Joanna Cheek

What if our mental health struggles aren't signs that we're broken, but proof that we're responding normally to a world in crisis? Today, one in two of us will be diagnosed with a mental health condition by the age of 40. Rather than viewing this as individual failure, clinical professor and psychiatrist Joanna Cheek argues that our symptoms are often brilliant alarms - our defence systems working exactly as they should in response to threatening circumstances. It's Not You, It's the World is the essential guide for anyone feeling depressed, anxious, enraged or overwhelmed by adapting to a chaotic world. Drawing on extensive cross-cultural research, years of clinical experience, and her own journey as a patient, Dr Cheek demonstrates how self-improvement alone neglects the source of our suffering. To truly heal, we must address the imbalances in our wider systems that keep making us all sick. With a foreword by Gabor Maté, this survival guide offers practical mental health tools to care for both ourselves and our communities.

What if the mental health symptoms we face aren't the actual problem? What if they're signals that help us see and solve the real problem--the imbalances in our wider systems that are making us all sick? As our world clashes and collapses around us, it's no surprise that one in two of us will be diagnosed with a mental health condition by the age of 40, with one in five people affected each year. It's hard to view all our mental health symptoms as disordered if so many of us are experiencing them. Perhaps it's not that something's gone wrong in our bodies and minds, but that something's gone right: These symptoms are brilliant alarms and adaptions to survive a disordered world. Having sensitive protective functions that sound alarms or short-circuit when we're threatened isn't a design flaw. It's a design success. As a psychiatrist, professor, and mental health speaker, Joanna Cheek argues that we're not broken or doing it wrong when we're stressed or struggling. As our systems are pushed to the brink of collapse, self-improvement alone neglects the source of our suffering. Instead, to care for ourselves, we must heal the imbalances in our wider systems that keep making us all sick. In It's Not You. It's the World, Dr. Cheek offers a survival guide of mental health tools to care for both ourselves and our collectives, helping us understand and befriend our alarms so we can come together to solve the shared problems they're signaling. With a foreword by Gabor Mat , chapter-by-chapter guidance, and practical action to empower, connect, and instill hope in the reader, It's Not You. It's The World is the go-to guide for anyone feeling depressed, anxious, enraged, despairing, numb, or sick from adapting to a world on fire.