Mindfalls is on spring break, practicing what we preach (good mental health, that is). Scroll down for a few restful pics.
Instead of a newsletter this week, we’re sharing our pitch, need, and benefit statements for the new book, A MIND UNBROKEN. We’d love your reactions: what you like, what’s less appealing, what questions come to mind, what you hope we’ll cover—it’s all helpful. Simply reply to this email with your thoughts.
Many thanks, again, to our 24 interviewees who have supplied the research base for this project. We’ve got the proposal set to go and will begin querying publishers in April.
With gratitude,
Jocelyn and Kelly
A MIND UNBROKEN: Take-charge Strategies for Mental Health Crises
by Jocelyn Davis and Kelly Kinnebrew, PhD
Pitch
Mental breakdowns in high-functioning professionals: they’re common and serious, yet we don’t talk about them openly or treat them effectively. With 24 survivor stories, 5 breakdown types, and 8 recovery resources, this practical guide shows how to take the lead in getting a derailed mind back on track.
Need for the Book
Mental collapse in usually healthy people, a phenomenon once called nervous breakdown, has for decades received scant attention from the mental health industry. Today, nearly all mental health research, books, and treatments fit into one of three broad categories:
Psychiatric Medicine: Treatments for those living with clinically diagnosed, chronic mental disorders, such as major depression, bipolarism, and schizophrenia
Behavioral Health: Rehabilitation and recovery methods for individuals struggling with substance abuse, addictions, or behavioral problems
Wellness: Holistic, inspirational, and alternative approaches for people with issues ranging from work burnout to emotional malaise to neurodivergent conditions
There’s a huge group of us, however, who don’t sit neatly in any of these categories: millions of usually healthy professionals hit by a mental health crisis that looms larger and scarier than any probable cause—or seems to have no cause at all. Not only are we in dire distress and unsure why, but our “I’m fine” persona, competent to a fault, prevents others (and maybe even ourselves) from taking our distress seriously. Said one neurologist to an anxiety-ridden woman contemplating suicide: “You look relaxed.” Said her spouse: “I don’t see what you’ve got to be anxious about.” She soon realized she had to take charge of her own recovery.
What we “I’m fine” individuals have in common is not a diagnosis but a sense of frustration, even desperation, as we struggle to navigate a user-unfriendly mental health system that wants to convince us either that there’s nothing wrong or, worse, that we’re broken. Some manage to find a therapeutic savior early in the process. Most don’t. In any case, one savior isn’t enough; we need a whole team of saviors, plus a team leader—and like it or not, that leader is us. A MIND UNBROKEN provides the knowledge, mindset, and confidence to lead ourselves up from breakdown, out of the doom loop, and back on the road to health.
Benefits for Readers
As a self-help guide for intelligent self-leaders, A MIND UNBROKEN is a complement to (not substitute for) medical advice and/or professional counseling. We don’t advocate for particular treatments or therapies; rather, we support our readers with these eight recovery resources:
1. Assurance that they’re not alone
2. Knowledge of the mental health system’s lanes and traps
3. Insight into their particular type of breakdown
4. Strategies for navigating that type
5. Trust in their Core Self to lead when their mind can’t
6. Courage to move and change
7. Patience to accept and wait
8. Faith that they’ll make it through
Spring has sprung in Santa Fe! Highs in the 80s. Evidence below.
