Could this piece of research be PROOF of a single cause behind all mental illness?
A few months ago, I recorded an interview with my friend and colleague, board-certified psychiatrist Dr Bill Pettit. During the course of one of our conversations, he revealed something which stopped me in my tracks. If, as we believe, what Dr Pettit shared is proof of a single cause behind all mental illness, the implications are enormous…
Let me set the scene for you…
Bill has successfully treated thousands of patients (many of them people with severe clinical diagnoses) by sharing the principles behind clarity with them.
In the process, he’s come to the conclusion that there’s one cause (and one cure) to all mental illness.
Stop and think about the implications of that for a moment…
Over 500 different diagnoses in the DSM-5, but one cause that explains all of them (The DSM-5 is The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook used by health care professionals in the United States and much of the world as the authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders).. Of course, this flew in the face of the prevailing beliefs of the psychiatric community. Or at least, it did, until 2018…
Bill came across an April 2018 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. It contained a paper titled, “All for One and One for All: Mental Disorders in One Dimension”.
This article’s authors – Avshalom Caspi , Ph.D. and Terrie E. Moffitt , Ph.D. – make the case for a single cause (which they refer to as ‘Factor P’) which underpins all mental health issues.
They state that, “a single dimension is able to measure a person’s liability to mental disorder, comorbidity among disorders, persistence of disorders over time, and severity of symptoms.”
One factor. One cause.
You may be aware that the field of psychology is currently undergoing a ‘replication crisis’ – basically, many of the experiments and studies that the field has been grounded in can’t be replicated. More and more anomalies are showing up.
Is this cause for alarm? No!
It’s normal when an old paradigm is crumbling, and a new paradigm is starting to emerge.
The article Bill referenced looks like an early marker of scientific validation for this new paradigm.
Of course, the authors are identifying one cause, but they don’t yet realise there’s also one cure!
As you probably know, our company’s mission is to inspire and educate a generation to experience lives of clarity, resilience & wellbeing. We believe that the most valuable things a person can discover are how their mind works and who they really are.
Why? Because seeing that for yourself is the remedy for the ‘one cause’ of mental illness described in the Caspi and Moffitt’s article.
You can find the article at the ‘American Journal of Psychiatry’ website and read the abstract here: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17121383
And I’d love to know – are you interested in seeing more research that provides validation for the understanding we’re sharing? Let me know in the comments.
Big love
Jamie
PS I’ve posted the clip where Bill and I talk about this above. I love the bit in the video where Bill says this:
“Darkness is the absence of light. And all you need is a few photons of light for the darkness to start to dissipate.”
In my book CLARITY, I used the metaphor of Wembley stadium with tens of thousands of people in total darkness, each holding a candle. Then one person lights their candle, and uses it to light the candle of the person next to them. I said,
“The moment your candle starts burning, you increase the amount of light available for everyone, and the darkness is further diminished.”
Bill’s statement reminded me of that. Thanks for letting your light shine.