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It's-Not-Your-Fault Psychology

The traditional and prevailing paradigm of mental health therapy maintains that people "come down with" mental disorders, like they "come down with" physical diseases like measles, mumps, or chicken pox. I reject this assumption for two reasons:

       1)    It ain't so, and
       2)   Because it robs people of the Response-Ability of owning their contribution
                to the creation of their problem.

However, I do accept as valid, the various descriptive categories of how people live "dis-ordered" lives—as detailed in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These dysfunctional patterns are very real! I simply disagree with the notion that people "come down with" these so-called psychological diseases!

When you accept the erroneous assumption that mental dis-ease appears like the FLU—with absolutely no contribution from you—in doing so, you push aside the very Response-Ability that is essential to overcoming personal problems. You see, if you have participated in the production of a problem, THEN you can un-produce that problem by making principle-based choices! Otherwise, if you have no input into the problem, YOU are stuck!

Most people don't really ”have” A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder) or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or Bipolar Disorder, etc., . . . as much as they ”do” dis-ordered behaviors by ”making” dis-ordered choices! When we say a person "has" a disorder, again this tends to excuse a person from personal responsibility. Here's how I explain it in my book:

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You DO your Dis-Eases. Certain psychological paradigms for explaining why you do what you do offer enticing excuses for bad behavior. Here are a few: "It's not your fault because you're Bi-Polar," or "You're not responsible for acting whack-o because you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," or "You can't help yourself, because you have Attention Deficit Disorder."

In this world, there are millions of people paying good money for bad psychological service; specifically, people who are paying to be diagnosed and labeled as HAVING a Disorder—when they don’t really have one, they’re doing one! Since the Mental Illness Paradigm maintains that you GET mental disease, like you GET Malaria, of course you would need a prescription of pills to cure the assumed biological cause—it’s not your fault, it’s just bad biology!

For those diagnosed with disorders, it may be a fact that life is dis-stressing and personally dis-pleasing, in other words life is not easy—it's Dis-Easing. Welcome to earth: Life IS a Set Up! The vast majority of people diagnosed as HAVING a mental disorder are being misled by what is called the “medical model” of mental illness: that the mental malady has a physical cause, a biological origin, apart from any choice-making input from you.

The bitter truth for most people behaving badly and feeling foul IS that they themselves have directly contributed to their so-called "mental disease," and without their direct donation to the cause, they wouldn't be dis-eased—instead, they would HAVE happiness, or at very least . . . inner peace. To assume that all diagnosed mental disorders initiate and perpetuate like biological diseases undercuts a key principle to personal recovery: Owning your Response-Ability. (Changing Your Stripes, 2nd Edition, page 146)

There are no short cuts to character building. Integrity is not developed by default or denial, . . . becoming more wise or wonderful does not happen by taking a pill. Taking drugs for dis-orders and depression can often be motivated by escape and avoidance: Escape from Reality and Avoidance of Response-Ability. But such tactics of escape or avoidance simply delay solid solutions; time passes with no real personal progress and people are still left with the need to cure the cause!

Some who hold to a Disorder Paradigm play both sides of the issue: On one hand, they say you HAVE a disease and "it's not your fault," thus a pill is prescribed, YET they YACK at you for months thereafter as if talk-therapy would do you any good; as if YOU and YOUR THINKING and YOUR CHOOSING had any correlation to YOUR CONDITION—which was whole truth and nothing but the truth to begin with!
(Changing Your Stripes, 2nd Edition, page 150)

You Need to Put Your Peepers
On the Words in my Blook

You'll be so much Smarter and Happier if you do!

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Your Remedy: A Pill or a Principle

Taking a pill is quick and popular and pervasive! And sometimes it’s absolutely the right thing to do. But in many cases, pill popping is just the ”easy” thing to do. And the root cause of a problem is not directly addressed; instead it is merely masked over by medication.

When you are stressed out about a pressing problem, your body chemistry will naturally parellel your perceptions. When your thinking and perceptions are out of balance . . . then your body chemistry will be out of balance too!

In an over-medicated society, many are "fooling themselves" as to the truth of their predicament. And they wallow in a medicated-haze of imitation happiness, instead of clearly experiencing the rich euphoria of clear-headed, unmedicated living.

Scratching the Surface . . .

That's just a small taste of my helping philosophy—a shallow "dip of your toes" in waters that run very deep! If you want to dive into deep waters . . . you need to read . . . Changing Your Stripes. Further, when you buy the book, you can schedule a free consultation with Dr Matt.

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