Yet, when we look closely at these problems we can see that they are not:-
- Diseases - They follow a logical psychological progression based on our life experiences and we can map exactly what happened and why, the effect it had on us and how this fits in with our problem.
- Mental illness - most people with these problems are actually above average intelligence and are fully aware of what is happening, yet feel powerless to stop it.
- Chemical imbalances - Synapses, those connections between the neurons in our brain (around 10,000 for each neuron), are tiny spaces that are occupied by chemical messengers called neurotransmitters that carry information between neurons. Serotonin and Dopamine are two neurotransmitters regularly mentioned with regard to anxiety and depression problems and chemical imbalance, usually referring to deficiencies of these neurotransmitters, is often proffered as a reason for anxiety disorders and depression. Well, anxiety and depression deplete our body of many resources, including: energy, vitamins and no doubt neurotransmitters. Surely, any chemical imbalance is the result of these problems not the cause. Balancing chemicals in the brain through the action of drugs may alleviate some symptoms to a degree but never touches the cause.
- Curable with drugs - medication works on a physical level. These problems are psychological and the answer is psychological. Whilst short-term medication may be beneficial for symptom relief, drugs never touch the underlying reason for these problems. Indeed, the mere act of taking medication can make the underlying cause worse.
- Due to genes - evolution and our genes provide us with predispositions not fixed behaviours. A way we are predisposed to behave given the right environment. That is, our life experiences. We cannot be programmed with fixed behaviours (eg. OCD or GAD) for we don't know the environment we will be born into ... it would not be adaptive to react with extreme anxiety to unconditional love.
