Episode 1: Introduction
Who are we, and why are we so passionate about our work? We are mental health professionals and we have seen results for more than 30 years.
Who are we, and why are we so passionate about our work? We are mental health professionals and we have seen results for more than 30 years.
Psychology has been treating all the outcomes of insecure, misunderstood thinking as though they were the problems. The one underlying problem is what creates insecurity.
We see resiliency and mental health as our “starter kit,” the essence of our being that cannot be lost, only obscured. We see our misunderstood use of thought as the way we obscure it.
The essential capacities of mental health practitioners are the ability to listen, not for our checklist of symptoms but for the heart of our clients, and then to have no fear of speaking from our own insights and pointing out our clients’ insights.
When people understand their power to think, and their capacity to allow thoughts to come and go, they get in touch with the Innate Health that is their essence, and they discover the wisdom that arises through their own uncluttered thinking.
We’ve been referring to Principles underlying our work. Here’s a deeper description of the three Universal Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought.
When we feel mental distress, we seek help, just as we do when we feel physical distress. We get a diagnosis of our presenting problem. Is that diagnosis a long-term label, or just an observation about a temporary, misunderstood state of thinking? What if diagnoses are descriptions of the many ways we thinkers can get distressed and insecure and, without meaning to, start to use our thinking against ourselves?
Many people think experiencing trauma dooms us to long-standing psychological pain. No doubt, trauma results in horrible memories that are distressing when they come to mind. But with an understanding of how the mind works and what the past really is, we can allow those thoughts to come and go, and move on with life.
Anxiety is a frequent mental health complaint that escalates in difficult times. It always looks like something “out there” is causing it and anxiety is the only and inevitable response. We address the question whether anxiety is a natural response to external events, or an outcome of the way we think about external events. Is it possible not to be anxious, no matter what is going on? We say yes.
Many people consider a diagnosis of depression a sort of “character trait,” a lifelong problem. But depression is a product of negative thinking taken seriously over time, and it passes. Like all misunderstood thinking, it’s temporary.