In today’s societies, anxiety is often labelled as a leading mental health issue. However, what if we were to shift our perspective and view anxiety not as a psychological disorder, but as a gift from nature?
Anxiety serves as the driving force behind evolution. In the wild, certain animals have adapted by changing their colour or shape to increase their chances of survival. However, unlike adrenaline junkies, most individuals do not enjoy anxiety-inducing situations, such as meeting the bank manager for another loan, facing an exam, or confronting the boss.
Anxiety also serves as the fundamental underlying factor or shared element among most if not all so-called psychological disorders and mental illnesses, encompassing conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, addictions, panic attacks, and depression.
I would posit that when one encounters anxiety, it does not indicate sickness, or the presence of a psychological disorder, nor a mental illness. Rather, it signifies the intricate workings of the amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure in the brain that is involved in processing and regulating emotions, including fear and anxiety. It is the key component of the brain’s fear circuitry. This remarkable process needs to be revered in the same way as we marvel at the awe-inspiring healing of the skin after injury or the immune system diligently combating infections and diseases.
Anxiety and fear serve as the driving force behind the amygdala, playing a crucial role in the survival of the human species, even when facing challenging odds. When anxiety arises in an individual, it signifies the activation of a protective response by the amygdala, aiming to safeguard against potential harm. This innate mechanism has contributed to our survival for countless millennia. It is perplexing to consider how such a remarkable process could be considered the foundation of a psychological disorder, leading to the proliferation of psychiatric medications designed to dampen brain activity.
The amygdala also plays a crucial role in addictions. Specifically, it is involved in the formation of associations between drugs and other addictive substances and the reward centers of the brain.
Normalcy: Now the New Unhealthy.
The sensation of anxiety is inherently natural and within the realms of normal human experience. It is our reactions to anxiety that often give rise to subsequent issues leading the individuals to believe they possess a psychological disorder. Regrettably, these reactions are also considered normal, thereby compounding the problem. The concept of normalcy has become outdated and is now detrimental to our well-being, as it fosters unhealthy behaviours and reinforces beliefs that are way past their use by date. It is high time for individuals to transcend the confines of normalcy, to rise above the instinctive hair-trigger response of the amygdala, which was fine tuned for survival in bygone eras.
There are two reasons why normalcy today is detrimental to one’s health.
The first is ignorance of the evolutionary developmental structure of the brain, in particularly the primitivistic operations of the amygdala.
When we encounter a potentially threatening or dangerous situation, the amygdala quickly assesses the situation and triggers the “fight or flight” response, which is a physiological response that prepares the body to either confront the threat or flee from it. This response involves the release of stress hormones, increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and other changes that prepare the body to respond to the perceived threat.
This is well and good back in the days of survival in a world in which we were poorly equipped to survive. We had no armour, no claws, or fangs, no tongue that could shoot out poison into the predator’s eyes, we could not outrun most of four-legged beasts. Throughout history it has certainly proved its worth in times of battles, wars and breaking in new ground.
However, in today’s world, where physical survival threats are less prevalent, more so in the developed countries, the amygdala can sometimes work against us. It can be triggered by self-doubt, insecurities, past painful memories, physiological sensations, and external factors such as job insecurities, public speaking engagements, or financial stress.
The amygdala’s highly sensitive response, which was once critical for survival can result in significant impairments in our physical and mental well-being.
In the Mindeasy program, the amygdala’s role is explored to encompass its influence on various unhelpful patterns and behaviors, even in the absence of genuine physical threat. These include generating feelings of self-pity, excessive rumination, magnifying insignificant matters, dwelling on past events, fostering self-limiting beliefs, perceiving the world as adversarial, triggering immature or destructive reactions to adversity, promoting self-sabotage, facilitating susceptibility to substance abuse, inciting childish and angry behavior, engaging in the blame game, pushing others away, exhibiting unpleasant behavior towards others. It also makes us believe that there is something terribly wrong with us, i.e., a psychological disorder.
Any of this applies to you? Absolutely, and the reason is we share common evolutionary structures.
The contemporary functions and operations of the amygdala are considered typical and normal; however, in the context of today’s society, they are also acting to make us unhealthy.
The second reason why normalcy today can be detrimental to health is also directly tied to the functioning of the amygdala.
Individuals generally behave according to their beliefs. To comprehend people and their actions, it is essential to ascertain the beliefs they hold. Beliefs play a vital role in survival as they serve as the brain’s primary means of comprehending the world. Back in primitive times we didn’t have the luxury, nor the intellectual sophistication of subjecting beliefs to rigorous testing as to their factual or scientific bases. It was a matter of quick assessment or die.
Beliefs serve the purpose of granting us a sense of control over our environment, and to provide a stabilizing force in navigating life’s challenges. Shared beliefs then form the bedrock upon which societies and culture are built.
The moral and legal validity of beliefs held by individuals is frequently determined by society. In fact, it is society through its designated institutions such as the psychiatric profession, that hold the authority to define what qualifies as a psychological disorder or a mental illness.
For now, let’s shift our attention to the individual while acknowledging that society, culture, and the individual are inherently interconnected and cannot be entirely separated.
What is it about beliefs that are at the root of the detrimental nature of today’s normalcy? At this juncture I won’t delve into the matter of potentially flawed content within the individual’s belief system, which could underlie certain functional problems. This falls within the realm of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which aims to encourage individuals to subject their beliefs to a reality test and embrace change. Unfortunately, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) often fails to recognize the direct influence of the amygdala on the formation of beliefs in the first instance, ultimately leading to a lack of desired outcomes for the individual undergoing therapy.
I am interested in something that is more fundamental than that.
In my first book Dirty Tricks of the Brain, I suggest setting aside psychology, a young science that still has much to learn. Instead let’s turn to the venerable parent of all sciences: philosophy.
As elucidated in ‘Why Bad Beliefs Don’t Die’ by George. W. Lester (2002), beliefs tend to firmly anchor themselves, making them resistant to change, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. Humans, once again influenced by the operations of the amygdala, are predisposed to perceive beliefs as truths, oftentimes regarding them as absolute truths.
In Dirty Tricks of the Brain, I contend that once you start regarding a belief as an absolute truth, you have fallen prey to the primitivistic operations of the amygdala.
In his book The Ant and the Ferrari (2012), Dr Kerry Spackman highlights that only Mathematics and Logic possess the quality of being absolute truths. He asserts that even God cannot break or manipulate the rules of Mathematics or Logic.
How does this relate to the individual and the debate between normality and so-called psychological disorders?
It appears that our inclination to treat beliefs as absolute truths constitutes “normal” behavior. However, given our current understanding of history, science, philosophy, and psychology, it is evident that treating beliefs as absolute truths can also be detrimental to our well-being. This brings me to the crunch point I wish to make, and it’s also the bases of my argument expressed in more depth elsewhere, that mental illness is a myth.
Over two millennia ago, a philosopher unravelled this understanding but regrettably, humans have failed to grasp it even to this day.
The philosopher, Aristotle, often credited with the statement “The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought (and let’s include sensations, feelings, and personal experience) without accepting it,” pinpointed the essence of the matter. And there you have it – his insight remains spot-on. Unfortunately, thousands of years later, much of humanity has yet to grasp the concept and the implications, both at the personal level as well as the global level.
The inclination to treat beliefs as truths, combined with the influence of the amygdala, forms the fundamental principles underlying the Mindeasy program.
Mindeasy offers a unique and captivating approach that guides individuals through the step by step understanding of the amygdala’s functions and how to transform it into a best friend rather than an enemy. The program teaches techniques to disengage the amygdala from its primitive operations rooted in fear, ignorance, simplistic thinking, and associations. It empowers the individual to adapt their amygdala’s functioning to thrive in the modern world, allowing it once again to work in their favour rather than against them.
As I often tell my clients, while we may drive different cars, the underlying mechanics remain largely the same.
Whether I am with clients dealing with ocd, addictions, anxiety issues, depression, or any other challenges, including psychoses, the underlying processes remain consistent. These processes involve two key factors: (1) a lack of awareness regarding the operations and influence of the amygdala and (2) the tendency to treat beliefs about our thoughts, feelings, and sensations as absolute truths.
In my forthcoming blog posts, I will put forward that individuals labeled with a “mental illness” are fundamentally no different to anyone else. They are merely acting based on their own beliefs.
Take a moment to revisit this profound and timeless wisdom that dates back over 2000 years: “The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought (including sensations, feelings, and personal experience) without accepting it.” How truly remarkable and inspiring is this insight.
What causes us to be so predisposed to perceive fear in our experiences and allow ourselves to be controlled by it? The answer lies in the fact that we don’t possess a singular brain, but rather a combination of a primitive brain and the more advanced structures that enable higher functions. The primitive brain, consistently on high alert, reacts with greater swiftness compared to the rest of our cognitive faculties.
The outcomes I achieve with all my clients are not attained through ‘’therapy’ per se, but rather through education. Right from outset, I inform my clients with utmost clarity. “You are not sick.”