~ Article by Shawn Dwyer – Meta-Coach President International ~

Anxiety, what is it really? Recently I’ve been working on material, patterns and practices for coaching anxiety in clients. Part of the process required research into the human orders and their description under our current health systems. Including mental health “definitions”, current “mental health practices” and how to manage such significant issues in society today. 

As part of this article, I will also write my concerns about the mental health labels and descriptions, a little further on in this article. Secondly, using NLP technology, I have found we can offer effective solutions for people anxiety-ing through use of NLP representational model and meta-representational strategy work. Insight is exposed in book The Structure of Personality by Hall, Bodenhamer, Bolstad and Hamblett. Another major component is orientation— allow the client to be the expert and let them do the work, when they have the ego-strength.

How much is anxiety a problem?

In population statistics in my country (Australia), it is recognised 1 in 4 women and 1 in 5 men do anxiety-ing. They struggle through longer than desired periods of unnecessary suffering. Anxiety-ing as a human strategy is understood as a problem for human functioning, yet there are various solutions, even for self-actualizing. 

What does the DMS-5 have to do with it?

Within the DSM-5, the (Diagnostic Statistical Manual version 5), anxiety is defined as a mental disorder. Yet no-one really doubts the phenomena of sadness and worry. However to call sadness and worry symptoms of mental disorders is exactly the same kind of fraudulent leap we see when multi-ordinal levels are confused. Under the DMS-5, we can make “definition” of mental disorders in exactly the same fraudulent way, by illegitimately using real phenomena as “proof” of the existence of non-existing things.

Controversial and a big challenge?

You bet and the exciting part is at The Coaching Centre we can ‘enable’ people with authenticity to free themselves from anxiety-ing. In Meta-Coaching we use empirical evidence to allow the client to do the work and they make the change they need to make. It is the client who is the expert when it comes to anxiety-ing, whilst meta-coaching with the meta-representational system can enable clients their resolve.

Where does society go in another direction?

Is this part of the problem? Part of the joy and ease of this fraudulent creating under the DMS-5 is that you can define the non-existing thing any way you like. So who is to say if a mental disorder is the same or different from a brain disorder? The same or different for a Jungian, a Freudian, or a drug dispenser? The same or different from unwanted thoughts or behaviors, if there is no real thing involved? Therefore those making the claim for a non-existing thing (the authors of the DSM-5) should have to prove its existence. In real life the burden always falls on the client/patient/whistle-blower, and diagnosis/mis-diagnosis is mainly left to the doctor or psychiatrist. 

Mental Definitions in The DSM

Let me show you how easy the definers of non-existing mental disorder have it with the DSM. First they define it one way, as they did in the DSM-4: 

“A mental disorder is a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual. And that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.”

Then, under pressure by skeptics as to the whether this definition made any sense whatsoever, they redefined non-existing mental disorders this new way in the DSM-5.

“A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society. These are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above.”

Words and Disordering

The very idea that you can radically change the definition of something without anything in the real world changing and with no new increases in knowledge or understanding is remarkable. Remarkable until you realize that the thing being defined does not exist. It is completely easy—effortless, really—to change the definition of something that does not exist to suit your current purposes. In fact, there is hardly any better proof of the non-existence of a non-existing thing than that you can define it one way today, another way tomorrow, and a third way on Sunday.

What Is The Description?

Certainly one could scrutinize the changes and make reasonable comments about the way that language has been employed with the DSM. A mental disorder is a psychological thing. Or maybe it isn’t. A mental disorder is a biological thing. Or maybe it isn’t. You can rail about your society unless you have a “dysfunction,” at which point your railing is a mental disorder. You can have a conflict with your politicians, unless you have a “dysfunction,” at which point you are a mental deviant. Making such observations plays into the hands of the creators of non-existing things. They can slip about with impunity, adding, qualifying, and shifting, while you waste your breath being reasonable and thoughtful. 

The Right Questions

With the DSM-5 the question is not, “What is the best definition of a mental disorder?” The question is not, “Is the DSM–5 definition of a mental disorder better than the DSM-IV definition of a mental disorder?” Those are absolutely not the right questions!

It is the client who is the expert when it comes to anxiety-ing, meta-coaching with NLP and the meta-representational system (and the use of empirical questioning) is where the work can be done. This enables clients their resolve, now that is very possible. 

Contact The Coaching Centre if you desire to eliminate anxiety from your life