The medical model applied to psychotherapy and counseling fosters the idea that "treatment" and "diagnosis" of one's "mental conditions" is something that is largely external. Either something or someone is going to cure you and "make" you feel all better. Yet that's not the way it works. The way human beings solve problems is to look for errors in their thinking, and/or to find new, innovative ways of thinking to improve one's life and, in the process, improve one's emotional state. After all, in order to feel good about oneself and life, one must first develop a worthwhile life. Psychology and psychiatry made a horrible wrong turn when they adapted the medical model, first as a metaphor and later quite literally, as a way to encourage people to solve problems. While there's great faith in the medical model on the part of many professionals in the field, there are few satisfied patients out there who have actually benefited from its adoption.

What happens in the mental health field is that people walk away from psychiatrists and therapists with labels describing what their "mental disease" or disorder is thought to be. Everyone has a label of some sort, be it "depression", "anxiety", "ADD", "anger management problems", "Bipolar", or whatever latest fashion the self-help industry dishes up for the masses. "Fine, I have a label -- so what next?" There's little or no guidance on that one, other than take medication and hope for the best. (In the old days it was go into years of pointless psychoanalysis and hope for the best. Nothing has really changed.) Human beings must break free from this disastrous approach to handling human consciousness. It makes much more sense, and is ultimately more healing, to look at your emotional outlook as the way you approach life objectively. "What are my beliefs and attitudes? How do I translate these beliefs and attitudes into choices, over time? Which of these beliefs and attitudes work -- and make sense? Which ones do not?" A therapist can be very helpful in challenging you to look objectively at yourself, the choices you have made, the premises and ideas on which those choices are based -- and what needs changing. Now THAT'S therapy.

Pop Psychology Debunked...CLICK HERE!

Those in the self-helping industry love to use language to conceal what they're really saying. I call this brand of self-help professional the "politician of spirit." Consider some examples, along with the translations into plain English. 

e.g. "I suffer from alcoholism"

Translation: I drink too much and refuse to do anything about it. 

e.g. "I suffer from the illness of depression"

Translation: I constantly think only about the negative and disregard the positive. 

e.g. "I suffer from anger management difficulty."

Translation: I cause suffering to others by expressing my anger whenever I feel it, without regard to first examining the anger or making it proportionate to the situation. 

e.g. "Joey is nonverbal and uncommunicative." 

Translation: Joey is rude and chronically resentful.

e.g. "I have a chemical imbalance." 

Translation: I don't manage my moods well and I act impulsively before thinking. 

Self-help labels designed to excuse away everything are like abuse of drugs or alcohol. They "help" you distort and evade reality. That may seem like help at the time, but it really isn't help. Reality tells us that we all have the capacity to think, that life is sometimes difficult and we cannot always be at our best. At the same time, we can and should better ourselves by learning how to think and act in more rational ways. Advocates of "self-help" call this simplistic, but in all honesty it's simply the truth. The process of becoming a better and more rational thinker and participant in life is surely a big one. But pretending that you suffer from diseases of the mind, as if something or someone external could change the consequences of your erroneous thinking without any effort (i.e. new thinking) on your part is the greatest delusion since ... well, since socialism and religion. No wonder both those things are still in fashion, too.

(Please write in with excuses that you've heard -- and your own opinion of the proper translation. I'll publish the best ones here, anonymously of course).

Government does not have the power to make you happy. But it does have the power to make you unhappy. How? Mainly, by interfering with the generally harmonious and, for the most part, rational progress of human civilization that would otherwise take place without government interference. Although it's a mouthful, that rational progress of human civilization is necessary to sustain all the comforts of daily life you take for granted. Obama did not provide these things; productive human beings, the system of individual rights and capitalism DID. Do we need government? Yes, government is essential. Any civilized society must have a government to enforce property rights, voluntary contracts and, most of all, protect you from violent thugs. When government becomes a violent thug itself, then you're in trouble.

Recent case in point: Comments from the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. She said that people who don't agree with Obama on the desirability of an Islamic mosque at the site of 9/11 should be "investigated." She wasn't specific on which people should be investigated, nor by what means. Using or even threatening force against those whose opinions you don't like, to keep them in line? That's what thugs do. They now run our government. Reason enough to launch them, via elections, out of our government, or at least out of positions of high authority. Let's hope when compelled, they'll go. It will be a wonderful moment, if it comes, to watch Nancy Pelosi, nothing more than a thug in a dress, hand that Speaker's gavel over to somebody else.

CLICK HERE for a treasure trove of Dr. Hurd's articles (1992-present) on government, philosophy, human nature and human relationships.