Psychiatry's pursuit of euthymia: another wild goose chase or an opportunity for principle-based facilitation?

Psychiatry's pursuit of euthymia: another wild goose chase or an opportunity for principle-based facilitation?
Int J Psychiatry Clin Pract. 2020 Oct 30;:1-3
Authors: Kelley TM, Pettit WF, Sedgeman JA, Pransky JB
Abstract
The authors are encouraged that the field of psychiatry is moving towards including euthymia and its components (e.g., well-being, flourishing and resilience) as well as dysfunction (i.e., psychopathology and its symptoms) in its assessment and treatment. We are concerned, however, that to guide its pursuit of euthymia, psychiatry appears to be adopting the same 'outside-in' paradigm as positive psychology; that the positive must be 'put into' people via assisting them to adopt new positive beliefs and persistently practice psychotherapeutic techniques. We fear that if psychiatry continues to view the positive through this 'outside-in' lens, its pursuit of euthymia will bear small fruit. In this editorial, we posit that mental health and psychopathology can be viewed from the same basis because both are created in the same way; from the 'inside-out' via people's use of three psycho-spiritual Principles-Universal Mind, Consciousness and Thought. We posit that people can use these Principles in a way that either creates distressing symptoms or releases innate euthymia. We further posit that via awareness and sufficient insight-based understanding of how these Principles manifest within everyone, psychiatry can achieve ...

Source: International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice - October 31, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Int J Psychiatry Clin Pract Source Type: research