FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 58

T
TALKING HEADS
Mental ill health is neither a mental
nor a health issue
W
e are apparently
in the middle of a
‘mental health’
epidemic which
even seems to have
attracted royal sponsorship.
The statistics make sobering
reading: in 2017, female
suicide rates were at their
highest in decades and a
quarter of young men said
they had intentionally
harmed themselves.
Clearly people’s struggles
are not just a work issue,
but organisations have
both a moral and a legal
responsibility to protect their
staff from stress. However,
while organisational spend
on wellbeing is increasing
rapidly, the problem, if
anything, appears to be
getting worse. For example,
according to a CIPD study,
the number of people who
experience anxiety, stress
and depression at work has
risen from a quarter to a third
over the past five years.
So, despite the dream
combination of greater
awarene s s and more
investment in the problem,
we are going backwards.
I believe there are two
primary reasons for this:
first, the problem isn’t even
‘mental’ it is emotional, and
second, the problem isn’t
‘health’ it’s development.
In most cases of anxiety
or depression, mentation, or
thinking, is normal. In people
troubled by anxiety or
depression, there is nothing
wrong with their cognitive
processes. So why do we
believe they have a ‘mental’
health problem?
The reason we mistakenly
call anxiety, depression and
many related disturbances
a ‘mental’ health issue is
because we have a simplistic
view of the human system.
There are five levels to the
human system but most
clinicians only recognise
two: thinking and behaviour.
We never dig deeper than
behaviour (level one) and
cognition (level two).
But what determines
what and how we think? The
answer is our feelings (level
three), which are themselves
driven by a deeper level, our
emotions (level four).
Our emotions are, in
turn, composed of the
raw physiological signals
generated by our bodily
systems (level five).
If your approach stops
at level two and you
collapse the bottom three
levels to this level, you will
Alan Watkins
58 // Future Talent
mistakenly assume anxiety
or depression is a ‘mental’
problem, because you don’t
recognise deeper levels.
The truth is that the
real issue exists in levels
three, four and five, and
cognition is normal. To treat
the problem effectively, we
have to address it at the
level at which it really occurs.
Until we do this, our best
treatment will only ever be
partially effective and most
organisational wellbeing
initiatives will continue to fail.
Most of the problems we
see diagnosed as ‘mental’
health disorders stem from
an individual’s inability to
regulate their emotions (level
four). People who suffer with
anxiety, depression or many
other unhelpful emotional
states are unable to turn on
and sustain more positive
emotional states. This is not
their fault. No one has taught
them how to do this. They
have yet to develop this skill.
Being unable to turn
on a more productive
emotion,
such
as
resilience, determination or
compassion, often leaves
people stuck in a ‘world’ of
negative emotion. If they
stay stuck on the ‘planet’
of depression for too long,
they start to believe this is
who they are – depression
becomes an identity issue.
They say, “I am depressed”.
But depression is not who
they are; they need to learn
how to switch to a more
helpful emotional planet.
We
must
stop
medicalising a normal
developmental challenge.
Every person would benefit
from developing the ability
to regulate their inner
emotions. Failure to do so
is a failure of development,
not a failure of the individual.
Such people are certainly
not ‘mental’. They do not
have a ‘condition’ called
‘mental health’. They are not
helpless victims.
We must get off the
‘mental health bandwagon’
and start actually helping
people develop. They
are wonder ful human
beings who need support
to develop their self-
regulation capabilities, their
maturity, their identity and
their wisdom.
Dr Alan Watkins is co-founder
and CEO of transformational
coaching company Complete,
and a former medical
doctor and neuroscientist.
“We must stop medicalising a
normal developmental challenge”