Q :  I have read about Positive Psychology and how it focuses on the positives, is Positive Mental Health the same thing ?

A : Positive Psychology is a movement taking place within psychology and academia, and a welcome one. It is finally swinging the pendulum in the direction of positive human traits and scientifically measuring them. In this respect, it can be most helpful in classifying, understanding and measuring approaches that lead to health.

As I understand it, positive psychology is not a therapy nor a personality model, but analyzes a variety of approaches for positive outcomes such as the human capacity for resistance, or the benefits of gratitude. It is the birth of a new field analyzing tools and methods, which can help measure human strengths.

Positive Psychology can of course study the Lifetrack model of positive mental health which is an integrated personality model based on health (see criteria for positive mental health models by Jahoda).  The model is a step in the direction of a science of health, and defining and quantifying wellbeing.

While the Lifetrack model is not born of the positive psychology movement, it admires its founders Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Dr. Seligman for taking psychology and academia in the right direction. Our hope is that psychiatry will soon follow.

The Lifetrack model of positive mental health is developed by a Japanese psychiatrist Dr. Yukio Ishizuka.  Dr. Ishizuka developed his model on insights from both the East and West and tested it daily by treating a large number of patients over the last 35 years.

The approach uses breakthrough intimacy to help patients in distress overcome and go far beyond a previous best level of adjustment (close relationships, achievement and self).  With the predominance of the pharmaceutical industry, the bias of psychiatry towards the disease model, and the focus on the disbursement of medication, Ishizuka has remained happily isolated from the mainstream.  With only recent awareness of the positive psychology movement, he hopes new doors and directions can be opened.

Towards an understanding of the Mind in Optimal Health and Disease

The Lifetrack model of human personality model can be used to understand both optimal health and disease.  It has been tested on the well, and those in dire distress with ‘psychological illnesses’ such as borderline personality, deep depression and others.  Due to the model’s breadth, it provides fundamental insights on the mind at its best and worst.

Such an understanding of healthy human beings can be taught to psychiatrists and non psychiatrists, it can be applied to the sciences, and used by the general public.

At the same time, because psychiatry is prepared to deal with important symptoms of distress, should the field of psychiatry transform its understanding of health, psychiatrists may be ideally suited to help extremely defensive individuals such as those with borderline personalities (or with other overwhelming defenses) change fundamentally.

The reason psychiatrists may be useful in this role is because they are comfortable with dealing with certain distress signals such as anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis.  In highly defensive individuals, such symptoms may initially escalate as one attempts to surpass a previous best level of adjustment.  In this sense, a past understanding of distress and disease can be a useful tool.  Should psychiatrists be capable of re-orienting their practice beyond mere symptom relief to the greater goal of building inner health and happiness, this dual expertise will be particularly effective.

Naturally, one does not have to be a psychiatrist to integrate a better understanding of health and happiness or the functioning of the mind.  It is knowledge that should be accessible to all.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

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Positive Psychology, Lifetrack, Happiness and Health
A Japanese Harvard trained psychiatrist explores happiness and health, and discusses the positive psychology approach, constructs of positive psychology.
http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com

Use the Contact Form to Ask Your Life Questions.

Q :  I have read about Positive Psychology and how it focuses on the positive, is Positive Mental Health the same thing ?

Q : Is the goal of Lifetrack Positive Mental Health happiness?

Q : What is optimal adjustment or genius in Lifetrack therapy and what does this have to do with what positive psychology calls flow?

Q: I have heard of the work of Carl Rogers on personality and have admired it considerably. How is your approach similar or different?

Q: I know of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Are the three spheres an explanation of psychological needs? What is the difference between your work and that of Maslow?

Q: Are you a psychoanalyst? How does your approach differ from psychoanalysis?

Q: I have heard of preventive mental health, but not of positive mental health. Why the new term?

Q: What is the difference between your therapeutic approach and that of behaviorists who emphasize personality change by focusing on changing actions?

Q: How is your approach different from Henry A. Murray’s large list of more than 20 motives or needs?

Q: What are the similarities between Lifetrack theory and organismic or systems theory that views personality as an open system of interacting parts?

Q: What do you think of medications such as Prozac?

Q: What do you think of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) classifications?

Q: Do you really think you can define happiness or well-being and quantify it? Are you not attempting to quantify the unquantifiable?

To ask us life questions please use the Contact Form on this website.  We will group life questions and respond to them in FAQ.

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Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Ishizuka, Nathalie, “Lifetrack Assumptions about Conflict Resolution and Third Party Intervention: A Case Study of Kissinger in the Middle East,” Published as Working Paper, Harvard Law Program on Negotiation, July 1995.

Ishizuka, Nathalie, “Negotiation Workshops Between Hostile Parties: Should one include a presentation on individual optimal adjustment in international negotiation workshops?” submitted to Harvard Law Program on Negotiation, September 1997.

Editors and Journals

If an editor is interested in a chapter for book format, or journal form, please notify the author.  If you have a syllabus with assumptions about healthy human beings applied to organizations, economics, negotiation, political science or other fields please contact Nathalie Ishizuka through the Positive Mental Health Contact form.  She is interested in collecting these for future use and sharing.

A Need for Models of Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

Models of the Nation State that interact with the Individual and Organizational Models can be useful for analyzing different levels of analysis.

Selected Readings and Lectures:

Ishizuka, Nathalie.  “A Trinitarian Model of War and Peace,” Working Paper submitted to Herbert Kelman for his class, Social-Psychological Approaches to International Conflict, Harvard University.

Ishizuka, Y., and Ishizuka N. ” ‘Fear of Closeness’ Underlies Interpersonal as Well as International Conflicts,” Proceedings of World Congress of Psychiatry, Spain, 1996.

“The U.S.-Japan Relationship from a Psychological Perspective” A panel on the U.S. – Japan Relationship, with Prof. Paul R. Krugman and others, Tufts University, Medford, MA (45 minutes)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “The Japanese Mind: Its Implications for Corporations and Nations”The Institute for Global Business Strategy, Distinguished Lecture Series, Pace University, New York, November 12,1991 (3 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “The Japanese Mind: Its Implications for the U.S.-Japan Relationship”AT&T Global Business Symposium, with Mr. Clyde Prestowitz and others, Bedminster, NJ, December 12,1991 (1.5 hours)

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

A Need for Models based on Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
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Organizations and Organizational Health

Dr. Yukio Ishizuka worked for 4 years at McKinsey (1969-1972) as an Associate on general management consulting.  At McKinsey he admired Marvin Bower his mentor and worked on assignments in Paris, Amsterdam, Toronto, Tokyo and NY offices in a variety of businesses.  Yukio Ishizuka also spent one year at Arthur D. Little as a Consultant (1968-69) on organizational development projects for top management teams for conflict resolution and enhancing creativity.  From 1972-1976 he didmergers and acquisitions for U.S. acquisitions as President and Director of a company financed by Mitsubishi International.

Nathalie Ishizuka studied business, negotiation and international affairs taking classes such as Managing Innovation, and Coordination, Control, and the Management of Organizations at HBS and the winter Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law.  She has an MBA from HEC Paris and a MALD from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy.  After successfully completing the first year of a Ph.D. program in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations at the Haas School of Business, she left academia to pursue her interest in organizations, health, and technology by directly working with innovative firms, including starting her own.  She is grateful to Haas and in particular to Oliver Williamson for helping her understand how new paradigms in organizations are built.

Organizational Model

Based on his understanding of individual personality and health, and his experience working for a variety of companies Dr. Yukio Ishizuka has developed organizational models that integrate with the individual personality model.  They have been used to help CEOs better understand and track a variety of factors that contribute to their organization’s success and excellence.  Dr. Yukio Ishizuka has presented the individual and organizational models to corporations such as AT&T, IBM, and other elite Japanese, American and European CEOs.

Nathalie Ishizuka (MBA) has written a working paper integrating Individual and Organizational Effectiveness: a Systems View integrating Yukio Ishizuka’s model of human personality with Chris Argyris’ model of organization and pushing the two further by defining criteria for Organizational Health models.  In the paper she expands on Yukio Ishizuka’s existing organizational model with a systems view of organizations; integrating the individual model of health with organizational health. In addition to this academic interest, she works with entrepreneurs and new technologies in the creative process of innovation.

Readings, Lectures, More Info on Organizational Health and Excellence

Ishizuka, Yukio.  Lecture: “In Search of Excellence and Well-Being” Presentation of Life-Track to Mr. Ralph Pheifer, Chairman of IBM Asia and Americas and staff to help enhance executive performance. 1985 (2 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “Individual and Organizational Excellence and Well-Being” Lecture forKeizai Doyu-kai Nagoya Chapter meeting of 200 CEOs and senior executives, 1987 (1.5 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio, “Facing Structural Challenges: The U.S. and Japan.”  AT&T Global Business Symposium, Phoenix, Arizona, March 26, 1992 (2.5 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “The Breakdown of Elite Japanese Executives Abroad” Lecture forKeizai Doyu-kai meeting of 200 Japanese CEOs, 1986 (1.5 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio. “How To Overcome Stress at the Top” Lecture for The Japanese Chemical Manufacturers Club, 50 C.E.O.’s of the Japanese chemical manufacturing companies, September 23, 1997 (1 hour)

Ishizuka, Yukio, “The Japanese Mind: Its Implications for the U.S.-Japan Relationship” AT&T Global Business Symposium, Phoenix, Arizona, March 26, 1992 (2.5 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio, “Facing Structural Challenges: The U.S. and Japan.”  AT&T Global Business Symposium, Phoenix, Arizona, March 26, 1992 (2.5 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio. “Excellence and Wellbeing : How to Achieve and Grow Both” Lecture forAnnual Meeting of IFMSA-Japan (International Federation of Medical Student Association-Japan)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “Happiness and Success : How To Achieve and Grow Both” Lecture forNippon Club of New York, 2007

Ishizuka, Y. and ed. Ishizuka N., “Special Report, How to Help Executives under Stress,”Nikkei Business, September 1992.

Ishizuka, Yukio, “Breakdown of a Japanese Businessman: a Trap for Business Elites,”Voice Magazine, January 1984.

Ishizuka, Yukio, “The Pitfall for Business Elites,” Nikkei Business, the leading Japanese Business Magazine, September 1986.

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “Stress is Your Friend,” Asahi Shinbun International, August 27,1992. A feature interview with Dr. Ishizuka.

Ishizuka, Yukio, “Japan’s Place in the World,” Zaikai-Koron, a Japanese business monthly, 1976.  Among those interviewed by Dr. Ishizuka were Mr. David Rockefeller, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, Mr. George Ball, former Secretary of State, Mr. Joseph Fravin, CEO of Singer & C., Professor Henry de Bettignies, Director of the Asian Center of INSEAD, and Professor Hugh T. Patrick of Yale University.

Shiroyama, S., The Conditions for Survival. Kodansha: Tokyo, 1991. The book consists of in-depth interviews with eleven individuals from diverse fields. Dr. Ishizuka was interviewed along with the economist Milton Friedman, Andrew Night, editor-in-chief of The Economist, and golfer Jack Nicolas.

“International Front, Japanese Middle Management under Stress,” The New York Times, Sunday March 29,1992. Interview with Dr. Ishizuka.

Casey, E., “A New Computer Tool,” Wall Street Micro News, Oct. 1985.

Lewyn, Mark and Kelly, Erin. “Now, Feedback from Life-Track,” USA Today, September 26,1985.

“Mental Health for an International Businessman,” Mental Health Magazine for Management, March 1984.

Berger, M., “A Japanese Psychiatrist’s Answer to Executive Stress,” International Management, McGraw-Hill, March 1987. An interview with Dr. Yukio Ishizuka introducing Life-Track.

Yogata, M., “Personal Setback and Growth,” Marubeni, December 1985. A personal account documenting the depression and recovery of one of Dr. Ishizuka’s former patients while on assignment in New York. The article celebrates Yogata’s promotion toDirector of leading Japanese corporation.

Costa, P., “The Case of Sad Success,” Gannet Westchester Newspapers, September 11, 1985. A cover-page interview featuring Dr. Ishizuka.

“From Management Consulting to Psychiatric Practice,” Trapedia, May 1982. Interview with Dr. Ishizuka.

“First Encounters,” Business Tokyo, January 1992. Dr. Ishizuka quoted as expert for American businessmen in Japan.

“Japanese Executives Under Stress,” Yomiuri Shinbun, January 12,1986.

Shiroyama, S., Getting Stronger, Overcoming Setbacks. Nippon Keizai Shimbun: Tokyo, 1983. Shiroyama is one of the most prominent authors in Japan. Quotes Dr. Ishizuka extensively.

Woller, B., “When Work is Your World,” Gannet Westchester Newspapers, February 2,1988. Dr. Ishizuka quoted in front-page article.

Woller, B., “When Work is Your World,” Gannet Westchester Newspapers, February 2,1988. Dr. Ishizuka quoted in front-page article.

Copyright © 2010 LifeTrack Corporation

A Need for Models based on Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

 

Dr. Yukio Ishizuka’s has applied in the last 30 years the new method of positive mental health to over 2000 patients in private practice (representing 40,000 session hours). He has examined well over a million computer generated graphs of the patient’s daily subjective self-assessment. Based on this information, he has hypothesized the following on the ability and limits of tracking what is going on inside people’s heads:

Insights on Defining and Measuring Happiness:

1. My misery is your heaven, your heaven my hell.

Psychological distress or well-being such as “anxiety,” “peace,” “depression” or “happiness” are essentially subjective experiences that can only be observed and reported by the person who is experiencing them. What makes one person happy might make another miserable and vice-versa. Furthermore, happiness to one person may not be exactly the same thing as happiness reported by another. It may even be different for the same person at a different time. Nevertheless, since the experience of well-being or distress is a subjective internal phenomena, the best expert to measure it is still oneself. There are of course some exceptions. An individual, who is psychotic, may have lost the capacity to reason or a “realistic” perception that makes self-rating a valuable exercise. Individuals who have difficulty in introspection may do less well in this therapy than in others.

2. I see the world through colored glasses and can consciously switch pairs.

My inner state of mind affects what it is I see and experience. To put it in terms of physics, the observed object is not separate from the observer. Since the mind is aware of its own consciousness, it can choose to focus on one thing and selectively ignore another. Depending on what we decide to observe and measure, we may be creating what we look for and find. Hence if individuals observe and measure precisely diseases and disorders, they may be creating them where they might not have otherwise existed. Conversely, if individuals chose to observe and measure “positive mental health” or well-being, they may be able to create it where it may not have otherwise existed!

Naturally, part of being happy is being conscious of it. In this sense, it is clear that the observer may well influence the experience of life by the intention or act of assessing it according to the Lifetrack model. This is an intended effect. Daily self rating oneself attempts to change not only the objectively measurable life experiences but the “unconscious measuring rod” or subjective perception of experience. The scale should serve to help individuals discern that they are getting much happier, rather than believing that there level of happiness is “constant.” Taking such a psychological leap is more than just symbolic. It empowers incremental thinking. In short, the observer may be “creating” what one observes by choosing to observe it.

3. Now I’m happy, now I’m not.

Psychological experience is a quanta and is discontinuous. It occurs in spikes of thoughts, feeling and actions. Happiness and depression are not steady states, but can change from one moment to the next. For this reason, the total adjustment sheet (even one self rating) is really a snapshot of moments. Even with a simple 10 point scale, assessments may be different if the same person performs the exercise only a few minutes later (depending on what happened in the meantime) or what the person might have happened to think about when another self-assessment was being made.

Despite this fundamentally subjective and changeable nature of the self assessments, in the experience of Lifetrack therapy, repetitive self assessments according to the same fixed model yield highly valuable information. To use an analogy, one can imagine that each of the individual ratings are much like a droplet in our psychological experience. These droplets when viewed individually or in isolation may not tell us much. However, when a person uses the same model consistently over time, the droplets accumulate creating patterns, which take the shape of a fountain.

In this sense, one can think of one’s overall psychological state as a fountain, which keeps a certain shape, but consists of constantly changing and discontinuous droplets. While we may not objectively compare the level of happiness of one patient to another (objective subjective), we can compare the level of happiness in the same person at different points in time, particularly if such self assessments are performed frequently and regularly (daily for example.) Although memory is short, one can reliably observe if one is happier or more depressed than the day before.

4. Hold on! One thing at each instant.

If at this very moment I am conscious that I am happy, I cannot be conscious that I am depressed (two seconds later is a different story.) Anything one focuses on takes one’s attention and consciousness away from something else. This phenomenon is similar to the uncertainty principle in physics. That is, in the frontier of the “exact” science of physics, it has now been repeatedly proven by experiments that if one measures exactly the “momentum” of a sub-atomic particle, the same observer cannot know anything about the “position” of the same particle or vice-versa. Hence, by choosing to observe one aspect of nature “exactly,” one must at that instant give up knowing “anything” about some other property of the same object being observed.

If this same principle of “uncertainty” applies to the observation of phenomenon of the human mind, the implication may be fundamental. As far as tracking the mind is concerned, it suggests that when one is doing the self-rating, one cannot think of the “accept” and “depend” element at the very same instant. Hence the model is really a collection of “snapshots” that are arbitrarily pulled together. However, for lack of a better way to capture dynamically changing states of mind this may be a good beginning. Although we can individually see the droplets and patients can attempt to describe their experience at one given point in time, it is only when we see the fountain that we capture personality. The tracking does not provide the totality of the experience, but is a tool during therapy to trigger insights and ask relevant questions.

5. Nirvana cannot be fully captured in words, or digits. So why bother?

The subjective experience of happiness, well-being, depression and the like cannot be adequately or fully described. It can only be experienced by each individual. This raises the inevitable question, “If ‘reality’ of psychological phenomena can only be experienced and not described fully – how can we track it?”

The physicist Finkelstein wrote similarly about how “experience” in the exact science of physics cannot be fully communicated to others (remember Einstein’s analogy about a physicist never being able to see under the watch). He argued that despite that one cannot fully communicate experience to others, if we can show how to make the experience happen and show how to measure it, then we can help others to have it. This is precisely what has been done in Lifetrack therapy.

Evidence and Empiric Data at the Basis of a New Science

The accumulated evidence of daily self-rating data of more than 1,200 patients throughout their treatment on 41 parameters (9 parameters each for the three spheres or a total of 27 total, 5 positive peak emotions, 5 peak negative emotions, 4 for physical health peaks), may constitute the largest database of positive mental health indicators existing.

We are open to future research and work undertaken in coordination with NIMH, academics and others that could be of benefit to the field of positive mental health and psychology.

 

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Read Health and Happiness, Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happier? (fear of the unknown), Why it works (objective subjective), Insights (life purpose), and Applications (international behavior).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

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Cycle of Life, Defining Happiness, Measuring Happiness
Psychological adjustment, positive mental health, cycle of life, physics, personality
http://positivementalhealthfoundation.com/happiness-and-health/cycle-of-life/

The species “man,” can be defined not only in anatomical and physiological terms; its members share basic psychic qualities, the laws which govern their mental and emotional functioning, and the aims for a satisfactory solution of the problem of human existence.

It is true that our knowledge of man is still so incomplete that we cannot yet give a satisfactory definition of man in a psychological sense.  It is the task of the “science of man” to arrive eventually at a correct description of what deserves to be called human nature. — Erich Fromm (the Sane Society)

Thinking the Unthinkable : A refreshing life way

Can there really be a “science of man”?  How are we to know if psychic qualities really exist?  And, if they do, how might one come to know their nature – let alone how such psychic qualities are related and interact?

The Answer Not Freud (Freud psychoanalysis), but Einstein

Interestingly, the answer to this question may not come from Freud, but Einstein.  He wrote, “In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch.  He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears it’s ticking, but he has no way of opening the case.  If he is ingenious, he may form some picture of a mechanism for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one, which could explain his observations.  He will never be able to compare his picture with the mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility and meaning of such comparison.”

How We Make Sense of Reality

Einstein, by sharing this story of the watch, was describing the way the natural science of physics makes sense of reality.

He was well aware that despite that physicists may never discover exactly what was underneath the watch, there were still means to come closer to understanding it.

His predecessor, Newton, had done precisely that.  After stating a few postulates that most of the scientists in his time accepted, Newton attempted to show how the postulates could explain many of the things they observed.  To do so, however, he first had to define what it was he wanted to selectively observe or explain, and find a means or method to measure it (the latter was done by creating calculus).

A Science of Man

In much the same way as physicists must grapple with understanding what is under the watch without being able to see it, the challenge with developing a natural “science of man” could be the same.  The first step then is to do what physics and all natural sciences must courageously attempt: describe general phenomena, concepts or abstractions, which explain a wide variety of experiences.  In the case of a science of man those general concepts concern human psychological experience. This endeavor is likely to be a more difficult task than physics!

What are the Spheres of Psychological Existence?

While all attempts to understand the mind are imperfect, if one begins in the tradition of the natural sciences one must start by describing psychological phenomena that are abstract (and encompassing enough) that they hold true for most psychological experience.  These postulates need to encompass psychic qualities that when present determine the experience of well-being and health or when absent distress and illness.  If indeed there were such core psychic qualities, the laws of “which govern our mental and emotional functioning,” then it would follow that when we move in accordance with those laws well-being is the result.

Can the Same Spheres define health and illness?

Forces, including self-defeating thoughts, feelings and actions, can help us understand the causes of non-organic disease.  Naturally, assuming the very existence of psychological laws or of a better understanding of the structure of the human mind is to think the unthinkable.  Yet, no science is exempt from thinking the unthinkable – of asking of itself the very simple questions that only children dare ask.  These are the most dangerous questions, the ones that can shake the very foundations of any science.

Do the same assumptions hold for the body and mind?

Today, psychiatrists and psychologists need to be asking those questions.  As of yet, the medical field has focused its attention on developing a fairly consistent and increasingly accurate means to classify and measure illnesses, disease and disorders.  In this science of disease, mental illness is analogous to physical illness.  Whether one has cancer or depression, successful treatment demands the elimination of the disease, its reduction or containment.  To be healthy is not to be sick.

The Limits of a Medical Model based on the Body

This “medical model” has been helpful, yet it has a built-in limitation: it cannot explain the mind at its most healthy, creative and fullest potential.  In that sense it can not qualify as a natural science of man.  Too eager to establish a study of the mind as a science, psychiatrists never wondered whether the same assumptions hold for the body and mind.  To use Einstein’s analogy, while surgery, allowed the doctor to open up “the watch” and see whether they were right or wrong about what makes it tick, a science of the mind could not.  Psychiatrists had no idea if whether they were on the right track.  Although psychiatry has come a long way and helped many people, perhaps it should have evolved even further.

DSM useful, but too narrow to understand the Mind

Although pharmacological research has given the medical field increasingly effective and safer medications such as Prozac, the disease model has failed to prove that specific chemical changes in the brain is the cause or the cure for all mental illnesses.  What the field has now is a classification for disease that is helpful for the disbursement of medication, the labeling of “illnesses’” and insurance purposes.

The Death of the Disease Model?

Today this science based on disease is dying — not because it is wrong — but because it presents too narrow a worldview.  It does not attempt to do what all the natural sciences must: describe general phenomena, concepts or abstractions, which explain a wide variety of (human psychological) experiences.  To do so one must return to the challenge offered by Jahoda to develop a model of Positive Mental Health.

The Lifetrack model of positive mental health described on this website is one such attempt (insights Lifetrack), but is certainly not the only model possible.  In this respect, all models are imperfect and wait further testing (objective subjective) by patients to be refined and improved.

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Read our section Happiness and Health, Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), Insights (life purpose), and Applications (international behavior).

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