11/22/2025
Trauma Aware America posted an article that calls out the American Psychological Association (APA) for putting responsibility on an individual to fix their own suffering with exercise, sleep, diet, and mindfulness without giving them a 'safe container' of relationships and environment.
They remind us that doing yoga won't cure personal failure or a chemical imbalance. The key: the IPNB says suffering is relational and healing is relational. It's not a personal flaw to be managed by little habits.
At Moving Forward we begin with relationships. Get some cold water or warm coffee and sit a minute. Listen for a little or talk when you are ready. We're here to care and to provide the relationships that can begin your healing journey.
If you have a tolerance for big words, here is the original post.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1420442406748141&id=100063471846652
An American Psychiatric Association article lists behaviors like exercise, sleep, diet, mindfulness, and kindness as though these are the root causes of mental health. These actions do matter, but they’re insufficient if someone is in a dysregulated environment or lacking real relational support. They miss the link between these behaviors and the neurophysiological conditions that allow someone to access and benefit from them.
For example, a person in chronic survival mode can’t just "sleep better" or "practice mindfulness." Their biology is protecting them. Without a safe container--interpersonally and environmentally--those actions are inaccessible or even triggering.
The APA’s framing puts responsibility on the individual to fix their suffering with small habits, without acknowledging how social structures, trauma, poverty, racism, neglect, or disconnection destroy the very conditions that support mental health. It ignores the elephants in the room.
Then, when someone shows symptoms--like anxiety, shutdown, or despair--the same institution that told them to "do yoga" treats their suffering as a personal failure or chemical imbalance. Instead of seeing symptoms as a reflection of the person’s environment and the breakdown of relational safety, they pathologize the individual.
IPNB says suffering is relational and healing is relational. The APA still largely treats suffering as a personal flaw to be managed, rather than a signal of something missing in our collective ecosystems. That’s the disconnect. And that’s why people who are doing their best still end up blamed, shamed, and drugged, when they struggle.
And that's why the great increase of distrust in the mental illness industry and psychiatry in particular.
