ABSTRACT
The current establishment is dominated by a way of thinking that has fooled people into believing in the existence of “mental disorders and mental diseases treatable by psychiatric medication,” when in fact the picture is completely different. First, there is a mental health establishment that is not doing a wonderful job of helping people in distress. This chapter describes a new helper, the human experience specialist, and outlines a repudiation of the pseudo-medical model of mental health services with “chemicals with effects” still made available. It talks about more and better thinking about huge questions concerning cause and effect in human affairs and the need for more and better institutions and communities of care. Second, there is the challenging job that we have of maintaining our own emotional wellbeing and mental health. The distress plays itself out in human ways like despair, hopelessness, and meaninglessness. It plays itself out through anxieties, addictions, manias, pestering obsessions, critical outbursts, and self-soothing indulgences.
