When Suffering Isn't Illness: What If Nothing Is Wrong With You?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This essay challenges the assumption that most psychological suffering reflects illness. Rather than viewing distress through a diagnostic or medical lens, it reframes common struggles as forms of psychological organization—adaptive patterns learned in early relational environments that once made sense but now constrain a person’s life. Drawing on developmental principles, it outlines a non-pathologizing approach to understanding how people manage autonomy, connection, emotion, and meaning, and offers an alternative framework for working with suffering that treats individuals as fundamentally healthy, historically shaped, and capable of reorganizing themselves in new ways.
Author: Martin, John A.
Language: English
Topic: Psychology and Mental Health
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7105853906
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