3  An Integrated Theory of Well-Being

All models are wrong but some are useful quote

3.1 Therapeutic Modalities

CBT

ACT

Schema therapy

3.2 The Opposite Well-Being

Defining well-being is quite difficult as it depends on individuals embedded in a cultural context. It’s often easier to start with defining the opposite of well-being. Through the cybernetic lens, psychopathology is defined as the cybernetic dysfunction characterized by living in a perpetual state of psychological entropy (unknown/prediction-error). In other words, cybernetic dysfunction is the pervasive inability to bring about the desired state from the current state. It’s about chasing maladaptive goals or employing maladaptive strategies to meet our needs. For example, Mark Manson says that “sex is a strategy we use to meet our psychological needs and not a need itself.” Pathology starts to creep in when sex is the only strategy we employ or if we start manipulating others to meet our need. they are unhealthy ways to meet a “healthy” need.

Many will oppose to this model claiming that it suggests a selfish view of human nature. This is a straw man criticism, however. Human beings are a social species. Flourishing can’t happen in a vacuum. Machiavellian strategies don’t tend to work in the long haul and at scale. The Darwinian notion of competition is being updated the more we learn about nature. Trees, for example, support each other in various ways to create a healthy environment [The Hidden Life of Trees Link Peter Wohlleben]. Forests are best thought of as a super-organism made up of many organisms competing while working working together to “selfishly” optimize their chance of survival and reproduction.