A Huge Missing In The Field of Mental Health

There is a huge missing in the mental health field. What I see is missing (and, by the way, I am not a doctor, and none of what I say here is medical advice) is that patients are often treated from a space of being broken as opposed to being whole and perfect just how they are and how they aren’t. I’ve observed (completely non-scientifically and anecdotally) that more and more therapists are starting to wake up to this and are starting to treating their patients from this space with much more effectiveness and a more significant impact. I also am clear that anyone who doesn’t explore these ideas and refuses to read up and study the latest research and innovation going on around the world in the realm of making an impact on the mental well-being of human beings is being a righteous know-it-all.

The Influence of Psychologists

I think righteous know-it-all may even be an understatement due to how influential a therapist or psychiatrist can be over someone’s life. When any scientist, doctor, or anyone who impacts people’s health and well-being is more committed to justifying their own point of view than treating their patients, it really pisses me off and I find it really fucking sad. The root cause behind what gets in the way of our aliveness is perfectly described by Werner Erhard who is one of the most influential people in the field of transformational learning.

The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness. As patterns are experienced out, our lives become clearer. Things begin to make more sense. What we do makes more sense. It’s funny, but when the alive you emerge from behind the smokescreen of all those patterns and begins to participate in life directly, life really does a have purpose. It all somehow makes sense, in a fantastic way. When you get rid of the blocks, what you have is aliveness, and when the blocks are gone, purpose emerges. There is no use searching externally for a purpose, or trying to ‘pull it in.’

It is already there. Just focus on clearing out what is between you and aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served. Aliveness and purpose are practically the same thing. The purpose is greater aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served. As more and more of us get to see that the purpose is greater aliveness, it happens that all of us start to do the same thing — we start serving the purpose. Life comes on to us in our own terms, and so does the opportunity to serve.

That everyone is serving the purpose in a different way does not mean that everyone is doing something different. That’s the illusion. We do the same thing in different ways. As each of us makes our part of the whole really work, the purpose is being served. The purpose is life and that it be, completely. The commitment is: aliveness.

-Werner Erhard

Synthesizing Transformational Learning with Psychology

Transformational learning is incredibly powerful when the principles of the field are synthesized with the field of mental health and psychology. In February 2018, I attended the Daily Journal Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, California. Charlie Munger, who is Warren Buffett’s business partner and is also the Chairman of the Daily Journal. The meeting has a bit of a cult following, and there were about 1,000 “groupies” there to see Charlie and hear him speak and take questions.At the meeting, Charlie was sharing how useless psychology is when it’s only understood academically, and on the contrary, how powerful it is when the principles of psychology are synthesized with other fields of study. This Werner quote is a perfect example of how one could impact and make a difference in the field of psychology through an understanding of principles from an entirely different field.

Originally published at https://ericschleien.com on April 9, 2019.