In recent months I've been involved in getting some further clarity into what I call my "Extreme States".  Some have asked about my recent attendance at a local Healing Arts College and the Life Coaching program that I'm about to complete in Janurary.  It's been an interesting and eye opening experience.  What the program has done for me is make concrete the things I already knew about myself and helped me redefine the way I look at the various labels that have been placed upon me during my life. 

What Life Coaching IS

The program I'm going through is best defined for me as this: "Practical hands-on training using the skills you already have based on the experience you already possess"

Experience is something I have in abundance, I've been many things in my life and my expereinces are something nobody can take away.

Life Coaching itself is best defined by what it ISN'T.

Life Coaching is NOT Therapy.
Life Coaching is NOT Counseling.
Life Coaching is NOT Consulting.

Life Coaching is all about the client and where they want to go. As a Life Coach, I would never tell anyone what "I" think they should be doing. Why? Because it's NOT ABOUT ME. My job as a Life Coach is to help a client find the answers within themselves to move them forward to where they want to go.  I do that through active listening, asking powerful questions, bringing forward action and commitments based on a clients willingness to do so. 

That in a nutshell is what Life Coaching is about, as well as my personal approach to the work that I'm transisioning toward. 

Is Life Coaching for everyone? No, it isn't.  If for example you seek to examine your past deeply to find meaning, then a Counselor/Therapist might very well be more appropiate. If you're somebody who wants to reduce or eliminate your medications, then that is something you have to discuss with your doctor.  

However I will use those two examples to illustrate how I COULD address those issues, if a client is willing.

If you're somebody who values examining your past to gain insight and meaning in your life, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. I've done lot's of that work in my own life and it's every bit as eye opening as the work I'm currently doing.  From a coaching aspect however, we try to eliminate as much as possible what we call "The Story"; you know, that never ending loop of experiences that keeps on playing itself over and over no matter how much introspection and examination we do.  As Certified Coaches, we've been trained in methods that enable a client to tell "The Story" without actually telling the story.  We do that by gathering information in a very general sense about facts, places, people, feelings and emotions surrounding "The Story" and creating metaphors for them. In creating these metaphors, we can see on paper possible links and invite a client to make their own connections to achieve a new awareness they may have previously missed. I've witnessed & done some of these while in training and it can be VERY powerful. I've seen amazing results with this method.

In the second example regarding medications, as a Certified Coach I absolutely cannot discuss medications. PERIOD.  However, what I can do is coach around the issue of approaching a doctor with a clients concerns and empower them to be an active participant in their care. This IS something I have lots of experience with and unlike most coaches, is an area that I'd be comfortable working in. 

Enough about Life Coaching...

Transformations?... What's that about!

Transformation is a way to look at our various labels in a more productive manner that enables us all to move forward past what we may have been told by many different people about these conditions.

When someone says they're a Paranoid Schizophrenic; there is a picture, an image of what that person is in the eyes of others. It matters little if that image actually represents someone accuratly. It's all about perception and the fact is that perceptions speak louder than just about anything. The same goes for Bipolar Disorder, Depression, PTSD, etc.  So, knowing that... just what the hell are we as psychiatrically labeled people supposed to do with that?

Through introspection into my various extreme states aka Psychotic Mania, Mania, Hypo-mania, Depression, disorganized Schizo-Affective like thought disorder, Cognitive Deficits... I've lost count over the years on just how many labels have been thrown around concerning my extreme states; I've been able to discern some unmistakable truths.

My Truths:

I instinctively know what to do.
Psychiatry is a specialty of the Mind not the Brain.
Neurology is a specialty of the Brain not the Mind.
The Mind, while certainly linked to the Brain, is only loosely coupled to it.
I do not need to wear labels. Leave those to the people who want to attempt to classify me.

Those are MY truths.  Those truths have enabled me to look at my extreme states for what they really are to me. A life in transformation and nothing more. If I'm not in the middle of some kind of transformation then what does THAT say about me?  It says that I'm Tony.  That's it, plain and simple.  Not Bipolar, Schizophrenic, Depressed, or suffering from any other kind of illness of the mind.  In fact, for all the bitching we do about the DSM IV, has anyone considered that complete remission from all these "illnesses" are written into it?  Don't believe me? Look it up for yourself! Complete remission is a diagnostic modifier for every kind of Mental Illness contained in it. If it's written in there, then that means people DO remit. It's just that nobody I've ever encountered has actually used that criteria to describe my many periods of wellness in between transformational states.

This is hardly new information, it has it's roots in Transpersonal Psychology. 

What this also means to me is that these transformational states are no longer something for me to fear. To back up that assertion, two weeks ago I went through the biggest transformational state of my life. It made my hospitalizations look like childs play in comparision.  The difference? Looking at them in this new way allowed me to make new connections to my past, my present and a very hopeful future. Another difference? This time I had the full cooperation of my spouse, who may have been concerned at times at my grandiosity, visions and "out there" connection making.

In the three and half years we've been together she's seen me navigate through some pretty heavy stuff and has seen me otherwise episodic, but never to the level of what used to be considered "over the top" flip-out land.  Well, this one was exactly that!  She trusted me and within a week I returned to normal functioning and in hindsight, she admits that she wasn't scared at all; fascinated maybe, but not scared or fearful for what may happen to me.  She was my anchor to the here and now and I truly wouldn't have made it without her, for that I'm eternally grateful.

What does this have to do with the Icarus Project?

We see transformations at the Icarus Project all the time.  What would you label Icarus Founder Sasha DuBrul?  He doesn't post a whole lot, in fact he's off doing other things most of the time. It certainly doesn't mean he doesn't care! He's off doing the work he needs to do, to connect with other folks, mad or not, to further his understanding of this whacky world and how we all may transform this psycho-babble mess into something more useful to us all.  The same goes for Jacks.Ashley and Bonfire Madigan who were instrumental in making an incredible movie about what it's like to live labeled with this stuff.  There's certainly more to go around.   Will Hall is another example, while still popping in from time to time, he's building his own counseling practice and still putting on Internet Radio Shows on Madness Radio, getting more schooling and really making a difference in the world when it comes to the labels we've all been given.  So instead of lamenting the fact that so many people have moved on within the Red-n-Black world of the Icarus Project forums and worry about what has become of them; why not assume that they've moved on and are getting better?

People DO get better.

As for me? 

I'll pop-in from time to time, but I too need to explore the labeled world outside of the group atmosphere that is the Icarus Project forums.  So far what I've seen is encouraging!  Community health centers here in "dismal" Arizona, aren't as dismal as purported to be. Community health centers in various counties utilizing alternative practitioners, minimal meds approaches, less restraint and more recovery based modalities. It's refreshing to take a look outside of our own ideas about things and find something contrary to what has been believed! It leaves me with the feeling that I'm embarking on this chapter in my life at just the right time.  What I said about others, also applies to me.  I BELIEVE in the power of a place like the Icarus Project, where real frank discussions can take place about all the issues that face those labled with a psychiatric diagnosis and the overall message of "Informed Choice" and "Harm Reduction".

If you want to contact me off of the Icarus Project, I'll probably get back to you sooner.
 
tony.previte(at)gmail.com

Tony Previte
Writer, Programmer, Designer, Musician, Mental Wellness Advocate.

All labels that I choose to live with.