BODY-MIND
A CULTURAL IMBALANCE THEORY
“We are engaged in cosmetic psychopharmacology, done to enhance human potential.”
—Emily Martin, Addiction Trajectories
HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?
An infant is born a free animal. The infant is natural and unarmored. A body and more specifically, a nobody. Socialization adapts the infant to the environment and the development of self-awareness leads to a sense of being separate from “the world”, i.e., a somebody. Socialization is in contrast with allowing the infant to self-regulate and choose ways for the environment to adapt to their needs as a free animal. The former creates “armoring”, neurosis, and rigidity, while the latter maintains naturalness and spontaneity.
We are social mammals who require others to survive. Connection with one another is fundamental to human nature. Currently, we are physically disconnected from one another by way of being hyper-connected virtually: a hive of minds. Collectively, America is suffering from anxiety, increased agitation, and despair held in the body. At least one in five U.S. adults, and many children, are taking a prescription psychiatric medication such as Adderall, Prozac, or Zoloft. Children up to elder adults are hooked on these drugs. These medical “consumers” are rarely given informed consent on the side effects and consequences of titrating off the medications (get ready for some brain zaps!). The explosion of psychotropic medication fits with the Western cultural worldview that we are simply our heads (i.e., brain or mind) and not relational bodies.
CULTURAL IMBALANCE THEORY
The now bogus “chemical imbalance theory” of depression has been scientifically disproven. As Ethan Watters (2010) put it, “There is currently no scientific consensus that depression is linked to serotonin deficiency or that SSRIs restore the brain’s normal “balance” of this neurotransmitter.” Depression results from a lack of social recognition and human connection. The person’s inability to internally dialogue from the analytic and affective (emotion/feelings) parts of the personality structure is the cause. For example, the individual is constantly berated by an intellectual voice stating how they are failing, not enough, deficient, “should”, etc.
Americans are told that they are sick and need treatment, but it is the society that is imbalanced, not our brain chemistry. Here, I lay out my cultural imbalance theory. What is happening is that people are experiencing increasing levels of agitation and despair without relational bodies to deal with this intense realization. We “meet” in a social media platform, text message thread, or Zoom meeting. These meetings require just our heads (mind), so our subjectivity is emphasized rather than intuition.
Human beings need calm and contemplative silence for self-study: meditation (Zen). Americans are being pumped full of psych drugs because they don't have time to exercise (Movement) that bound up anxious energy. There’s no time to work out or have leisure because we are scripted for All Work and No Play: sit still at your computer all day. We are dissociated from the body as we live inside our heads. The emphasis on one’s head (mind) dissociates us from our Center (body-mind). Scripted to be only our head (split off from the body) we must focus on getting what we want. Our sense of joylessness (lacking companions, i.e., relational bodies) condemns us to a life of consumption (desire).
“All culture is family culture, things learned as a knee baby.”
—Eric Berne, What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
CULTURAL AND INDIVIDUAL DESPAIR
SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH TO OTHERS
A lack of social connection with relational bodies leads to despair. American culture ignores despair completely because there is not a proper ailment (at least not one that can be sold to us). When you experience despair, you are supposed to Try Harder. Or the other option is to resolve it through violence. Violence occurs when the person stops taking responsibility for dealing with a problem. Despair has also become medicalized and pathologized with the aid of psychotherapies, the self-help movement, and American/biological psychiatry.
The so-called pursuit of happiness has us fixated on ourselves: self-improvement for self-optimization. As philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls it, we are achievement-subjects who exploit ourselves. The self is a project and a brand that we “manage”. We become our own corporation (Me, Inc.) to promote online. Selfishness, envy, and exhibitionism are all virtues in today’s culture: “I need to work on my self before I can be in a relationship.” What? The society of achievement places performance at the center, which is why it is a burnout society.
For example, in American society it is required to live in competition with everyone, including ourselves (self-exploitation). Co-operation, which promotes social harmony, is impossible in such a ruggedly individualistic culture. When you experience despair you need calm (Zen) in order to find ways to communicate your Truth about “the world”. Agitation is bound energy inside the body, i.e., feelings/sexual energy. Agitation is due to not dealing with feelings, e.g., powerlessness. The body needs to move (Movement) via healthy activities while also processing emotions. To do this, you need to focus on how you structure your time between work, learning, and play. Instead of more competition (SnapChat streaks and Facebook Likes) we need sentimentality and reassurance.
WHAT IS MENTAL HEALTH?
The term “mental health” is confusing, because it is rarely defined. What is clear to me, is that the human animal needs contemplation (Zen) and bodily/relational Movement. We are hungry for a sense of structure and emotional encouragement. This myth of self-optimization—"if you just work a little harder and look inward at yourself"—is promoted by the medical approach to “mental health” treatment. But, just what the hell is “mental health”? Here is what the Google Search tells me:
“Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.”
“If you experience mental health problems, your thinking, mood, and behavior could be affected. Many factors contribute to mental health problems.”
You will see these statements plastered all over the internet. By default, these definitions separate “mind” from “body.” I founded Minnesota Mental Health Services (yep, “mental health” is in our clinic’s name) before coming to these conclusions. I now understand why the concept and industry of “mental health” is so embraced: like the “chemical imbalance theory” it is a marketing term to sell therapies and drugs while ignoring the cultural imbalance we have. For example, on a global level, American society has exported our understanding of “mental health” across the world. Ethan Watters book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, makes this point clear.
The Western concept of “mental health” as a thing to be optimized through specific procedures removes psychological functioning from its relational sphere. We are relational bodies, not a “body” and not a “mind”. There is no “mind” without a body and no “my body” without the subjective capacity to label oneself as a thing. Recall, we were once unaware of ourselves and manifested the body-mind, e.g., the simple consciousness of an infant. The separate appearances of body and mind as two is is an illusion. Just like the distinction between “physical” and “mental” illness. Everything is psycho-somatic (and social), not just your Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Mental health implies this splitting of the person into two: body on one side and mind on the other, i.e., psyche (mind) and soma (body).
“MENTAL HEALTH” IS A SOCIAL CONCEPT FOR “NOT BEING CRAZY”
Illness is always a political statement. Now, people say, “I’m needing to work on my mental health.” This can be translated to, “I’m managing myself in order to not go crazy.” Why? Because we live in a sick society and suffer from what Wilhelm Reich called the emotional plague.
Mental health is described mechanically, so the language is described in the way one would need to work on their car: “Just going to see my therapist for a tune-up!” The metaphor implies "mental health" is part of me, but not me, and yet, people identify themselves with psychiatric diagnoses: “I’m autistic…I’m bipolar…I’m so OCD." Confused yet?
The 20th-century psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz once wrote, “Minds can be “sick” only in the sense that jokes are “sick” or economies are “sick”.” Essentially, Szasz said that crazy is something you do, not someone you are: “Mental illness is not something a person has but something [the person] does or is.” For psychiatrist Eric Berne, the concept of “mental health” is formed from the misunderstanding that someone can be “cured” of an affliction. This places all the craziness inside the individual’s head (negating the body).
Berne also noted that “mental health” is “based on the thesis that if only the right procedure can be found, everything will be all right.” The “right procedure” as Berne put it, for optimizing mental health, comes in the forms of CBT, DBT, hypnosis, EMDR, and ART therapy, to name a few. At present, these therapies are the proper technical process to heal the individual of their anxieties or traumas, i.e., improve mental health.
Of course, relationally, the person can continue to be an asshole and play destructive Games (psychological), but at least they feel good on the inside. These therapies—especially ones that require complicated equipment and electricity—treat the individual like a machine in need of a repair or a software update. The human animal is constantly moving toward or away from "healthy” behaviors. There is no quick fix. We are relational beings who need contact with other human bodies for calm and soothing support. The cultural imbalance will only be resolved when we can embrace self-regulation of the human animal (body-mind) without judgment and to teach the next generations (i.e., children of the future) to do the same.
Thank you for your attention.
-Andrew
