We are facing a worldwide pandemic of mental ill health. The World Health Organisation has estimated that 1 billion people are suffering from a mental disorder. [i]By 2022 the number of young people dying by suicide in the USA was as high as for road accidents as the number one killer of youth. In the same year 48% of 18-25 year olds reported intrusive levels of anxiety or worse.[ii]
According to a survey by The British Psychological Society and New Savoy Partnership amongst therapists, levels of depression rose from 40 per cent to 46 per cent from 2014 to 2015, while the number of respondents feeling like a failure rose from 42 per cent to almost 50 per cent. Seventy per cent said they found their job stressful.[iii] In the UK public sector, frontline psychological services in the NHS are under intolerable pressure to prioritise targets over the well-being of their staff. As one psychological well-being practitioner put it: “There is no emphasis on looking after you as an individual. I have a ridiculous caseload and high-stress levels. When I told my manager how I felt, I was told to “put up and shut up.”[iv] A major American survey published in 1994 found 61 per cent of psychologists were clinically depressed and 29 per cent had suicidal thoughts. [v]It is a common fact that Psychotherapists who work with chronic illness tend to disregard their self-care needs when focusing on clients’ needs. They commonly suffer from burning out and compassion fatigue.[vi]
Integrative Health
“Integrative Health aims to treat the whole person and to do so within the context of whole systems and practices.”[vii] Recognising the need for meaning is a key factor in integrative health and, for many, spirituality is a significant source of this, providing a context from which to ride through life’s inevitable ups and downs. Brain scans taken over an 8-year period of people with a sustained spiritual life showed development in regions of perception, processing power, reflection, and orientation. These same regions are thin in 80-85% of those people with recurrent depression.[viii] Despite this evidence of the positive impact of spirituality, the challenge remains how to introduce spirituality into psychotherapy. Research indicates that many therapists are open to spiritual matters and many clients want to discuss this.[ix] There has, however, been a lot of confusion about how to achieve this. Up until 1995 there was no academic study on the impact of spirituality on mental health.
In 1997 a breakthrough study recognised that spirituality and religion could be separated and that we are innately spiritual beings, and this is a significant factor in healthy human development, playing a key role in temperament which is half innate and half conditioned.[x] Indeed the lack of spiritual education leads the American Psychological Association to conclude that the next generation is not being prepared for adulthood due to the lack of spiritual development. [xi]
Oneness as the Source of Integration
Many therapeutic traditions point to peace of mind, happiness, well-being and sense of completeness in one way or another. However, most theories of therapeutic change seek to achieve this by focusing on resolving past issues or future achievements. Generally, they pay less heed to the experience of the present moment, arguably the main arena of change. Therefore, much psychotherapy resolves only specific issues in the belief that the progression through these will lead to ever greater well-being. This progressive path to healing compares with an instant direct spiritual experience often described as a sense of Oneness with everything. Research demonstrates that this experience is overwhelmingly positive. [xii]
Realising the experience of Oneness has a transformative effect on our lives. It brings a new understanding that relieves the fundamental cause of psychological suffering, which we discover is the belief of being a separate self, which is the root of existential fear and a sense of inadequacy. This results in symptoms of anxiety that may build in time to depression, addiction and worse. Oneness also allows us to access an endlessly rich source of life-affirming qualities that, combined with some practical methods, provide a powerful context for healing past trauma and other entrenched emotional problems. Relieved of psychological suffering, we are free to use the faculties of our mind and body constructively and enjoy our relationships, work, and life.
An Invitation
The author Freyja Theaker is a Human Givens psychotherapist and teacher of Oneness and member of the Human Givens Institute and National Council of Integrative Psychotherapy. She runs a study program for therapists that introduces the understanding and experience of Oneness to this audience, accredited by the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapy.
You can find out more about her work integrating therapy and oneness at this link. www.naturallybeing.one/the-naturally-being-oneness-sessions.
In addition, she runs free introductory presentations on this subject. You can book these here: www.naturallybeing.one/introductory-naturally-being-sessions-1
Freyja Theaker
Naturally Being One
References
[i] World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240050860
[ii] University Of California: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2022/04/422611/48-young-adults-struggled-mental-health-mid-2021
[iii] British Psychological Society (BPS). (2016, February 12). Healing the healers. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160212200300.htm
[iv] Watts, J. (2018, February 14). We’re not surprised half our psychologist colleagues are depressed. The Guardian. Retrieved 8 October 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/feb/17/were-not-surprised-half-our-psychologist-colleagues-are-depressed
[v] Mace, W.L (2016). Depressed Psychologists. Psychology Today. Retrieved 8 October 2022, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/campus-confidential-coping-college/201604/depressed-psychologists
[vi] Figley C. R. (2002). Compassion fatigue: psychotherapists’ chronic lack of self-care. Journal of clinical psychology, 58(11), 1433–1441. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10090
[vii] Mills, P. J., Barsotti, T. J., Blackstone, J., Chopra, D., & Josipovic, Z. (2020, January). Nondual Awareness and the Whole Person. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 9, 216495612091460. https://doi.org/10.1177/2164956120914600
[viii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24369341/
[ix] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19132737/
[x] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/8E7A725DD51965E66E63733273E74F2B/S1832427413000030a.pdf/div-class-title-familial-resemblance-in-religiousness-in-a-secular-society-a-twin-study-div.pdf
[xii] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-one-lifespan/202010/the-experience-oneness
[xi] https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2017-00537-001.html
Main photo by SHVETS production
