twenty drugs in the USA last year, 2006, were for depression, anxiety, or pain. This is a massive problem with only one eventual outcome: a population with a majority dependent on drugs for their sense of well being rather than their own personal resources and self-reliance. The statistics show we may have already reached that point: 70 million Americans have hypertension, 46 million suffer from depression, 43 million from anxiety, 20 million can’t sleep, 16 million have road rage, and almost 3 million are incarcerated in prisons and jails.

The World Health Organization predicts, by 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide in all age groups. Depression already is the second highest cause of morbidity and mortality in the age group 15-44 years. Currently, the cost of treating a patient with depression varies between $2500 and $4500. When approximately half the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, what chance have they for any kind of treatment at all?

The pendulum has swung so far that even obvious relationships between thinking patterns and conditions of physical and mental ill health are being ignored by all but a few in the race for the next best selling drug.

How did we get so far off track? What has brought us to this point? Simply put, Freud was wrong, and his focus pointed the entire profession of mental health in the wrong direction. Freud studied patients who, for the most part, were "unsuccessful;" they were unable to get through a day most of us would consider unremarkable. Treating patients who have become a danger to themselves or others has been, and remains, the focus of modern mental healthcare. The system is purely reactive, which explains why it cannot address the causes of dysfunction or offer methods of prevention.

The need for a new Mental Health Paradigm is obvious if we let the exploding number of people in emotional distress, historically referred to as mentally ill, speak for the need. And any aspiring scientist knows that to keep relying on what has already been tried and obviously doesn't work, is the least likely avenue to discover a workable solution to a problem. Insanity is defined, tongue in cheek, as “doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.” Studying results never has had much effect on changing the cause of an event.

Not surprising, the trim tab concept is illustrative of what a small change in direction brought about by application of a tiny bit of force, can produce. The new mental health paradigm is aimed at preventing the development of faulty thinking habits by teaching people HOW to think clearly so most of the pathologic thinking is avoided. It is simple to teach, reproducible, inexpensive, and could be easy to implement.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is true. Teaching children and adults that they are not their thoughts, or the object of their thoughts is the primary lesson. They will be taught, more correctly, to see themselves as "the thinker." Thinkers use thoughts, just as Mechanics use tools. Humans need to be taught that thoughts are tools, options, and metaphors, not ones identity; that emotions are memories and adjectives, not absolute commands requiring action. What we choose to think about, and that choice is up to us as individuals, determines the biochemical makeup in our bodies for better or worse.

New scientific discoveries demonstrate numerous processes within our brains that automate our thought processes to the point we don't even realize how automatic our thinking is. One of the mechanisms in our brain responsible for this is called "Long Term Potentiation." This process quickly turns a learning experience into a habit. A great example of this is driving an automobile. Almost none of us need to actively participate mentally in driving to and from work, and those who need to should probably take a taxi.

Any therapy that has a chance of working must offer an alternative to the status quo, not maintain it. A valid therapy will de-couple a patient from their habitual thought patterns responsible for their difficulties and teach them different thinking processes for handling those situations.

“Therapy” then becomes teaching an individual valid, logical, and usable alternative thought processes that will yield demonstrably functional results. Such instruction must include at least three vital elements:
1. There must be an easy to understand description of human thought processes.
2. It must define the terms used, in a manner or in metaphors that can be understood by laymen, even by the very young.
3. It must empower the individual with mental tools that enable the individual to take control and replace their negative thought-habits with workable options.

Good mental health is the result of the ability to think clearly. This new paradigm will teach people how to think in ways that will prevent, or limit, the dysfunctional thinking patterns that lead to loss of mental control. The seven most important thinking skills to be taught are:
1. Individuals can choose what they think about. It's not an automatic process.
2. It is vitally important to choose actions based on verifiable facts, not on fantasy.
3. Each of us can watch what we are thinking. If it doesn’t make sense, it shouldn't be used as part of our decision making process.
4. We can control our negative emotions by choosing our response in any situation.
5. We can keep our problems and failures in perspective. They are bumps in the road, not the end of the road.
6. Our energy is best used in finding solutions, not wasted in focusing on the problem.
7. We can almost always be engaged in goal oriented imagination. We can be dreaming, thinking, and planning the future we want to create.

I feel certain, were the above able to be shared with Dr. Fuller, he would simply remark, "Sure they think that way. Doesn't everyone?" Many people already do and almost everyone can. They just need to be taught how to do it better so it can't hurt them.

I am a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and have been practicing anesthesia for 35 years. My book, Mental Mechanics: A Repair Manual, a basic explanation of human thought processes, is a reflection of the lessons learned from patients, nurses, doctors and terrified families about their innermost fears and worries.

The first implementation of the paradigm would be to address "Nursing Burnout," one of the major causes of the worldwide shortage of nurses. According to a 2003 study, the average cost of recruiting a new nurse was $22,000. Sharing this new mental health paradigm with the nursing staffs in the hospitals in which I practice, and seeing the results, led me to the conclusion that a workshop would be relatively easy to craft which would significantly and rapidly decrease the causes of nursing burnout and decrease turnover. That project, titled, "Opt Out! Don't Burn Out!" is in the early stage of development.

The basic tenet of the workshop is that "burnout" in nursing has very little to do with actual patient care; rather it stems from the negative emotions generated by what I have observed to be the "Nursing Station Soap Opera." The same phenomenon is likely the cause of burnout in most other work environments. The basic theme of the "soap opera" centers around, "Who I have to work for; Who I have to work with; and Everything I don't like about those two things." Decreasing participation in the soap opera by focusing on solutions rather than problems will decrease the negative emotions generating the symptoms of burnout.

I have already approached the Hospitals, in which I practice, about presenting the workshop, and the Nursing Administrators are very receptive, realizing the huge savings that could result. Proof of concept will be easily measured with the participants using testing instruments already available, and Human Resource data generated regarding subsequent turnover.

Winning The Buckminster Fuller Challenge will finance development of the workshops and fund multiple trials in different work environments and situations. Positive results demonstrating lower turnover and less depression in the workforce will create a global demand for the workshops in the business community, in which the costs of "mental illness" currently are estimated to run about $100 billion annually.

Profits from the workshops will fund low cost dissemination of the materials for individuals in emotional distress, and provide teaching materials for implementing the concepts in the educational arena.