Ego, Meditation

How I Deconstructed Depression With Self-Enquiry

In Ideology and Insanity, Thomas Szasz expresses concern over classifying people with mental illness. Szasz noted how classifying a person has a direct influence over their self-image, and what they believe is possible. Decades later, research by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, captured in Mindfulness, shows the extent people unconsciously adapt their behaviour to their identity. We are what we think, and the concept becomes reality, a lens through which we see the world.

Philosophy, Science

Mapping Depression Beyond The Chemical Imbalance Myth

Synchronicity signals something significant unfolding. Usually, that significance is an emerging insight. But occasionally, personal synchronicities relate to collective emergence. Recently, these synchronicities related to a process I was going through with reframing mental illness. I read Thomas Szasz’s Ideology and Insanity, discovered by chance at a bookstore, weeks before a significant review was published, which argues there is “no convincing evidence” the chemical imbalance theory of depression is true.

Philosophy, Science

The Best of Both Worldviews: Can Systems Theory Unite Spirituality and Science?

Ideological maps of reality collide.

Systems theory is a science of complexity. Multiple fields have applied its principles for deeper understanding, including sociology, medicine, economics, psychology, physics, and engineering. I’m particularly interested in how it can make sense of individual, collective, and cosmic consciousness, to unite spirituality and science.