Changing the Conversation About Mental Illness

New ways of understanding and healing mental illness

What if the things we call mental illness - depression, anxiety, dissociation, chronic pain, even personality disorders - aren’t really illnesses in the usual sense?

What if they’re actually signs of a brain and nervous system that went through something overwhelming and shocking and had to adapt to survive?

People working in trauma and neuroscience - like Ruth Lanius, Frank Corrigan, Gabor Maté, and Bessel van der Kolk - have been helping us rethink this and it's changing the conversation about mental illness. What they’re showing is that many diagnoses are really just descriptions of what happens after the body has been shocked by something that didn’t fit, didn’t feel safe, or didn’t make sense at the time.

When something happens that disrupts our sense of safety or predictability - especially in relationships - the brain doesn’t stop to analyze it. It reacts - fast and automatically.

It goes into survival mode.

Those reactions aren’t choices. They’re not flaws. They’re reflexes that exist to keep us alive.

The problem is that the body doesn’t always know when the danger is over. So the same patterns that once helped us survive can stick around. And over time, they start to look like symptoms: numbness, anxiety, constant alertness, shutdown, shame, fear, disconnection, even chronic physical pain.

Why Changing the Conversation About Mental Illness Matters - Healing Where Mental Illness Actually Starts

This shift in understanding is also changing how therapy works.

One example is Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), a trauma therapy developed by psychiatrist Frank Corrigan. DBR doesn’t start with talking things through or trying to think differently. It starts much ‘earlier’ - at the level of the body, in the tiny physical responses that happen in the very first moment of shock.

DBR helps people slow down enough to notice those subtle sensations without getting overwhelmed. By staying close to what the body can tolerate, the nervous system finally gets a chance to process what never had time to settle back then.

And the research is encouraging.

Studies led by Ruth Lanius at the University of Western Ontario show that DBR can reduce PTSD symptoms, depression, and even physical pain. These aren’t just emotional shifts. They’re changes in how the brain and body respond to everyday life.

What’s also interesting is that very few people dropped out of DBR studies - especially compared to other trauma treatments. Many people describe it as manageable, even gentle compared to other therapies they’ve tried. Slowing things down and working within the body’s sense of safety seems to make a big difference.

A Different Way of Looking at Symptoms

All of this is part of a bigger shift in how we understand mental health.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?”, we start asking, “What happened to me and how did my system adapt to survive?”

From this perspective, changing the conversation about mental illness allows us to ask different questions. Instead of “What’s wrong with me?” we start to wonder, “What happened to me, and how did my system adapt to get through it?” That shift alone can reduce shame and open the door to real healing because symptoms aren’t viewed as signs of something broken. They’re evidence of a nervous system that did exactly what it was supposed to do under overwhelming circumstances (often in the context of aloneness).

And healing isn’t about ‘fixing’ yourself. Instead, it’s about helping your brain and body register that the danger has passed - so that you can feel present, connect with others, rest, and begin to feel more peace and joy.