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  "description": "What if our understanding of mental health is a bit topsy-turvy? 🙃",
  "path": "/were-all-deluded/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-12T06:00:17.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gilespcroft.com",
  "tags": [
    "The Self Delusion",
    "topics to write about",
    "sun revolved around the earth",
    "bad smells caused infection",
    "Psychology Has It Backwards podcast",
    "Apple podcasts",
    "Spotify",
    "The Psychology Has It Backwards website",
    "What is mental health?Checking in that we’re on the right page, when it comes to Mental Health awareness 🌤️The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft"
  ],
  "textContent": "It's #MentalHealthAwareness week so I'm going to stick to the topic for the next few days.\n\nBut not to the script, eh? 😉\n\nWe all _know_ the script – something along the lines of: You need to look after your mental health, because it's not going to do it on its own. Reduce stress. Get outdoors. Connect with others. Eat well. Exercise. Get rest. Set healthy boundaries.\n\nIn other words, work hard at it, and you'll succeed.\n\nNow I'm truly _for_ all of those good ideas (it makes sense for me to do most of them myself!) but I wouldn't say they're a prerequisite for ‘good mental health’.\n\nBecause if they were, and it all worked like that, well then, wouldn't all of this increased ‘awareness’ of the problems—and solutions—mean that our mental health as a society was much _improved_? That there'd be _fewer_ mental health problems?\n\n[Cue embarrassed silence.]\n\nMaybe the script isn't working, not because people aren't _trying_ hard enough, but because it's all based on a false premise?\n\nCould we all be very innocently… deluded?\n\n## Let's ask the psychiatrists\n\nA while ago I read a book called The Self Delusion, as it was recommended to me by a colleague. To my mild disappointment, it wasn't so much about the illusory separate ‘self’ identity (one of my favourite topics to write about), but more about how we're biologically more connected to the world (and other people) than we fully realise.\n\nBut there was a fantastic bit, right near the beginning, where the author, Tom Oliver, was making the case for what a delusion actually _is_. Seeking generally accepted advice, he discovered that the technical definition:\n\n> _“…according to the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM-IV; the professional psychiatrist’s bible of personality disorders) is **‘a false belief that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and in spite of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.’** ”_\n\nHa. Read that again. According to the people generally seen as knowing how the mind works, they're saying they consider you to be deluded if you don't believe what the majority believes!\n\n🤯\n\nAfter pondering whether it might be more rational _“…to label _any_ belief as delusional if it is objectively untrue, _irrespective_ of social norms,”_ the author goes on to perform a little thought experiment:\n\n> _“Imagine a future world where only a few people survive under the guidance of a cult leader, who they all believe is Elvis Presley reincarnated. Would those people be deluded, even though they _all_ share this same belief together?\n>\n> If your answer is like mine, that they would surely still be deluded, then you would probably also agree we should base our definition of delusion on the contravention of objective truths.”_\n\nRight on, brother! ✊🏻\n\n## History repeats\n\nAs a species, we've been wrong about so many things, it's unreal. (For instance, there's no way I could go back into practice with all my original medical school textbooks from the 1990s now – knowledge has moved on too much.)\n\nBut we have suffered even more fundamental delusions:\n\n  * We used to believe the sun revolved around the earth\n  * We used to believe that bad smells caused infection\n  * We used to believe that the earth was flat\n\n\n\nUntil we figured out how stuff _actually_ works.\n\nAnd it's my assertion (and that of every other Innate Health practitioner) that we've got the whole domain of mental health wrong too.\n\nThe ‘delusion’ here is that mental health is something you _earn_ , by performing a whole load of recommended practices. That **if you get the outside right, the inside will follow**.\n\nBut I'm not sure it works likes that. And I'm not alone (or ‘deluded’ as the DSM-IV would make out) 😆\n\nI'll be gently questioning some more of these assumptions we hold over the coming days, but if you're curious, and you like to listen, then I _highly_ recommend the very aptly-named Psychology Has It Backwards podcast, because Christine & Judy gently unpick this shared, culturally inherited ‘delusion’, one episode at a time.\n\nStart at the very beginning (Episode 1) and listen with an open mind – you might be surprised by what happens!\n\nHere are links on various platforms:\n\n  * Apple podcasts\n  * Spotify (Sort By Oldest)\n  * The Psychology Has It Backwards website\n\n\n\n💟\n\nGiles\n\nSIGN UP FOR THE DAILY REMINDERS newsletter\n\nWant to start __every__ day with helpful, insightful content like this? The Daily Reminder is a quick, lighthearted email that arrives in your inbox every morning, to help keep you grounded in reality, so that you get to __‘Think less, and live more.’__\n\n __“They feel like a moment of stillness in a world of madness.” ~__ Neil, UK\n\n __“One of those small things with big impact. Honestly, just sign up!”__ ~ Paula, UK\n\nGET YOURS NOW\n\n### Related\n\nWhat is mental health?Checking in that we’re on the right page, when it comes to Mental Health awareness 🌤️The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft\n\nIf it's always there, why would you have to work at it?",
  "title": "We're all deluded",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-12T06:00:17.550Z"
}