Customer Reviews

Broken Brains or Wounded Hearts: What Causes Mental Illness

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Noticing than when he paid attention to the emotional pain that existed alongside a client's behaviour, the client's symptoms of paranoia disappeared, psychologist Ty Colbert realised that her behaviour was not "dysfunctional" but functioning quite effectively to protect her inner woundedness.

This contrasted strongly with proponents of the biopsychiatry who present models of supposed biological-defect or chemical-imbalance. They sound quite convincing until Dr Colbert looked deeper into the actual research and found the claims to be very weak indeed. Meanwhile, the list of so-called "mental disorders" keeps increasing as does the medication of them. In this model, pain is denied, symptoms surface, but are seen as the product of a defect and are suppressed medically.

Over 15 years he developed the "Emotional Pain Model" detailed in Broken Brains or Wounded Hearts - What Causes Mental Illness (Kevco, 1999). It represents a desire to take the mystery out of mental illness and provide a clear path for the future, allowing the reader to develop a proper understanding of any and all emotionally troubling conditions.

Dr Colbert proposes a three-phase model for eliminating emotional disorders and developing emotionally healthy children: People are taught to ientify feelings and resolve conflicts; Symptoms are seen as indicators of an overload of emotional pain; Non-medical, non-abusive healing environments are developed.

This book is an important contribution, validating an approach to therapy that is truly and wholly healing. As he says, "To see emotional disorders as diseases to be drugged is to hide from our own pain, as well as the pain of the afflicted .... The more we see and understand their pain, the more we will be able to see our own pain and become unafraid to reach out."

This book is very easy to read. It boils things down, but it is not simplistic. It incisively refutes the theoretical underpinnings of biopsychiatry, including the flawed and mis-stated studies which purport to show that "mental illness" is inherited, the simplistic and virtually unsupported chemical imbalance theories of "mental illness," and the myths and hype surrounding psychiatric drugs.

Colbert's own view of the causes and cures of "mental illness" is just one way of stating a general truth, but it zeroes in on the reality of what "mental illness" and its "cures" are all about. As he states at pages 116 and 117:

"1. We all hurt each other at times, both unintentionally and intentionally.
2.We all need others to heal those hurts.
3. We all deny to some extent how we hurt others, and how we need others to heal our hurts.

People create exotic theories about the causes of strange behavior and emotional disorders, because it's too uncomfortaable to admit our basic human need for each other, and because we don't like to face the fact that we can hurt and be hurt by our fellow humans....Let's not hide any longer behind our fancy theories and our often abusive cures. Let's learn what it takes to attend to and heal wounded hearts."

This may sound like wishful thinking, but Colbert makes plain that the real wishful thinking is done by biopshciatry, an edifice of mutually supporting empirical and logical errors, held together mainly by its adherents' own determination to be convinced of thier own preconceptions.

I have read twenty-five books on this subject, most more technical than this one. The beauty of this book is that it accurately conveys the essence of a technical subject without itself being technical.

This book opened a new life for us. A close relative has suffered two years with schizo affective illness (between schizophrenia and bipolar). He's tried medications that disabled his brain to such an extent he couldn't function creatively or even normally, hospitals that take all control from the ill individual, and psychiatrists who see you for 10 minutes and prescribe a new medication. He's now in a clinic that uses no medication, probing the emotional-spiritual crisis that brought on all these symptoms of mental illness. this book explains these two radically different ways of looking at mental illness and opens a path to real healing and a productive normal life. He's in charge of his life now because of Ty Colbert's insight into the "wounded heart." His brain isn't broken at all; he's beginning to understand the crisis that drove him. A "10" rating isn't high enough.

I am Dr. Colbert's former patient.I am a paraplegic,with a condition called Spina bifida.I have had MAJOR depression since second grade(when other kids discovered I was different, and, started making fun of me because of it)!!!Until I met Dr. Colbert,(and, read his book) I thought it was because there was something wrong with me!!! At that age , your subconscious mind does most of the work(since the concious is still developing).The subconscious mind does not have the ability to reason. It is just a computer. whatever gets in to the subconscious you will act upon as it it is the truth!!!If you put garbage into a computer, you get garbage out!!!Dr. colbert taught me this! THE MAN IS A GENIUS!!! If it weren't for him, I doubt I would still be here!!!I most likely owe him my life!!!

The gist of this book is a contrast between what the author terms 'the medical model' (which claims that mental illnesses are biologically caused) and the 'emotional pain model' (which states that the causes of mental illnesses are to be found in emotional trauma and pain).
The first part of the book is a sound and detailed critique and repudiation of 'the medical model', while the rest of the book is devoted to an in-depth exposition of the 'emotional pain model'.
To me, it is really no great mystery why the psychiatric profession and society at large have chosen to believe that all mental illnesses are organic illnesses (i..e biologically caused), for that gives the simple and comforting illusion that these otherwise so perplexing and uncontrollable diseases have been understood and can be managed.
It's just another case of the apparently basic abhorrence of the human mind for uncertainty and lack of control.
Nevertheless, despite the (for so many) great and obvious appeal of the biological model, I think it is high time that we as individuals and as a society move away from it towards a sounder understanding of the causes of mental illness.
For the biological model IS an illusion, make no mistake about that! (as the author does an excellent job of demonstrating in the first part of the book).
While I do not believe that the emotional pain model can fully account for all mental disorders, I definitely think it is a huge step in the right direction.
As someone who has carried the label of 'chronic schizophrenic' for nearly ten years now, this book has been a real eye-opener for me, and has resulted in a much broader and more sensible understanding of the sources of my troubles than biopsychiatry can offer.
Highly recommended!

Dr. Colbert's book demonstrates the flawed history of the current medical model for treating mental illness and shows how destructive it has always been to people treated with unproven medications that relieve some symptoms, but cause more severe ones over time and impair or irreversibly destroy a person's ability to fully recover from the real cause of their problems, because these are never addressed.

He shows what real treatment consists of and how it can help people damaged by being treated by the current medical model and restore them to valuable members of our society, who because of their experience can help others who have faced the same problems and ineffective treatments.

It is a "horror story" when it describes the failure and a story of hope when he describes people helped by his approach of healing the heart and not drugging the brain. Drugs are about patient management and not cure, they are for the convenience of the staff, the family, and the psychiatrist. The patient may experience some benefit from the lessening of their symptoms, but must pay a price because the real underlying problem is not dealt with and their ability to fully experience their emotions have been dulled.

Dr. Colbert's approach is to provide a warm, accepting, and supportive environment so that trust can be established and there is no longer a need to escape from life through the learned defense mechanisms put in place to survive a painful childhood. He sites cases where he has helped patients recover from the drug therapy model and how others have not only been cured with the approach he suggests but how some have become therapist and bringing this help to many others and challenging the flawed system that ultimately fails everyone it treats, because it does not deal with underlying causes, but only drugs people into more socially acceptable, even if impaired behavior.

It is an insightful book for anyone who has experience with the current psychiatric model, personally or via friends or family.