The Power Threat Meaning Framework a radical alternative to the diagnostic model of distress

Something is clearly not right, and articles in this magazine and others have suggested different and often very helpful ways forward for people dealing with mental health distress. However it does seem that very few people are challenging the dominant way of thinking. Mental distress is very real and people undoubtedly do have terrifying and disabling experiences such as hearing hostile voices, feeling suicidal, being overwhelmed by anxiety, swinging from high to low moods, and so on. What they are very rarely told however, is that the explanation for these experiences, that is, that they are best understood as an ‘illness’ which needs a medical diagnosis, and which psychiatric drugs will help to rectify, has never had any evidence to support it. Instead, the messages that ‘bipolar disorder’ or ‘schizophrenia’