The best way to understand others is to understand ourselves. As clinicians, we keep hearing that but we barely understand what that really means. We also hear the clinician treats but the patient heals himself or herself. Yet once again, what does that really mean? No, not what does that mean intellectually? What does that mean from an experiential standpoint? Lastly, you have heard, “clinician heal thyself?” Well, the same thing, what does that really mean?
While psychotherapy has been around for a few centuries now, coaching has been around only for decades. Many therapists have slowly taken their clinical practice to a coaching practice, making use of the same clinical skills that they have learned in school and in clinical practice, but through a different lens. Research, however, has not shown cases where coaches have transformed their coaching practice into a psychotherapy practice, even though just like the therapist, the skills they are using are practically the same as, we clinicians use, but once again, through a totally different frame and through a totally different lens, which bears the question, what is that different frame, what is that different lens?
Medicine, mental health, psychotherapy, is based on a disease model. It is based on what’s not working, and it’s based on what’s wrong, what’s to be fixed, and what the patient is not doing.
Coaching, on the other hand, is based on a strength-based model. It’s based on what’s working and how to make it work better and faster. It’s based on what’s good, and how to make it great, what are the strengths, and what is the client doing. All based on the same skills that we clinicians have learned.
Without any form of judgment, blaming ourselves, much less others, let us take an objective look: In 1952, the DSM-I was 130 pages long and contained 106 mental health conditions. In 1968, the DSM-II was 134 pages and long and listed 182 conditions. In 1980, the DSM-III was 494 pages long and listed 265 conditions, and 7 years later the DSM-III-R was 567 long with 292 diagnoses. What about 7 more years later, well, the DSM-IV came with 410 conditions and was 886 pages. By the time we went from the DSM-I to DSM-IV-TR, we have seen an increase in the number of mental health conditions listed by more than 300%. Have we been making them all up?
Well, this question would be unhelpful and would simply engender defensiveness and would therefore get us nowhere. For and once again, as we say at SWEET, “The world we live in is one of awareness, one of consciousness, and we are to experience only that which we are aware of, and we cannot ever come across that which we are not appraised of.” In other words, just like Nobel Prize Laureate, Daniel Kahneman explained it, the decision has been made and we simply justify it as if we had really made it. Our consciousness is the decisive factor, and as long as we continue to practice medicine, mental health, psychotherapy, with the same level of consciousness that we have been, we can expect more conditions to be listed, more patients to be diagnosed, more problems to be fixed, and more money to be spent towards disease than towards enhancing wellness. For, as Einstein said, “We cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” This means we need a different mind, which simply means we need a different level of consciousness, an update in our decisive factor, and there is no other way. For the Fundamental of Consciousness is constant and it will not change, and only we are to adjust.
What to do:
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Understand and help others understand that we have been treating individuals on a superficial level, just the tip of the iceberg, ignoring everything under the water
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Understand and help others understand that as long as we continue this way, we can guarantee an increase in the number of conditions, in the amount spent in trying to treat, and in the number of disabilities due to illness
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Understand and help others understand that helping individuals stay well and be better does not take away business from them; and that on a contrary we will end up with a richer economy, much more for many more, because we will be helping more individuals create more cool stuff in the world, making it easier for everyone to live a better life with less striving. Data shows that coaches consistently do better than therapists at all levels. And they focus consistently on what can be better instead of what’s not working.
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Understand and help others understand that pointing fingers at anyone does not make things better; that clinicians do not have to continue to leave the field, and that we can start being the change we want to see in the field, as Gandhi suggested.
Now, how do we do all this?
While CBT is less than a century old, it is based on the centuries of knowledge, that has been organized and replicated over and over, using the scientific method. While, as we explained in our last article, entitled, Our Normal Vs. Natural Blueprint, while much of our field has failed to reflect the latest in science, our patients depend on us and on us alone to make this a reality.
How to proceed:
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While helping our patients and clients with their psychology and biology, which means with their Normal Blueprint, keep in mind that the work is not done and will never be done until we lead them towards their Natural Blueprint
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Emphasize at all times that behind our psychology and our biology are The 3 Fundamentals, and that behind our Normal Blueprint is our Natural Blueprint
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Understand that our biology and psychology will continue to its “normal” pattern of symptom formation, maladaptive coping mechanisms, and disease making, as long disintegration remains the norm, as it is the mechanism of disease
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Understand that the only way to wellness for all individuals is through the mechanism of integration which is the opposite of disintegration
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Emphasize that the process of integration means the fusion of the Fundamental of Mind, the Fundamental of Consciousness, and the Fundamental of Thought; and mastering the how of reaching integration is the best skill we, clinicians, can ever hone, and is the best gift we can ever give to any patients and clients.
There is no one formula to get to integration. But the more practical our formula, the easier it becomes for our 
R: Refocusing
R: Restructuring
R: Redirecting
We are going to spend much time on this formula of Integration this coming Wednesday, September 16th, 7-9pm, during our class 7-CBT and Imagination, as part of our CBT Certificate Course.
Might we hold the key to doing better by us and by our patients and clients? Might we be the pioneer to help our beloved field catch up with science, to finally realize the dream of Carl Rogers, of Abraham Maslow, of Albert Ellis, of Carl Jung, and of Aaron Beck?
Well, like Albert Einstein said, “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” and in this spirit, we are asking you, if not now, when?
See you on the 16th; thank you for your work, and thank you for your pioneering spirit.
Karen and Mardoche