have a physical basis.

These are usually particular sorts of brain defect or malfunction, which are often genetically based. It's not that their issues are otherwise theoretically particularly different from those of other people, but those particular defects would tend to make them more or less refractory with regard to attempts to use the methods given on this site, even though theoretically they do need those methods because they too are having a hard time being 'pixie-led', and often being given difficult experiences, by the garbage.

Clearly, then, we can't yet think in terms of completely abandoning medication and restraint procedures and so forth altogether, because neither I nor anyone else yet has a solution to every single type of issue that may impact upon a person's mental state.

But even so, if harmful procedures / medications that are currently routinely dished out to virtually all 'patients' were restricted just to those individuals who couldn't be handled in any other way, then at least the majority of clients could be spared harmful and disempowering treatments and could be trained at least to some extent to heal themselves, at least to the extent of stalling garbage attacks and crises when they arise, without recourse to drugs at all, perhaps with the exception of a very occasional pragmatically taken Zopiclone tablet in the case of short-term handling of significant sleep problems*. They'd also be much less likely to need further (at least, major) assistance from the mental health services. Great plus-point, that!

I'm sure, though, that a mental health establishment that does what it can to give each client encouragement and training towards self-command and self-actualization would also be the best possible sort of environment even for those blighted with intractable, physically-based blocks upon any genuine healing / self-actualization process that would otherwise get them out of their respective predicaments.

Such individuals of course include among their ranks those who are widely regarded as 'hardened psychopaths', 'monsters', and so forth, but even for those I rather think that professionals who have a proper understanding as I've presented on this site would be much more genuinely helpful for those most unfortunate individuals and would tend to relate more humanely with them, even though keeping it clear that those people can't be allowed to carry out seriously anti-social acts and would generally have to be kept away from the general public.

In such cases particular ongoing medication regimes may need to be continued until ways can be found to make them unnecessary. I'm thinking here particularly about means being found to rectify in some degree the underlying physical defects. Very likely here and there appropriate gene therapy would be the answer.

Criticism Corner

"You're being too harsh on psychiatrists! My consultant saved my life!"

I well understand that some current or one-time 'patients' would have that view. Yes, in the short term quite a number of lives are saved and crises sort-of stalled by psychiatric establishments.

However, what's happening then in general isn't so much that psychiatry per se is doing anything much of genuine benefit, but the 'patient' is simply (a) having the benefit of some supportive people around one (primarily the nurses) to ensure that one doesn't commit suicide and in some cases may be diverted from doing that in the future, and having an incidental but crucial effect of assisting the grounding of one's awareness, and (b) medication and often ECT is being used to damage brain function to hide (with varying degrees of success) the manifestations ('symptoms') of the underlying cause.

Thus the person has some degree of reduction of the troublesome manifestations, yes, though generally only temporarily, so that one needs ongoing 'treatments' in order to continue trying to hide the real problem, AND, thanks to the accruing effects of the 'treatments', the patient victim has reduced brain functioning and associated reduced level of awareness — which means still less ability to make anything worthwhile of one's life or indeed to use genuine self-actualization methods for addressing and resolving the underlying problem, as I give on this site.

Taking the psychiatry route supposedly to address your problem is damaging your brain, and progressively limiting and reducing your life experience.

Unfortunately, most of the patients victims, with their damaged brain function and reduced awareness, aren't able to recognise that they're being harmed by their treatments, particularly as they often subjectively feel more comfortable that way, in their more zombie-like condition. Thus inevitably a fair number of them would speak up for psychiatry and those who practise it.

In short, then, psychiatry is more about muddling along with trying to stop crises or indeed stop people from behaving strangely (by use of ignorance-based brute-force methods that are inevitably harmful), and virtually nothing at all about recognising, let alone addressing, actual underlying causes and improving people's lives in any worthwhile way. That's why it needs replacing, particularly seeing that the necessary alternative is available right now (on this site)!

You can't change human nature! — I tell you, you can't change it!

For this I refer you to the same-titled section in Philip Goddard's self-actualization methodology — introduction (this opens a new window / tab).

"That's all very well, but your methods are not psychiatry, and so aren't relevant to my work"

Hard cheese, then! If you want to play the silly fool and continue harming your clients while continuing to participate in an institutionalized pretence of being their helper / saviour, then that's your choice and indeed your problem (and, sadly, also the problem of your 'patients').

Yes, it's damned true that what I'm putting forward on this site is what we need to REPLACE psychiatry — not a new modality to be called or thought of as 'psychiatry', nor one just to be another peripheral 'lunatic fringe' modality to coexist uneasily with continuing mainstream psychiatry! It would defy common sense to ignore the real way forward and continue in one's psychiatric rut, or notionally to switch to the real way forward, as presented on this site, but still to be stuck in one's rut to such an extent that one still regarded oneself as a psychiatrist and maybe even called what one is doing 'psychiatry' — a wholly inappropriate name for this actually fully effective and beneficial modality!

Undoubtedly a new, succinct name would need to be found for my whole approach and methodology, for 'self-actualization training' would be rather a mouthful and wouldn't be immediately meaningful (at least yet) to most people. Maybe something more like 'life upturn training'? — And so, we could replace 'mental health' with 'life upturn'! How about that?!!

— But then again, if 'certain individuals' (named elsewhere on this site) are to be believed, apparently only 'paranoid schizophrenics' come up with ideas like mine, so, clearly you'd better listen to what those 'certain individuals' say, and believe what they tell you, and give a very wide berth indeed to the ideas presented here, along with your common sense!

Conclusion

On the odd occasion in the past I've been sighingly or indeed indignantly described as a 'hard taskmaster', because of my consistency in not accommodating or colluding with people's harmful and completely unnecessary irrationalities / stupidities. I can imagine some present-time sighs and moans (maybe also a bit of gnashing and wailing or wrathful exclamations about this idiot bumbling amateur!) from some individuals reading this page, who are also similarly calling me a hard taskmaster!

But actually it's never really been about me being any sort of taskmaster at all, because I'm nowhere telling people what they should or should not do. Those moans and sighs are from individuals who want to continue for the rest of their lives living out their 'devil-I-know' irrationalities and other dysfunctions rather than any 'devil-I-don't-know' improved functioning and quality of life, and so, as a result, are serving minimal genuine useful purpose for the community at large, let alone for themselves.

Is that what they really want, or what their own deepest levels of consciousness intended for them in the current lifetime? Somehow, on the basis of my own observations, I very much doubt it, being acutely aware of how much worthwhile life experience they're denying themselves, through their staying put in their seemingly comfortable but uninspiring little ruts. I'd gently remind that 'wants' and needs have a funny way of not at all being the same thing.

Anyway, if that's how they intend to continue, then that's their free choice and not my business — though I freely acknowledge that if a switch were available to me, which would remove all these people's stultifying and limiting patterns and other dysfunctions, I'd flip that switch without so much as a 'by your leave'*! No-one has any genuine right to be stupid, at least in ways that impact harmfully on others, even if they have notional free choice to be so!

In reality, all this bumbling spoilsport is doing here is simply a little whistle-blowing about cause and effect, which I know from hard experience only a very small proportion of people want to know about, thank you very much! And I've got far enough in my own self-actualization process that I'm able on appropriate occasions to cut through the normal collusions of people's confusions, to speak directly and undiplomatically about what's really needed if genuine positive change is to occur, and to disregard the inevitable flack that some individuals then send my way (MailWasher Pro is a great ally for me in the latter respect! ).

While it's one of my tasks here and elsewhere in my life to highlight in full starkness the iniquity that psychiatry and so-called 'mental health' represents (i.e., as currently operating), I also have to say that my experience with many 'mental health' workers, with special mention of the nurses and Crisis Team members, has been remarkably positive.

Also, although doctors and consultants generally tend to be more distorted by their own power / control and personal status agendas, I've still encountered really decent and well-intentioned individuals in those roles, so it would be very wide of the mark to imagine from my writings that I have some chip on my shoulder about all such people. It's simply that I see with clarity what's really going on, and most inconsiderately blow the whistle about it. The 'Establishment' and those with personal status issues don't like whistle-blowers, and of course seek to dismiss or discredit their rabid utterances, in order to preserve their particular orthodoxies and personal agendas!

I'm mindful that, in order to seek to discredit me and my work on this site for their own business reasons and to try to defend their perceived personal / social status, the developers / purveyors of a particular semi-scam 'healing' device (the Energy Egg, about which I'd publicly expressed reservations) trawled cursorily through the odd page on this site (in 2008 or 2009) to gather out-of-context bits of 'ammunition', and then produced an eye-wateringly defamatory character-assassination dossier about me, which they emailed to various people — a 'mole' (previously unknown to me) then forwarding a completely unsolicited copy to me so I learnt exactly what was going on.

In that dossier, among a mass of other distortions and total fabrications, they claimed that I had a history of falling out with authority figures, and indeed, according to them, had fallen out with my psychiatric doctors — which, they claimed, was one of the prime indications that I had paranoid schizophrenia!

Amazing, that they knew so much more about me than either I or the psychiatric consultant / doctors with whom I dealt knew! In reality, nobody in the mental health service ever 'diagnosed' such a condition for me, even though the consultant and doctor during my first hospitalization did ask me questions that were clearly probing for signs of that very 'condition'.

In fact, all the feedback I got from the mental healthcare workers involved with me at any time was very positive and appreciative, because, far from 'falling out' with them, I'd consistently responded to them as genuine equals and friends, which was quite a novelty for them (i.e., from a supposed 'patient'), and it was clear that they generally recognised that I was in some (probably somewhat mystifying way) unusually well-functioning mentally.

Sure, of course I did have fundamental disagreements with the consultant and doctor during my first hospitalization in particular, but having such disagreements in itself hardly implies one's having any sort of mental illness, and indeed in the particular circumstances would have been more of an indicator of unusually healthy mental functioning because I was seeking to maintain my own self-respect / self-command and make something genuinely constructive of my hospitalization in general and my dealings with all individual staff in particular.

And indeed, that consultant came considerably to respect me, because he observed for himself my self-command, and the way that my rejection of all medication that I could possibly avoid was associated with my self-directing a sort of recovery from each respective crisis that had them rather taken aback, and, it appeared, somewhat bewildered.

I think also, that the particular consultant really did recognise, in a funny sort of way, that I really was onto something significant with regard to my accumulating insights into what was really going on for me — but of course he felt constrained by his position as, yes, a psychiatric consultant with a professional reputation to maintain*, so naturally, as far as I know he didn't follow up the matter. Pity that he moved away and I then had no means to keep him updated.

My point here is that, apart from whistle-blowing about what's clearly really going on, I still look to the human side of every single person, psychiatric consultants included. That's why I'm troubling to produce this challenging page — NOT as a condemnation of those people, but as a loving wake-up call for them to stop trundling along in their actually seriously harmful and unsatisfying ruts, and instead to make something truly great out of their lives, achieving client results that have so far been beyond their wildest dreams, indeed just as this bumbling 'amateur' here is succeeding in doing right under their noses without most or even any of those psychiatrists noticing or even wanting to know about — yet!

As to how you might best follow this page up by learning more about my working model and methodology, I recommend that you go to the Related Pages section here just below the Table of Contents, where you'll find a shortlist of pages to start you off.

The Crisis emergency self-help — Life upturn the SMART way page actually presents in concise form your own basic prospective model of the real way for you, both to sort yourself out and to get your clients as helped as can possibly be, in the most genuine ways — but you do need to be well-established in using the methods on yourself and turning your own life right around before you can be properly effective in introducing them to anyone else.