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Enablement – The way forward in mental, physical, and social health
Over a span of twelve years, I have helped many individuals and families to recover from complex mental health and psychosomatic conditions. This invaluable experience provided me with a fresh perspective on the underlying psychosocial factors perpetuating the negative cycle of cause-effect-cause. It begins with a lack of self-knowledge and substandard education, leading to poverty, exclusion, low self-esteem, and confidence. Consequently, unhealthy coping mechanisms such as alcohol, drugs, and maladaptive behaviours emerge, resulting in severe mental and physical health issues, unemployment, homelessness, antisocial behaviours, and familial conflicts. This perpetuates an unending negative loop of personal, familial, and socioeconomic consequences.
This practical knowledge gained through years of treatment of chronic mental health and comorbid conditions demanded a shift in my approach to mental health conditions, and illness in general.
Instead of relying on the old model of therapy and treatment where the client’s health issues were addressed in isolation of their socio-economic context, I began to focus exclusively on enablement, on empowering living skills, person-centred self-development programmes, with tremendous success.
Instead of trying to hassle with the symptoms, I focused on developing and strengthening their mental, emotional, and social skills.
Instead of trying to “heal an illness”, I told my clients that they are not ill, rather ill-prepared for the increasingly complex life’s demands.
Suicidal clients suffering from resistant cases of bipolar depression and severe health issues caused by 20 years of pharmacologic unsuccessful treatment (kidneys failure due to lithium treatment, memory loss, etc.) were able to regain control over their life and discontinue their life-threatening medication with no withdrawal symptoms from the sixth week of the programme.
Homeless, unemployed suicidal clients suffering from schizophrenia with acoustic and visual hallucinations, alcohol and substance abuse, have recovered their equilibrium from week 4, by week 7 being employed and independent tenants.
The future of social, economic, medical, and therapeutic interventions is the one where all social players converge towards the same aim: supporting the individual to pursue a meaningful life in line with their natural talents and aspirations. One of the fundamental human rights.
All industries, whether public or private, from healthcare to finance, housing, education, and so on, will benefit from a holistic, collaborative approach.
Not in tackling illness, but in fostering health and wellbeing through personal development.
Not in tackling unemployment, but in fostering self-reliance, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
Not in tackling youth social problems, but in creating a supportive environment that assumes responsibility for its actions and their multilevel, cross-cultural consequences.
With this insight, we can envision two timelines.
One that focuses on the development of therapeutic outcomes, and one that focuses on the development of people. One which invests in treatment, and one which invests in prevention.
Empowering the individual of different backgrounds to reach the required level of self-development and self-responsibility may seem a daunting task at first. It requires a paradigm shift at all levels. It requires humbleness and the courage to admit to the shortcomings of the present approaches – from the educational and healthcare systems to policymakers and service providers.
It requires the maturity of overcoming personal, organisational, and field-specific cognitive biases, and the awareness of our predisposition to resist change.
It will require sacrifices and setting egos aside, but the overall long-term growth factor of such endeavours will outweigh the discomfort of transition from maladapted, state-dependent society to a self-driven, collaborative, communitarian one.
© Gratiela Rosu – Mental Health & Wellbeing Specialist, Self-Help Author, Social Innovation Advocate, Founder of the CWS Mental Health & Wellbeing Coaching Method®
To book an ENABLEMENT training module or talk for your employees mental health awareness, email us at: cws@infogratielarosu.com
