The Universal Model of Emotional Distress:
Our organization promotes an alternative views of emotional struggles that point toward immediate and inexpensive solutions.
Disease model view of “mental illness.”
The current view of emotional distress is that extreme mental states come from a genetic or chemical or structural brain different that has become activated in certain people. Viewing mental health struggles as a disease with physical causes leads to a feeling of permanence and separation from society. The purely biological explanation for “mental illness” has been shown to reduce hope and increase fear of people with these labels.
The Universal model of emotional distress:
Instead, we search for the source of emotional suffering in people’s current or past life situations. Problems like poor self-care, lack of connection with society, spiritual crises, poor job fit, lack of exercise, or problems with nutrition are all temporary and relatively easy to fix. Past trauma issues, physical or mental, cause many people to lose touch with reality. Also, some people have more energy than others and can pay attention to tasks in a different manner than other. This may not be an illness, but simply a diversity in the way we exist. Some people can get caught in feedback loops like not sleeping, eating, or socializing enough, and the more these problems happen the more likely they are to happen.
A graphic view:
