OUR APPROACH

While we address mental health issues such as anxiety and depression amongst others that can face working professionals, based on our research, a narrow focus on mental illness alone is limiting and disempowering because:

 

• Distress can still occur in the absence of mental illness. For example, simply feeling unfulfilled at work, having a difficult boss, or not feeling as effective as we should, may cause distress without us necessarily meeting the criteria for mental illness.

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• A narrow focus on "mental illness" can limit our search for solutions. For example, if we struggle with anxiety and our job stretches our capabilities, rather than just focusing on strategies to manage our anxiety, further job skills training would also reduce our anxiety by giving us a sense of mastery. 

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• it takes the focus away from what we can do to actively manage our own wellbeing day to day

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So rather than a mentally well/mentally ill distinction, we focus on wellbeing, whose characteristics are:

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• Wellbeing is a state of internal harmony when we feel in balance with our environment. 

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• Wellbeing is a spectrum. In contrast to the black and white idea of "mental illness", our internal state can be seen as a spectrum with wellbeing on one end, the significant distress we associate with mental health issues at the other end, and increasing levels of distress between the two. ​

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• Wellbeing is multifaceted. Feeling Inspired, connected and capable are critical to wellbeing. 

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• ​​We feel inspired when what we do in our life (our career paths, where we work, what we do outside of work) and who we are with (partners and friends) are in harmony with our values, needs and our higher purpose. Our lives are in flow, feel less effortful and more fulfilled.​

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• We feel connected when we experience authentic connections without the fear of being ourselves.

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• ​​We feel capable when we have the practical and emotional skills to cope with the demands of our environment. At work this means ensuring our practical skills (e.g. leadership) match the demands of our roles, but also that we can emotionally (e.g. via our ability to manage our stress and mood) and physically (e.g. exercise, diet and sleep) cope with the demands of our overlapping personal and professional lives. 

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Imbalance along any of these dimensions may cause anything from a minor challenge to our wellbeing to what we know traditionally as "mental illness" depending on the severity and duration of the imbalance(s).  

 

Our main​ focus then is to help you maximise your wellbeing by addressing its underlying facets across the fullness of your personal and professional life. 

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The benefits of this approach to you are:

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• A more relevant and effective service that looks beyond the mental health frame, with the breadth and flexibility to address the full range of your personal and professional challenges. 

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• We give you the tools to take control of your own wellbeing, empowering you to actively maximise your own quality of life. In this way you also have a much better chance of preventing mental illness, much like managing our diet and exercise can reduce our risk of heart disease and diabetes.  ​