Our society has a fundamental underlying belief that if we’re healthy, we’re happy, and if we’re not we’re probably doing something wrong.

Look to any magazine stand and see all of the different ways we are told we can fix that. Get slimmer, make more money, renovate your home, or buy different make up—then, surely, you’ll be happy.

As a psychologist, I have found this belief to be echoed in the modern medical community; the assumption of a healthy normality is one which posits that a psychologically healthy person will be happy, not destructive.

We only have to look at the extremely high incidence of DSM disorders in the general population to start to question this assumption. If so called mental illness is so rampant, with one in four people experiencing some sort of disorder in their lifetime, how can psychological health be considered normal?

Furthermore, 50% of suicides are not related to any DSM disorder at all. These are just people who were going through a difficult period in their lives, but would not be classified as clinically depressed – they would be considered clinically “normal.”

The majority of people will have periods of their life where they experience profound loneliness, stress and confusion. This is the reality of what normal means.

Once we begin to understand and accept this, we can begin to operate from a new assumption: a normal person will experience the symptoms of psychological disorder at some point as a natural result of the pain that is an inevitable aspect of the human experience.

In my clinical practice, I have begun to try to help people who are experiencing emotional difficulties but would not be classified as mentally disordered.

Together, we begin to surpass the notion that we are not supposed to feel negative emotions. When we realise that these emotions are not only natural, but unavoidable, we can stop wasting our limited time and energy resources on on trying not to feel these things.

By allowing our experiences, both internal and external, to be as they are, we begin to allow ourselves the space to exercise our power to choose how we want to respond to those feelings.

Using mindfulness and acceptance techniques, clients learn on an experiential level that thoughts and feelings come and go, while there is an underlying unchanging observer who can always transcend the current circumstances of life.

This is a technique that is not generally talked about in the psychological community because it can’t be measured. I can’t say that my clients’ level of depression gets clinically reduced, but they learn to live with the emotions and thoughts that are coming up for them.

They change their relationship with these thoughts and emotions so that they aren’t so frightening. They learn to focus their efforts on things that will improve their quality of life—things like cultivating connection with their families and friends, engaging in passions, or exercising. This, in turn, can reduce symptoms of depression, but I believe that to focus on symptom reduction is to miss the point.

We are beautifully flawed human beings. The typical person will experience many, many moments of profound peace, intense joy, and great pain. This is what makes us alive — there is as much life in a moment of pain as in a moment of joy.

Relephant read: 

8 Natural Tips for Coping with Anxiety.

 

Author: Alexandra Birrell

Apprentice Editor: Alex McGinness / Editor: Sara Kärpänen

Photo: Milada Vigerova / StockSnap