We’re living in a time when mental and emotional struggles are often handed over to systems that label, diagnose, and medicate — rather than equip, educate, and empower. The conventional medical model, while sometimes necessary, often overlooks a person’s innate capacity for change, healing, and growth.
If you’re someone who’s tired of relying on a system that doesn’t see you as whole — or if you’ve been harmed, misdiagnosed, or disempowered by that system — there is another path.
The Problem with the Medical Model
The biomedical model focuses on symptom management and often fails to account for social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of well-being (Engel, 1977). It operates on the premise that something is wrong with you, and that the solution lies in a diagnosis and a prescription. But many of us know — intuitively and experientially — that real transformation doesn’t come from a label or a script.
In fact, long-term studies have shown that psychiatric medication alone often does not lead to sustained recovery. For example, Whitaker (2010) highlights that increased psychiatric drug use in the West has not led to improved mental health outcomes — and may, in some cases, be worsening them.
What Does an Independent Approach Look Like?
An independent approach doesn’t mean going it alone. It means becoming the driver of your own healing journey — informed by neuroscience, grounded in values, and supported by practices that work.
Let’s break it down:
1. Understand Your Brain’s Capacity for Change
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to rewire itself based on experience. This means that you are never stuck — even if it feels that way. Repeated thoughts and actions build neural pathways; when we interrupt old patterns and reinforce new ones, we literally reshape the brain (Doidge, 2007).
➡ Step: Start with small, daily habits that align with your values — and repeat them consistently. Use tools like journaling, breathwork, or movement to disrupt unhelpful cycles and embed new ones.
2. Identify the Role of Language and Labels
Diagnostic labels can be helpful in some contexts, but they can also reduce people to a condition. They imply permanence, and they can shape identity in damaging ways — often reinforcing helplessness (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018).
➡ Step: Reframe your experiences. Instead of saying “I am anxious,” try “I’m experiencing anxiety.” This subtle shift opens the door to curiosity and change.
3. Use Values to Navigate, Not Symptoms
The field of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teaches that values — not symptom reduction — should guide behavior (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). Chasing symptom relief can actually reinforce suffering. But when we act in alignment with our values, even in the presence of discomfort, we become more resilient and fulfilled.
➡ Step: Clarify your core values and ask, “What small step can I take today that honors these, no matter how I feel?”
4. Find a Support System that Sees You as Whole
Too often, professionals are trained to focus on pathology, not potential. You need support from people and programs that recognize your strengths, challenge your thinking, and help you build practical tools for real-world change.
➡ Step: Seek out coaches, mentors, or programs that emphasize education, skill-building, and long-term self-leadership — not just symptom management.
5. Redefine What Healing Looks Like
Healing is not the absence of symptoms. It’s the presence of connection, purpose, flexibility, and self-trust. It’s a journey of reclaiming agency over your mind, your choices, and your life.
➡ Step: Track your wins — not just in how you feel, but in how you show up, what you choose, and what you move toward.
Why It Matters
You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be heard, equipped, and encouraged. Taking back control means turning away from a system that sees you as broken and toward a path that recognizes your capacity for change.
At Practice Makes Permanent, we help people transition from a system that disempowers to a framework that rebuilds. Our brain-based coaching and educational programs equip you with the tools to rewrite your patterns, reclaim your values, and restore your mental freedom.
References
- Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Viking Penguin.
- Engel, G. L. (1977). The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine. Science, 196(4286), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.847460
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change. Guilford Press.
- Johnstone, L., & Boyle, M. (2018). The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the identification of patterns in emotional distress, unusual experiences and troubled or troubling behaviour, as an alternative to functional psychiatric diagnosis. British Psychological Society.
- Whitaker, R. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown Publishing Group.