You do not "have" a problem...the
problem is a socioeconomic system that thrives on keeping us sick

My approach to healing does not rely on any abstract, esoteric theories made up by privileged academics studying human behavior in an isolated lab, or in a cultural context far removed from our own (looking at you, Freud...and some of the trending expert "influencers" on social media today). For me, it's simple: humans are born with an immense, innate capacity for joy, wonder, intelligence, creativity, resilience, compassion, and adaptability. It just so happens that we live in a society that, from an early age, teaches and conditions us to forget these capacities as we take our place within an impersonal, industrial consumer culture that then turns around and tries to sell us these qualities back to ourselves through mass-produced material goods and entertainment distractions. 

The problem is, this socioeconomic model is designed to keep us perpetually dissatisfied and unfulfilled. That way, we continue figuratively and literally buying into a system that is principally concerned with maximizing profit -- not with supporting people in living the most emotionally, relationally, communally, vocationally, and spiritually fulfilling lives possible. The writing is on the wall: today, in industrialized societies chock full of fancy gadgets, gizmos, appliances, machines, and supposedly "smart" technologies (there are currently over 12 million products for sale on Amazon....and yet, somehow, we're not happy yet!), the large majority of citizens of these societies are depressed, anxious, and chronically ill. In fact, years ago, the World Health Organization reported that depression and anxiety are now the globally leading causes of health disturbance, outstripping cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. During the pandemic, rates of depression/anxiety more than tripled in many industrialized societies. So, while corporate profits, sales, and the bank accounts of the 1% continue to skyrocket at incomprehensible rates, the large statistical majority of industrialized populations are more chronically ill and dissatisfied with life than any other society in human history. Doesn't really add up, does it?

"Insanity in individuals is something rare. But in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule." - Fredrich  Nietzsche

You do not have a mental illness...our society is sick

The "problems" that the vast majority of people seek to address through therapy are not individual problems as such. "Problems," that is -- like depression; anxiety; chronic pain; dissatisfaction with life/career; PTSD; obsessive, compulsive, and maladaptive behaviors; and relational difficulties -- do not principally indicate a defect or inadequacy in you, they reflect a harmful incongruence between what is authentically human and what our society readily supports and provides for us. In short, we are born into and forced to live within an inhuman, and inhumane, socioeconomic-political milieu. Being social creatures, we instinctively adapt to this cultural ecology like any other form of life adapts to its environment. But just as an animal becomes sick and suffers when it is forced to adapt to and live within an environment polluted by toxic waste, so too do humans become sick and suffer when adapted to a toxic modern cultural environment.

This toxicity pervades even our healthcare system, which habitually pathologizes anything and everything "abnormal" in a person. "Don't feel perfectly happy, cheery, energetic, and carefree like the airbrushed models in magazines and commercials, or like the pristine images of social media influencers all the time? Well, you clearly have a mental disorder and here's a synthetic pharmaceutical pill to fix you." This is essentially the message we hear, over and over again. Our consumer commodity culture thrives on pushing this message: "If you're not approximating this fake, manufactured image of an ideal person, then there's something wrong with you and you need fixing. Oh! And we conveniently have all sorts of products and services you can buy to make yourself right."

Trauma is not an illness or defect; it is a repressed strength

To resolve trauma is to unfix a state of nervous system "stuckness" -- not to "fix" something wrong!

I believe this cultural messaging is, ultimately, bullshit. If we allow ourselves time to feel into the whole situation, I think most people feel this intuitively, too. And, robust science now supports this intuition. The large majority of "mental illnesses/disorders" catalogued by the mainstream medical establishment -- including depression, anxiety, OCD/ADHD, PTSD, disordered eating, insomnia...as well as countless "physical" ailments such as IBS, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, structural imbalances, and many more -- are actually symptoms of a common underlying condition: trauma, which, biologically speaking, is chronic neurophysiological dysregulation. In this compromised biophysical condition, our innate life- and health-support systems are repressed, numbed, and/or shut down. Over time, this harmfully alters everything necessary for health, vitality, and wellbeing, including our neurochemistry, cellular biochemistry, hormones, genetic expression, metabolism, circadian rhythms, respiration, cardiovascular function, immune function, digestion, sensory perception, and relational functions such as interpersonal communication, social perception, and our ability to love and be loved.

But wait - there's good news!

Despite this otherwise bleak picture of our current social reality, there is a very bright, shiny silver lining to all this. In short, "trauma" is not an illness, disease, disorder, or defect; it is a repressed strength. The symptoms of trauma -- which everyone experiences at some point in life, and which the entire human species is now suffering from -- do not reflect something "wrong" with you, they actually reflect a profound adaptive function that has only become maladaptive because we were wrongly disallowed this adaptive function from fully actualizing and returning us to a state of healthy equilibrium following a triggering experience. In simplistic form, trauma just is the unnatural prevention of a protective/defensive/survival response from naturally completing itself after a danger or threat has passed. When we get stuck in a protective/defensive response -- which is a state of neurophysiological dysregulation, which is temporarily adaptive and safe but chronically maladaptive and harmful -- we become traumatized. Eventually, this manifests as the large majority of symptoms from which people seek relief through various forms of therapy, drugs, treatments, and even surgeries.

When we address symptoms of trauma by "targeting" (note the attacking/combative language here) the "bad" stuff with a goal of "fixing" ourselves, we neglect the core goodness that we actually want to feel and support. This pathologizing approach to health is ultimately mechanistic: it's like taking a car into an auto repair shop. But, symptoms of trauma do not mean that there's something wrong with us, like a car with a broken transmission. Rather, trauma is a condition of an originally good (adaptive) ability that has turned "bad" (maladaptive) by no fault of our own. To resolve this condition requires liberating stuck energies so you can return to your real, full, authentic self. Machines and computers need fixing: living beings need releasing.

What's "wrong" is that we're not asking what's right

Moving Beyond the Modern "Sickness Industry"

In his book What's Wrong with the World, G.K. Chesterton remarks that, ironically, what's wrong with the world is that we're not asking what's right. Modern industrial society, and especially professional expert culture, is obsessed with finding (and even creating) problems to fix. As Burton Bledstein writes in his incisive book The Culture of Professionalism, "professionals not only lived in an irrational world, they cultivated that irrationality by uncovering abnormality and perversity everywhere." This pathologizing approach has dominated modern and contemporary medicine and healthcare. As Gary Fettke, MD recently explains, "We don't have a health system. We have a sickness industry. ...Medical education is far and away focused on investigating and treating sickness rather than keeping us healthy. It's reactive rather than preventative. We spend infinitely more time and money treating the sick rather than being rewarded for keeping people healthy." Likewise, David Bearman, MD asserts that "medical doctors are experts in disease, not health."

Oh, the irony! Americans spend more than $4 trillion per year on healthcare, yet the statistical majority of American adults suffer from at least one chronic illness, and 20% of Americans live with at least 5 (yes, five!) chronic illnesses. Something is seriously wrong here. But it is not you that is "wrong." The sad reality is that in a consumer commodity economy, health is not profitable, so it is not sold. What's sold to us is the lie that there is something deeply and perpetually wrong with us, and that we can remedy these wrongs by buying all sorts of products, services, drugs, treatments, and surgeries that will "fix" us.

My approach to health and wellbeing rejects this sad, cynical, and demeaning narrative. Rather, I begin with the belief that humans are remarkably resilient, capable, and competent to meet and overcome even the most seemingly intractable challenges and setbacks. We all possess immense potential to overcome odds, to grow into new levels and dimensions of intelligence and skill, and to heal. The problem for most of us is simply that our society has forbidden us the opportunity and resources necessary for actualizing our full potential. In this sense, what's "wrong" with us is that we've been prevented from connecting with and living from a place of what's right. We are all inherently capable of astounding feats and an infinite diversity of skills, abilities and creativity. To heal is not to fix something that's broken, like in a car; it is to reconnect with those parts of ourselves that were forgotten in contemporary society's mad dash for the contrived and unnatural economic ethics of ever-increasing consumption and superficial entertainment.

Forget the rat race. Let's return to the authentic core of human life: the dance with wonder, joy, abundance, love, hope, peace, and cooperation. Therein lies the potential of a cosmic, quantum, heart-based living intelligence.