What if what underlies these distressing experiences was less often understood as a mental illness, and more often recognised as an adaptive response to adversity, social inequality and the associated stress and trauma?

Western medicine has long favoured the “what’s wrong with you” model of emotional pain.

If we ask “what’s happened to you?” we can often quickly begin to understand really important aspects of human distress. The answer doesn’t lead us to diagnosing a fault or disorder, in fact it exposes a nervous system which has over-compensated to protect us from further harm.

👉🏼 Our minds and bodies are intricately connected.
👉🏼 Our systems have two key objectives above all others: survival and connection.
👉🏼 When either is threatened, we have evolved an intricate stress response, designed to be short-term.
👉🏼 If we stay in that survival response for too long without help or relief, our system adapts, making the survival state our baseline. It’s “easier” to stay there than to escape.
👉🏼 These “problems” are caused by being stuck in a survival response which was once adaptive and may even have kept us alive/ safe.
👉🏼 Rebalance is achievable.
👉🏼 Cues of safety and helping relationships, among other things can help to return us to a rest state.

And of course this is a wild oversimplification.

And it won’t feel like a good fit for all and that’s ok.

If you’re interested I would so highly recommend the book What Happened To You? by Oprah Winfrey and Dr Bruce Perry.