Tens of millions of people in the United States suffer from anxiety and/or depression. The enormity of these numbers suggests that we are dysfunctional at levels that usher in a new norm; one of mass disquiet. This malaise has indeed reached epidemic proportions. Given that, we might well reconsider the very nature of this phenomenon. Untold millions of individuals spend untold billions of dollars on psychotherapy and medication, which generally fall well short of alleviating the problem. Our society is rapidly turning into a drug addicted culture, albeit by prescription. Yet, no one is asking why this epidemic is occurring. Therein lays the greater problem.
The questions we ask direct where we focus our attention. If the question isn't posed, we are simply treating the symptoms and not inquiring as to why they occur in the first place. When dysfunction is no longer an anomaly, but commonplace, it suggests a deeper issue. We are inclined to make war on a wide array of issues: poverty, illegal drugs, cancer, etc., without ever inquiring as to how we may have participated in creating these problems. From this narrow vantage there arises a dominant belief that instructs us that the best you can do with anxiety and depression is to manage it. This thinking is limiting, self-fulfilling and damaging.
I am proposing that this avalanche of anxiety and depression is the natural result of our operating worldview. These disorders reveal a society that has gone terribly amiss, wrongly informed by an outmoded paradigm. The very manner in which we experience life is essentially informed by one's worldview. This filter not only paints the external canvas of life, but moreover influences our psychological, emotional and relational processes. The worldview informs our operating belief systems and further instructs our thinking and life experiences. It imposes upon us the manner in which we interact with the world, with others, with the environment and with ourselves.
Notwithstanding the startling and wondrous discoveries of the emerging sciences, notably quantum physics and complexity theory, we continue to cling to the basic tenets of 17 th century science. This paradigm, rooted in classical Newtonian thinking, informs us that the universe should be pictured as a giant, lifeless machine. As such, all parts are separate from one another, only tangentially connected. The stuff of reality is reduced to objects and things. Objectivity and causal thinking are the appendages of this worldview. This imagery has no place for human integrity. We thus become strangers in our own universe. This soulless universe literally impoverishes us. From this disenchanted mindscape we have little choice but to live disenchanted lives; which tend toward anxiety and depression.
From this worldview, the tenets of analytic and objective thinking soar to a position of deity. And perhaps, most noteworthy of all, there is no meaningful place for human existence other than by sheer accident. Meaning and purpose are obscured by the machine's quest for objectivity. There is little room for valid human participation in this cosmology. This reality appears resoundingly depressing as it evokes an utterly disenchanted worldview. As such, what might we ultimately expect of our emotional, psychological and spiritual experiences? They simply mirror our worldview. These beliefs not only inform our reality, they create our reality. Not surprisingly, anxiety and depression would appear to be natural outcomes of such a mega-belief. Let's look a bit more deeply at the consequences of the Newtonian paradigm.
One of the presenting symptoms of depression is often a profound sense of alienation, of a disconnection whereby people suffer from an existential sense of isolation. This detached experience deprives people of the essential relatedness so necessary to thrive in their lives. They are further encumbered by the lack of any meaningful sense of belonging or purpose, which is profoundly consistent with Newton's machine-like universe. Newton's worldview appears to be a primary foundation informing the legion of depression that abounds. I'd suggest that many cases of depression correspond to this operating worldview. In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found that most people with depression whom I have treated operate from these fundamental belief systems.
One of the salient characteristics of anxiety is the relentless fragmenting tendency of one's thoughts. In such distress, people become addicted to measuring themselves in contrast to others. This measuring is the natural outgrowth of a worldview whereby a sense of separation rather than connection reigns sovereign. People inclined toward anxiety lose themselves to the measuring tendency of their thoughts, all the while further separating themselves from a coherent flow of life. The tendency to compare and measure, so prevalent in the competitive, individualistic culture in which we live, leads to a further estrangement from others. Without a sufficient reverence for life, there is an inordinate emphasis on material consumption, triggering many addictive behaviors. In these circumstances, relatedness to others withers and the self further isolates.
Anxiety and depression appear to be the result of a deadened, non-participatory life experience, mired in the old mechanistic worldview. This visage is rooted in separation, fragmentation and purposelessness, rupturing the connectivity and wholeness so vital for humans to flourish.
While this attachment to an outmoded worldview constrains us in a spiritual and psychological straitjacket, transformation can be found in the discoveries provided by the emerging sciences. Over the last ninety years or so, science has revealed a universe that is fundamentally inseparable and wondrously interconnected on all levels. Additionally, this reality is in the perpetual process of evolving, whereby all parts participate. Movement and flow, rather than objects and things become the new order of this reality. From this cosmology the universe is fully participatory. And hence, so are we. Herein lays the relief. Upon introducing this emerging worldview to many of my clients, I have noted a particularly accelerated progress.
When the anchors of the old dogma lift, there is an emergent quality to life, whereby we become the artists of our life and the paintbrush is in our hand. We are no longer a meaningless cog in a machine, but a vital and vibrant participant in our life experience and the universe at large. This worldview is not inclined toward anxiety and depression. The more participatory one feels in their life, the less inclined they are to psychological and emotional stress. Life becomes an unfolding process, rich with meaning, connection and a creative participation. This serves to heal the fracturing of human experience informed by the mechanistic worldview. The world is not a machine, but a living, evolving organism. This shift of mind provides the pathway for healing. Anxiety and depression return to a virtual anomaly again, and the epidemic retreats.
© 2008 by Mel Schwartz. All rights reserved.
Anxiety & Depression
