More Leads to Less

More labels, more accommodation, and more avoidance are not producing stronger people

Since the advent of 'therapy', we are seeing more sickness, more perceived mental illness, more struggle not less. I spend my days sitting across from athletes, executives, parents, coaches, and high performers who are trying to figure out why they feel overwhelmed, anxious, stuck, emotionally reactive, or mentally exhausted. And after more than 25 years in the therapy and mental performance field, I believe most people in the mental health profession are asking the wrong questions and providing the wrong care.

The questions should not be always about why people feel a certain way or finding the symptoms for which label I can diagnose for insurance purposes.

The better questions include:

• What life skills are required to manage this struggle well?
• How do they handle stress? Which life skills are they lacking?
• How is their sleep? Their hydration? Their nutrition? Their fitness?
• How resilient are they and if not, how can we build those skills to improve their situation?

Because most of what I see every week is NOT mental illness NOR is it a mental disorder.

It IS underdeveloped emotional resilience.
It IS underdeveloped discipline.
It IS underdeveloped identity.

It IS underdeveloped coping skills.
It IS underdeveloped responsibility.

It IS a lack of purpose.
It is a lack of an eternal perspective on life.

It is a lack of taking proper care of the brain and body.
It is a lack of a solid support system and friendships.
It is a lack of accountability.

We do not have a disaster of mental health in this country. We do have a catastrophe of people who lack necessary life skills. That is the real crisis! People do not need more accommodations, more protection, more labels, more medication. What they need are life skills by doing hard things and figure out how to accomplish goals through struggle and failure. And yes, what comes with hard things and struggle are dealing with difficult emotions and learning to regulate them.

What people need is to take appropriate care of their brain and bodies. Dr. Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist, is right when he says mental health is really a brain health issue. In his book The End of Mental Illness, Doc Amen lays out the script for minimizing or reversing 'mental health' conditions such as anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, PTSD, and others. He draws on his years of findings of neuroscience looking a brain neuroactivity and the blood flow to the brain to dispute outdated psychiatric paradigms and assist people in improving.

Normal development is now seen as pathological

Modern culture increasingly treats normal human experiences as pathology. We clearly see more anxiety, depression, and other DSM label rates. We see increased suicide rates, more absence from work, 'mental health' days for students, and skyrocketing school accommodations for more students than ever in history.

Simultaneously, we see the fall of distress tolerance, a decrease in independence, and a lack of drive and coping. We see the inability to choose accurate thinking. We see excuses for impulsivity than appropriate discipline for learning self-control.

The explanation we are told is ‘we have a ‘mental health crisis.’

What I see are people who are more protected from difficulty and challenges than ever before. And, when they do not pursue hard things, they never get trained in how to manage thoughts, emotions, pressure, responsibility, and adversity.

It is these normal life experiences which provide opportunities to build these life skills. These are not signs that something is broken. These are normal feelings to experience. These are normal feelings generated especially if there is a lack of life skills. In fact, these are often signs growth is occurring. This is not pathology or a 'mental health' issue.

We exchanged equipping and training for affirming and accommodating

The problem is somewhere along the way, we stopped teaching people anxiety, depression, and failure are a part of normal growth and development. Instead, we started handing out various mental health labels and medication telling people negative feelings means something is innately wrong. Increasingly, over the years, I hear ‘I have anxiety’ as if there is a disability that exists preventing them from learning and functioning. We started teaching people they cannot help themselves and now need more accommodations, protection, and zero consequences for impulsive behavior or disobedient choices due to 'having' negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, or ADHD.

This shift matters because language shapes identity.

For example, there is a major difference between:

• “I feel anxious.”
• “I have anxiety.”

One describes a temporary emotional state. The other becomes an identity anchor.

When people begin to believe their identity IS the struggle instead of learning how to work through the struggle, things change. More fragility is created not less. For example, over the years since 'social anxiety' made it into the DSM, a copious amount of people avoid social gatherings believing they 'have a mental illness' rather than 'feeling anxious' and going anyway learning to improve their verbal skills.

How many people do you know now who work from home and rarely connect face-to-face with others? How many people spend their free time scrolling, playing video games, watching YouTube, and binge watching their next series rather than building and maintaining friendships?

Consequences of more

The more you protect, affirm, and accommodate, the more weakness is created. Motivation drops. Confidence fluctuates and plunges. Responsibility decreases and growth slows down. Eventually people give up and stop pursuing difficult things. People stop pursuing excellence and going after their goals. They believe their ‘mental health’ prohibits these pursuits.

Colossians 2:8 says, 'see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world.' We generated a culture of people enslaved to 'man-made' philosophy. More and more people are trapped, medicated, and actually believe they 'can't' do things because of their so called 'mental illness'. Most people mean well but this protective environment our nation created cultivates a crisis of life skills. The consequence: people simply do not believe in their ability to figure things out.

This is wrong. And, while it is not solely the fault of the mental health field, we should be the ones to speak up and stop this train wreck.