One of the on­go­ing is­sues with peo­ple reach­ing out for in­ter­ven­tion, or for sign­post­ing to ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­ven­tions, is that of­ten, peo­ple have al­ready de­cid­ed what is best for them. This is the be­gin­ning of ex­plor­ing some di­a­logue that con­tin­ues to en­ter my space, which is close-mind­ed about med­ical sci­ence.

There are peo­ple, though, who come to the con­ver­sa­tion hav­ing al­ready de­cid­ed that they “are not mad” and do not need psy­chi­atric drugs, or that the prob­lem re­sides in some­one else—spouse, rel­a­tive, cowork­er or even neigh­bour. And then there are those who ap­pear gen­uine­ly in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed and un­able to make lu­cid de­ci­sions but may still feel they have the best so­lu­tions.

Many of these de­ci­sions are not based on sci­ence or med­i­cine but are high­ly in­flu­enced by stig­ma, myth, mis­un­der­stand­ing, folk­tale or re­li­gious teach­ings/be­liefs. Many of the peo­ple with whom I have in­ter­act­ed are bare­ly in­formed about their con­di­tion but hold their opin­ion and the view of every oth­er per­son in the high­est re­gard be­fore they meet health­care pro­fes­sion­als or an­cil­lary care providers.

What­ev­er, I am al­ways hope­ful that peo­ple will al­low them­selves the ben­e­fit of pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ven­tion. So, when some­one comes to me with fi­nal­i­ty about the best ap­proach to their sit­u­a­tion, I adopt my lis­ten­ing pos­ture most­ly be­cause reg­u­lar­ly, they are com­bat­ive. I try to steer these con­ver­sa­tions to what I deem a bet­ter sce­nario and of­ten use my mul­ti­ple in­ter­ven­tions as an ex­am­ple.

I am vest­ed in shared de­ci­sion-mak­ing (SDM), where the pa­tient/car­er and pro­fes­sion­als work in part­ner­ship. I al­so favour sup­port­ed de­ci­sion-mak­ing, de­fined as en­sur­ing the per­son with men­tal ill­ness al­ways makes the fi­nal choice, with sup­port if need­ed.

In­ter-pro­fes­sion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion is what worked best for me. In my coun­selling, there­fore, it is my de­fault. I recog­nised, though, that I start­ed out with lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion and max­i­mum stig­ma and all I want­ed to do was to func­tion well, even if that in­clud­ed not be­ing healed but hav­ing a way to man­age long-term ill­ness.

I was will­ing to try any­thing from “hard” psych drugs to so­cial pre­scrip­tions like gar­den­ing and ful­ly be­lieve a com­bi­na­tion of in­ter­ven­tions brought me to self-reg­u­la­tion. What I in­volved my­self in did not have a name at the time, but now it is wide­ly recog­nised as pa­tient-cen­tred re­cov­ery.

This jour­ney start­ed out for me with all the de­ci­sions about my men­tal health be­ing made by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and, once re­leased from hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, my moth­er pur­sued every avail­able tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge rec­om­men­da­tion.

In adult­hood, I got to choose dif­fer­ent path­ways. By then, about 20 years had passed since my first cri­sis, but, for me, some­thing had to give and my cru­sade re­mained ac­tive. I al­ways men­tion the World Wide Web and how greater ac­cess to vo­lu­mi­nous in­for­ma­tion in the 1990s helped my jour­ney. But some­times, I see where the al­ter­na­tive ideas of the Web act as a de­ter­rent to bet­ter pre­scrip­tions for treat­ing men­tal ill­ness.

As an ex­pert by ex­pe­ri­ence, I usu­al­ly share with peo­ple what I know that works for me or what has helped my self-man­age­ment. This jour­ney may not be the same for every­one, but at least an open mind to what is avail­able may be a pos­i­tive place to start.

As a cer­ti­fied brain health coach and men­tal health coun­sel­lor, my train­ing tells me men­tal health is brain health and that the brain can be changed. My tu­tor­ing says, “a healthy brain is es­sen­tial to a healthy life, and even if the brain has been dam­aged in the past, there are ways to change the brain and gain back part of what was lost.”

Many dif­fer­ent im­pacts af­fect the brain: in­jury, es­pe­cial­ly in ear­ly life, poor nu­tri­tion and poor lifestyle, sports in­jury, chron­ic or un­treat­ed ill­ness­es/con­di­tions, en­vi­ron­men­tal tox­ins, and much more. There are in­ter­ven­tions aimed at heal­ing.

As a faith-based men­tal health coun­sel­lor, I am aware of the present dark­ness (Eph­esians 6:12) and that of “spir­i­tu­al forces of evil in heav­en­ly places.” But from my own life, many of the types of in­ter­ven­tions my moth­er was will­ing to try and those I ex­plored have not whol­ly brought about the de­sired well-be­ing I craved. My his­to­ry in­cludes in­ter­ven­tions from Catholic, Hin­du and Bap­tist faiths, Orisa ex­pe­ri­ences, and vis­its to any “seer­man” my moth­er thought would help.

As a pub­lic health prac­ti­tion­er, I learned that ge­net­ics sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­flu­ences men­tal health, in­creas­ing sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to dis­or­ders like schiz­o­phre­nia, bipo­lar dis­or­der, and de­pres­sion, but it is rarely the sole cause. Many is­sues run in fam­i­lies, but while a per­son may have a fa­mil­ial link, ex­ter­nal fac­tors like trau­ma, stress­ful life events, and habits all con­tribute to men­tal ill­ness.

As a dis­ci­ple of Je­sus Christ, I un­der­stand the pow­er of prayer. There are peo­ple who at­test to prayer and fast­ing as the in­ter­ven­tion that healed them com­plete­ly from men­tal ill­ness­es. Amen! But to my mind, and in my ex­pe­ri­ence, many peo­ple do bet­ter with com­bi­na­tions of prayer and med­i­cine with­out one nul­li­fy­ing the po­ten­cy of the oth­er. As James wrote, God gives wis­dom gen­er­ous­ly and I like to think “he vest­ed that wis­dom in doc­tors.”