Rethinking labels

Research is key 

Tip: anything off the top of your head... is not going to be well thought through.

Most people come in to talk with me about some of life's challenges- the twist and the turns, the stops and starts, the up's and the downs, the forks and the knives.... "challenges" "problems" "issues" "worries" what ever label you want to give it, is fine by me.

However, I will point out the intensity and general personal understanding of the words we use to "label" the words we use will either dial the body up or down. 

As a practitioner where I suffer a mental set back is with the "labels" we place on how and what we think.

When someone is an over thinking or under thinker, we may say they have "generalized anxiety" after the diagnosis has been handed out, most people will google the hell out of it, then worry about the "subset" of characteristics and continue to worry about the possible health issues relating to other parts of their body eg: high blood pressure, stroke the list goes on....

We all know most of the contraindications listed on a prescription drug patient information sheet wont happen RIGHT? but you read it all and the chances are you are going to be looking for the symptoms the moment you pop that pill. 

TIP: Unhelpful communication path from the gecko

Not that anyone has actually said it, but I know I get a bit intense about changing what is not currently working to get better patient outcomes. Your Quality Of Life is my business when you are here. If I can help you live a more peaceful, loving life existence, then I am doing what I was put on this earth to do...It can get uncomfortable, I get that, I am human too.

It's my purpose, I am very passionate about helping you move forward NOT move way from your issue in life, this is two very different ways of thinking...get curious

 I do hear myself carry on a bit to get the point across, so I will allow you all the sophistication of your own thoughts to thinks all this information through, arriving at an end point of your own that you are happy to sit with.

What if mental disorders like anxiety, depression, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder aren’t mental disorders at all? In a compelling new paper, biological anthropologists call on the scientific community to rethink mental illness. With a thorough review of the evidence, they show good reasons to think of depression or PTSD as responses to adversity rather than chemical imbalances. And ADHD could be a way of functioning that evolved in an ancestral environment but doesn’t match the way we live today.

“Adaptive responses to adversity”

Mental disorders are routinely treated with medication under the medical model. So why are the anthropologists who wrote this study claiming that these disorders might not be medical at all? They point to a few key points. First, medical science has never been able to prove that anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) are inherited conditions.

Second, the study authors note that despite widespread and increasing use of antidepressants rates of anxiety and depression do not seem to be improving. From 1990-2010 the global prevalence of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders held at 4.4% and 4%. At the same time, evidence has continued to show that antidepressants perform no better than placebo.

Third, worldwide rates of these disorders remain stable at 1 in 14 people. Yet “in conflict‐affected countries, an estimated one in five people suffers from depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, and other disorders,” they write.

Taken together, the authors posit that anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity. “Defence systems are adaptations that reliably activate in fitness‐threatening situations in order to minimize fitness loss,” they write. It’s not hard to see how that could be true for anxiety; worry helps us avoid danger. But how can that be true for depression? They argue that the “psychic pain” of depression helps us “focus attention on adverse events... so as to mitigate the current adversity and avoid future such adversities.”

If that sounds unlikely, then consider that neuroscientists have increasingly mapped these three disorders to branches of the threat detection centre . Anxiety may be due to chronic activation of the fight or flight system. PTSD may occur when trauma triggers the freeze response which helps animals disconnect from pain before they die, and depression may be a chronic activation of that same freeze response.

Labels matter

Labels are something we internalize to define who we are and what we are capable of. All too often, labels limit us. And that’s why reconsidering how we label anxiety, depression or ADHD is important. Does someone have depression, a medical disorder of their brain, or are they having a depressed adaptive response to adversity? Adversity is something we can overcome, whereas a mental disorder is something to be managed. The labels imply very different possibilities.

Consider how we label ADHD. A generation ago boys with ADHD were labelled as “bad boys” and were given penalties or detentions. Now we help kids with ADHD understand that they have a “learning difference.” Instead of detention, we try to provide support in a variety of modalities. When we do, the behaviour problems often disappear. That label change to learning difference is vital because it gives space for kids with ADHD to be “good kids” and to succeed. Yet ADHD is still “attention deficient and hyperactivity disorder.”

In Finland, where substantial physical activity is part of the school day, rates of ADHD are also very low. Meanwhile, in the U.S. children are asked to sit still for the majority of the day. Elementary school students often get only 15-20 minutes of recess a day, a far cry from the 60-90 minutes their parents had. Coincidentally, ADHD in the U.S. have gone up over the last 15 years.

ADHD is not a disorder; the study authors argue. Rather it is an evolutionary mismatch to the modern learning environment we have constructed. Edward Hagen, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Washington State University and co-author of the study, pointed out in a press release that “there is little in our evolutionary history that accounts for children sitting at desks quietly while watching a teacher do math equations at a board.” Alison Escalante MD

In closing, in no way am I advocating for you to throw away the meds, what I am saying is, take a look at your life as a whole. Have you experienced any adverse events in your life? Could your level of thinking be as a result of environmental challenges and not medical challenges?

Additional information on ACE'S- Adverse Childhood Experiences one of the largest studies done, over 17,500 children took part in the study.

The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect and household challenges and later-life health and well-being. The original ACE Study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997 with two waves of data collection.

Let’s start here in preparation of more dialogue around this subject alone:

ACE's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-8jTTIsJ7Q&t=6s 

How does ACE's follow you into adulthood?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2oUfg7qNG0&t=27s

Press release: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/wsu-rcf052620.php

At all times be kind to yourself and one another, we never know what someone is going through.

Kindest Regards

Darleen Barton | Amazon NO 1 Best Selling Author

Practitioner

Address Servcorp offices- Level 1 The Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600

Phone  0261983423

Website www.dipac.com.au 

Mediator Nationally Accredited AIFLAM | AMA

Counsellor/ Therapist / Positive Psychology- Nationally Accredited |ACA|IICT

Executive coach Nationally Accredited |ICF

If at any time you, a family member or friend feels overwhelmed to the point they feel they need help call immediately 000 OR 131114

There is always a way through your current thoughts.

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support