Looking at mental health through a wider lens to open a a deeper and more meaningful conversation that reflects the times we are in and what lies ahead.

1. Life is Not a
Mental
Health Issue
MEDICALISING DISTRESS IS NOT
HEALTHY OR HELPFUL
© Maria Dennis 2020

2. Living is challenging, it’s
stressful and distressing,
it always has been. So
why only now is there a
mental illness epidemic?
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
© Maria Dennis 2020

3. What’s behind
the growing
mental health
crisis?
VESTED INTEREST?
 Amid the cacophony of measures to contain the epidemic –
preventive strategies, de-stigmatisation campaigns, and
increased resources for treatment and research – the voices
asking why there is such a huge increase in mental illness, are
few and far between.
 Perhaps because asking why might reveal a plethora of vested
interest. Doctors – paid per diagnosis and treatment,
researchers – a swathe of new illnesses to research, advocacy
groups – a new cause celebre, drug companies – a new
market opportunity to sell medication to millions of ill people.
© Maria Dennis 2020 Mulder, Roger T. "An Epidemicof Depression or the Medicalization of Distress?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 51 no. 2, 2008, p. 238-250. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pbm.0.0009.

4. Normal aspects
of life are
framed as illness
 The officially listed symptoms of depression are common
things we experience when we’re distressed – sadness,
tiredness, apathy, insomnia, lowered concentration, and
appetite changes. Reporting experiencing 5 or more of these
will constitute being ‘diagnosed’ with depression.
 Widespread normal distress becomes widespread depression.
 Shyness becomes Social Anxiety Disorder.
 Worry becomes Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
ImagebyPeggyundMarcoLachmann-AnkefromPixabay
© Maria Dennis 2020 Mulder, Roger T. "An Epidemicof Depression or the Medicalization of Distress?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 51 no. 2, 2008, p. 238-250. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pbm.0.0009.

5. Making distress
an illness creates
helpless patients
dependent on
professionals
 This makes normally distressed people helpless victims of
illness, totally reliant on mental health professionals, and the
medication they prescribe, to fix them.
 What resounds from this model and is amplified everywhere,
is that distress is the signal that you need help – and mental
health professionals are the only legitimate source of help.
 To claim that all individuals suffering from a checklist of
common complaints are ill and require specific professional
treatments does them a disservice.
© Maria Dennis 2020 Mulder, Roger T. "An Epidemicof Depression or the Medicalization of Distress?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 51 no. 2, 2008, p. 238-250. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pbm.0.0009.

6. Looked at through a
different lens we see an
epidemic of DISTRESS
SO WHY ARE PEOPLE
INCREASINGLY DISTRESSED?
© Maria Dennis 2020

7. THE PRESSURE AND COMPLEXITY OF MODERN LIFE IS
EXCEEDING OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPACITY – THIS ISN’T
SUSTAINABLE
Financial troubles
Relationship issues
Work stress
Lack of purpose
Social isolation
Health
Grief
Pandemic
Climate Change War
GlobalisationTechnology
Social Media Poverty
Social Unrest
Inequality
Urbanisation
Environmental breakdown
Species Extinction
MaterialismGrowth
© Maria Dennis 2020

8. We need greater
psychological capacity
to live in the volatile,
uncertain, complex
and ambiguous world
we’ve created
BUILD FROM THE INSIDE OUT
© Maria Dennis 2020

9. WE HAVE THE RESOURCES WITHIN US TO TAKE
CONTROL OF OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL BEING
How do we
build
psychological
capacity?
EMPOWERED TO THRIVE IN A
COMPLEX WORLD
 Radically changing our relationship with our inner self
 Building and maintaining inner fitness
 Evolving how we make choices and effect change
 Reintegrating with not connecting with Nature
 Healing and restoring ourselves and Earth
© Maria Dennis 2020

10. Being Human in the 21st
Century
IT IS TIME TO REIMAGINE BEING HUMAN AND
MOVE BEYOND THE NARROW CONCEPT OF MENTAL
HEALTH
The growing numbers of distressed people suggests that how
we are living is psychologically unsustainable.
We need to be psychologically fit to confront the
immense challenges we face and successfully navigate
the ever changing threats.
© Maria Dennis 2020

11. Maria Dennis
I’m a passionate advocate for enlightened ways to address the
epidemic of distress around the world. We desperately need
a deeper and more meaningful conversation about ‘mental
health’, one that reflects the times we are in and what lies
ahead.
I’m the Founder of ZaZegga, a purpose led enterprise with a
mission to empower and equip people to grow
psychologically, to heal the source of their distress and to heal
Earth by restoring wholeness, within and without.
I invite you to discover more at www.zazegga.com
and to reach out to me directly at maria@zazegga.com
© Maria Dennis 2020