Recovery – what does it mean?
Every day we receive Tweets, Facebook messages, emails and calls from people asking why we talk about ‘recovery’ when they have been told that anxiety recovery is impossible.
The other point raised constantly is why we state that ‘sufferers don’t need support, they need curative support’… and there really is a massive chasm between the two.
What does recovery mean to you?
It’s amazing the ‘spin’ put on diagnosis, treatment and the language used around perceived mental illness and especially high anxiety conditions.
There is some very clear responsibility to me to explain the truth behind these statements so that these misunderstandings can be overcome quickly and our patients and indeed, all sufferers can find the solution they need and move on with their lives.
Here is my explanation in simple bulleted points:
With reference to support versus curative support…
- Forums, charities, support groups etc. all provide support, but support of what? Do they provide curative structure? No, they provide forums in which sufferers can discuss and describe their symptoms, experiences and thoughts. They provide support of the perpetuation of high anxiety.
- These environments feed back very negative data to the subconscious mind which is, in essence, waiting to ‘forget’ the anxious catalysts it is being fed within this environment – but it cannot do so in order to deactivate the fear response due to the constant feed of anxious data, talking, discussing, examining etc.
- The fear response relies on ‘fear data’ being fed back from the senses in order to maintain its presence WHEN APPROPRIATE’ – these ‘support provisions’ provide a constant source of anxious data that feeds the anxiety response directly so the anxiety will never switch off.
With reference to using the word recovery…
- Fear is a normal, acceptable and necessary emotion – it helps to keep us ‘safe’ – You cannot CURE fear – a)it’s a genetically pre-programmed emotion and b) why would you want to?
- Anxiety is the inappropriate manifestation of the emotion of fear – It is an unacceptable condition of the emotions
- Anxiety is not an illness – Anxiety is an emotional state caused by an anxious ‘what if’ feedback loop that can only be deactivated in one way – Human biology dictates that process
- Recovery from anxiety is more than possible providing the correct process is followed
- Talking therapy, support groups, psychotherapy, medication etc. cannot and do not address and remove the anxiety
No one can change human biology dictated by human evolution and programmed through millennia of environmental conditioning… just because psychology uses a process doesn’t mean that the process is correct, indeed, millions, possibly even billion sod people who have suffered from high anxiety conditions will openly describe their journey and the lack of curative success they endured at the hands of medication and psychological practice.
It’s not the practitioner’s fault – it’s the fault of misplaced science and people who developed treatment methodologies, not based on fact, but on saleable practice models.
The science of talking therapies doesn’t ‘add up’, it has never conformed to neuroscience or even the findings of those people responsible for the building blocks of psychology.
The proof of any process is in the outcome of the methodology used and the outcomes of what we at the Centre achieve curatively is more than absolute evidence that we have got it right!
Charles Linden
