The PPF Model of Life & Mental Health

Background:

So, I've been trying to figure out where to post this for a while.

I came up with the base theory in 2014, but it sat around collecting dust, because I had other life concerns. It's been through a few revisions, and I wanted to put this in an academic journal, but I've been out of school for a while now, and when I researched what I'd take to get in there, It seemed out of my reach. I've also explored a few other places on the internet, but most of the time, it's not appropriate for some reason or other. Some places even rejected it, because it was a competing theory. Anyways, I have some time now.

I've boiled it down a lot. And I'd love to do more with this. Maybe taking it to research in an institution? But we'll see.

PPF model Introduction

PPF stands for past present future. This is a model of personality, a general philosophy of life and a model of mental illness.?

So, without further ado, here we go.

?Imagine there are two anchors, but there are three places they can go.

The first is The Past: This includes everything you have learned, all your memories, your experience of the people and things in your life.

????????????The second is the Present: This includes what is going on at this moment, the sights, sounds, and everything you can sense and currently feel, including the specific and overall physical environment.?

???????????The third is the Future: This includes your plans, your creativity, your hopes, your dreams, your goals.

???????????Take some time to reflect on your life, and ask yourself which of the three you feel most comfortable putting your anchors, in other words, if you could only pick two to focus on which do you, and have you generally preferred to deal with throughout your life. Which are you confident you can handle, coming at it from the other direction, which one are you most insecure, and worry about or neglect?

???????????????????????Now imagine the anchors start swinging, and collide, which have the potential to merge into a pendulum, which swings freely between all three. This will allow a person to learn from the past, listen to the present, and leave a legacy for the future. They can carry what they learned, apply it and move forward in a personal, collective and productive direction.????

???????????The goal and application of this model will first allow a person to identify how they naturally think. Second this model should help you to understand life in terms of categorizing things and concepts into past, present and future time zones. And third, this should allow for a basic understanding of other people’s thought patterns and life approach.

There are six basic possible personality orientations each focusing on a dominant time zone. Each orientation indicates how a person generally likes to approach life. Once that is identified, they can start consciously and or sub consciously interact in their environments to make changes in themselves to get their desired outcomes by leveraging their strengths, improving their weaknesses. Which allows you to engage in social, educational professional, personal, romantic, and all types of relationships by finding people that help fill the gap and who are similar to you. In interacting with diverse Anchor Orientations (AO) you gain insights into yourself and into other people which can support you in forming a pendulum. This will allow you to help yourself and others through specific, as well as any type of difficult time.??Done responsibly and genuinely, application of this model may improve your life and make you and the people you interact with effective, efficient, considerate, caring, confident and happy.

???????????It is important to note that when one anchor has more pull on your life that can be positive and negative (I don't use good or bad since those terms and associations are subjective and sometimes judgmental), depending on what it specifically is. Furthermore, we will cover potentially positive and potentially negative qualities of each AO, and that of the people who strive to form their pendulums. Unfortunately, in serious cases, natural imbalance can lead to signs and symptoms of mental illness and psychological distress if not corrected.?

I actively encourage more research to be done to see if these concepts and associations bear out in the long run. The PPF model is both simple yet deep, and can spark the conversation on mental illness in a simple easily understandable way.?

?PPF Anchor Orientations

The six PPF AOs should be simple and clear to understand, and can be likened to personalities, but it’s more of a state of cognition.

There are three base AOs with their reflections. The base and the reflection can flow back and forth during different times in one’s life, but the zones of focus generally stay the same.

Make sure you know your own AO before you read the descriptions, so you can see if these types need to be refined and adjusted. As I say, at this point, this is just a theory, based on my own personal observations, education and experience.

Past Present Orientation

These people like and are good at applying knowledge. This can take many forms, but making concerted concrete measurable applications in subjects they learned make these people tick. ?They are good at handling knowledge and data, finding practical every day uses for skills be they technical, scientific, administrative, hands on, etc. that they learned. Despite this, they are not so good at planning futures, and may have an aversion in thinking about the future and all it’s possibilities. ?

Present Past Orientation

As above, these people are good at applications, but instead of taking a hands-on approach applying what they learned to fix some perceived issue, they are caught in the analysis of the knowledge itself. This can mean in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, practicality, optimization, etc. etc. ??

Past Future Orientation

These people have no issues in learning from their experiences and education. They like making plans, and enjoy thinking about future events and possibilities. They find themselves so caught up in this, that they can often neglect their own health and have a hard time observing and handling their natural environment. They are grounded in their experiences, and constantly seek the next horizon of progress, committed to building what they can imagine.

Future Past Orientation

Similar to above, these people have no issue making plans and sticking to them. Instead of focusing on future horizons, they focus on delving into past experiences for insights. ??They enjoy research, and have many of the same qualities and deficiencies of the above. They may get lost in their memories, and feel it particularly hard to move on from past incidents. ?

Present Future Orientation

These people like to leap before they look. They are so driven about future outcomes, that they may Chace possibilities, and can easily take risks and imagine what their life would be like with the concrete possibility in hand. Their decision making is driven by how and what they see for themselves, and find it comparatively easier taking steps to make it happen. Their senses and bodily sensations may be easier for them to connect with. They are also good at taking care of their physical health. Due to this mind set, they may have issues learning from their mistakes and find reminiscing and reflecting to much about past events and people a pointless endeavor.

Future Present Orientation ?

The above base is the same, but they may have issues in decision making. The possibilities may be at hand, but committing to a singular possibility and path may be challenging, leading to decision paralysis.

PPF and Mental Health?

Since the beginning of man there has always been people that go through mental problems. Our understanding and treatment of these people have widely??varied, and have continuously evolved, but what is known as abnormal psychology and mental illness requires a deep and focused understanding.

The aim of this model is to in a sense demystify and put mental health in common easily understandable terms, and ground the conversation in things and analogies that are more substantive in nature.?

Dysfunction occurs with the interaction and pull of a specific anchor orientation. This means that the person’s psyche is pulled more towards one time zone or another. The goal is to identify where the pull is, and act and suggest time zone specific grounding techniques to help the individual in question.

More Research is needed for full application of this model in actual treatment, but this can be a starting point. Next, I’ll go through common mental illnesses and how they correspond and an be helped by the model.?As most of us know, these are lifelong conditions and may require medication and professional counseling to help treat so that those affected can live a healthy and productive life.

?As a reminder, I am not a mental health professional, and further research is needed. ?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):

PTSD is known as wen a past traumatic event interrupts day to day functioning. In terms of the model, it means the past is interfering with the present.???This is pretty easy to understand. The past Anchor is interrupting and bleeding over to the present when it shouldn’t be. Triggers in your environment may remind you about the incident and draw the past event forth, no matter how long ago the event occurred.

A way to combat this is to focus on the present and the future, but more so the present. Imagine constructing a mental barrier around that event and the past so it minimalizes its influence. Focus on getting in touch with the present through doing physical activities. Such as exercise or working with your hands.?

Anxiety:

Anxiety is when you dread present and future events. But You particularly have a fear of the future. You imagine countless ways things can go wrong in your present and future, and you feel paralyzed.??In the analogy, the present anchor is swinging into the future too frequently, more than it should be.?The future feels scary to you. So, you retreat into yourself.

A way to deal with this is to ground yourself in the present moment with meditation. As in exposure techniques, carefully expose yourself to future thoughts. Making plans and seeing them happen, without the catastrophic results that you so feared, can reinforce and combat the negative thoughts. Carefully challenging your anxiety in a controlled way.??

Depression:

Depression is the inability and struggle to see a future that is desirable. This is often a chronic issue, and can be seen across a spectrum of severity. Activities that one may have once enjoyed become dull and unenjoyable. They are often unable to do daily maintenance tasks such as getting out of bed, taking care of hygiene, and usually have a sad or depressed mood. They may ruminate on past failures and slights, unable to get past these occurrences.??

The model would indicate that their anchor is stuck in the past, unable to move. As an effort to treat them, you must try and budge it. And get it interacting with the present time zone. Many present focused behaviors can help, such as healthy sleep patterns, good nutrition, and regular exercise.

But, for this to really lift, they must take actions in their life that move them towards a desirable future. People with depression often say they see no hope. No matter how much we want to show them hope, they must find the hope themselves. They can’t wait until they feel better to do stuff, they must do stuff, and then they will feel better.

Bipolar:

Bipolar is a mood disorder that results in mood swings. These can take you to the zenith of mania and the nadir of depression. At its heart, this involves dysfunction with the future time zone. Bipolar is usually broken up into type 1, and type 2. Type1 involves the future because it can deal with your creativity or what you predict will happen in the future. Mania is usually involved, and this can manifest into such things as racing thoughts, having risky sex, spending a lot of money, or psychosis. Where Bipolar 2 usually involves the depressive situation, where as mentioned above, has issue with the past anchor. Ideally, we want the anchors to merge into a pendulum, but the thing is here, it’s swinging to freely and to frequently between the past and the future time zones.

As before, with several other disorders, this should be helped with engaging with the present time zone. Furthermore, having the individual be able to adequately separate their manic future distortions with the reality of their future can help them bridge the gap, and get back to a baseline of a version of themselves. People who are Bipolar often say they are the most productive when they are manic. Furthermore, most professionals try to prevent mania because it can do damage to a individuals’ brain and life. Beyond this, it’s generally not known why, but a manic episode is often pared with a depressive episode. It’s almost liked a rubber band. The model would suggest this paring as a psyches way of seeking balance.??

Schizophrenia:

Schizophrenia is when a person has hallucinations and delusions of reality that are objectively not experienced by anyone else. These can manifest in terms of sensing things that are not there, such as hearing voices or seeing things. Even with the help of prescribed medications and professional intervention, these symptoms can persist. It can be said that the present anchor is destabilized. Their reality and the world they sense around them is not the same as those of others. It must be a traumatic experience, when you can’t trust your own senses.

This can potentially be dealt with similar to the Bipolar entry, where you should guide them to focus on the present. Meditation and grounding techniques will get them in touch with their body and the shared reality we all experience.?Exercise and healthy nutrition and sleep patterns can recalibrate their body, and their mind. ?

Addiction:

Addiction, although not a mental illness per say, it can be seen in cases of comorbidity and be involved in duel diagnosis. This is usually a physical and biological dependence on a substance or behavior. As it deals with physical or behavioral dependence it can be placed in the present time zone. It also usually deals with physical things and symptoms. From things like alcohol to smoking to gaming to gambling and even sex, these all engage with neurotransmitters in the brain. This as we know can be very difficult to treat because the person has developed a dependence, that impairs function in daily life. They seek these out for pleasure, and can lose control of themselves. In terms of behavioral addictions, these can be similar but brought on by things such as video games, social media, and specific types of internet use. ?

To treat them via the model, you must get them in touch with the future time zone.?Get them thinking about what would happen if they continue their addiction at the current rate. Get them to think of their future and engage with it. Get them to see what they want, and how their current addiction is interfering with that. Figure out strategies for moderation and potential ways to deal with withdrawal.

Obsessive compulsive Disorder (OCD):

Individuals with OCD have obsessive thoughts, and the only way to make them go away is to engage in a compulsion to do or act in a certain way. They may have obsessive persistent thoughts that cause them to do a variety of things That interfere with Daily life. These compulsions go beyond simple routines. This can manifest as cleaning, checking, losing control, etc. Most of these engage the present time.?Zone.

Suicidal ideation:

This state of mind can be brought about by a diverse set of struggles. There is also a lot of reasons why someone might contemplate suicide. It’s very common for the average person to freak out when they hear the term “suicide”, and not know what to say or do. Their general solution is to press the panic button, and refer the individual to a professional. But often, the individual doesn’t want to see a professional, for a variety of reasons. Their reasoning could be anything, and can be complex. They trusted you, and felt comfortable telling you, forwarding them directly to a mental health professional, without hearing them out may not have the desired outcome. In this case they are literally trying to destroy their own future time zone, usually because of something that happened in the past. ?That should be readily apparent. The important thing is to try and engage them in their future. There’s always a reason, and getting the conversation started, and helping them sort out their thought process can be helpful. Asking them if they have a plan, makes them think in present and future terms, making it more concrete, instead of just thoughts. ?If you don’t feel equipped to have this conversation, call your local Crisis hotline.

Destroying a person’s future time zone has catastrophic effects rippling and echoing across all of time, and that’s not an exaggeration. People in local and global communities may feel the impact. And as we know, without the presence of this person, it’s almost as if there is an empty void left behind, for the people who cared about them. As we know, it’s by their own hand, which makes it all the more tragic.

There are many other mental health conditions but this should be enough to get the conversation started.?

This is what I've distilled so far. I thought it good to share.

I hope we can start a dialogue, about all of this, and see what kind of positive change we can make. I'd love to give a speech about this too

For reference, I wrote the AO section 12/9/2021, where all the other stuff was a bit ago.

My previous version was a little more scattered and actually went to the length of categorizing terms and concepts.

Regardless of if you yourself deal with mental health, or know someone who does, this should hopefully help be an analogy that everyone can relate to, and visualize.

This is as far as I've taken this for now, but I'd be very interested in people's thoughts. Weather they agree or would adjust anything.

My background is in psychology, and would be particularly interested in seeing what others with that background think.

I don't have the masters level training and education to take this any further.

Thanks for reading, I welcome your comments.