What if there is only one mental health disorder?

In this book three friends come together to discuss this possibility!

The book is for anyone who keeps persistently (or, intermittently) feeling unsure, uneasy or awkward or nervously intrigued.

It’s also for anyone experiencing psychological distress.

It’s also for anyone considering reaching out to a professional for mental health support. It explains the science of support and how it should work - how it ought to work but isn’t.

It’s presented as a script, for teenagers, parents, families, classrooms, teachers, support groups, and for dramatic role play.

It isn’t a self-help book but it provides signposts to everything that needs to be understood to help yourself and for self-development.

The discussion between the friends is based on their childhood and teenage experiences, and the book has been written for teenagers like the ones they once were. They discuss existential and psychological concepts in an easy-to-understand way, with a teenage audience in mind. All three have experienced distress and what we now class as mental health difficulties. One of them has had decades of this, accumulating psychiatric diagnoses and treatments, including being involuntary hospitalised several times.

The theme runs parallel to the fact that the official list of psychiatric disorders has risen to 541 and this has prompted some mental health researchers to question if instead of continuing to fragment disorders there’s more value in looking at the common dysfunctions shared across them - this book does just that. The friends explore the ideology that ‘Anxiety Dysfunction’ is the pivotal common dysfunction. They also discuss viable practical strategies to stem the ever rising ‘mental illness’ pandemic.

The central theme of the discussion is that nature put Anxiety in us as an instrument ready to be conditioned into an asset. Conditioning starts at birth and is near impossible to recalibrate. Another theme is that mental illness isn’t reproduced, it’s transmitted, and that mental wellbeing is not an inert fact of nature.

Taking part in the discussion are:

Hafeez Ahmed ...... has been a practicing dentist for 32 years. He’s a Specialist Periodontist, a former whistle-blower, the author of The Philosophy Fridge, and suspected to be one of the co-authors of Nosedive - an unconventional rescue.
His childhood: He experienced what we now class as abuse - emotionally, mentally, psychologically, physically; including being repeatedly raped by loving uncles, in sweet cultural bliss – suffering his first psychotic episode at the age of 11 years.

Lisa Devine ..... has over 20 years’ experience in holistic therapy with a keen interest in Anxiety, Fibromyalgia, Burnout and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her vision is to get everyone healthy, living to their full capacity pain free.
Her childhood: She was one of four girls born to a father who only wanted boys, her father despised her. She later found herself in an abusive relationship reduced to feeling worthless.

Simon Cox ..... has worked across the financial industry for 25 years; he’s the co-founder of multiple successful medium-sized businesses, working with hundreds of staff, and suspected to be the other co-author of Nosedive - an unconventional rescue.
His Childhood: He was born to professional middle class parents and, for reasons he still hasn’t been able to talk about or process, entered the mental health support system in 1987 at the age of 12 years. He didn’t find it helpful and after relying on it for 30 years found himself more lost than when he entered - chronically depressed and suicidal.