What causes psychiatric illness?
This is a highly contested area of debate, even among experts in the field. Many different factors seem to be capable of influencing our moods in one direction or another. Our genetics, physical health, hormonal states, alcohol, drugs, medications, as well as nutrition, exercise, sleep, relationships, etc. all seem to influence how we feel. With that said, the most direct and obvious cause of our feelings, at any given time, is what we are thinking in that moment. In short, we feel the way we think. People who feel guilty, for example, are telling themselves something like, “I shouldn’t have done that” or “What I did was wrong”. People who feel hopeless do so because they are telling themselves “I’ll never succeed, it’s impossible”. People who feel angry are thinking “That person shouldn’t have done that, what a jerk!”, etc. When a person is able to revise or talk-back to these thoughts, they can feel better immediately: they might say, instead, “It’s o.k., I’m allowed to make mistakes
