Katie Brinkley: Most of us have been taught that anxiety, depression, and emotional discomfort are problems to fix. But what if they're actually a ⁓ the process? And what if the way we're approaching mental health is missing the point entirely? Today, I am joined by Chris Wells. Chris, thank you so much for joining me on Behind the Practice. ⁓ before I hit record here, we were talking about the expansion of people being willing to on mental health and talk about their problems. Let's talk about what ⁓ distress really means for so many people today.
Chris Wells: from the beginning of my career back in the early 80s, I've rejected the power and the stigma and the identification with diagnosis. there's really two sources of mental health distress, biogenic and psychogenic. And mostly shows up ⁓ at psychotherapist office is gonna be psychogenic, that of psychological origins, of developmental origins, and not biogenic, would be neurochemical, biochemical imbalance or ⁓ physical problem. ⁓ that's generating mental health distress. The psychogenic is that, that's the of my work as a psychotherapist. So I. I like the origins of the word psychotherapy because back to ⁓ century and alchemist work already the word. Psycho comes psyche, ⁓ the Greek for soul, and therapy is heal. So a great Jungian analyst and writer, James Hillman, talked about psychotherapy, the word, being healing, soul making. And ⁓ bought into that for most of my career. And I that with sort of my spiritual orientation and what I learned from a very education in developmental psychology that we're not ⁓ broken, we're actually whole. And... The work of psychotherapy, of soul healing, is to that, to restore the health of an And ⁓ we tools to know that needs to be done. And they are often depression or anxiety, or the other common diagnoses show up in my office. Even the effects of PTSD, the system adjustment to PTSD survival are ⁓ natural that born with to be able to ⁓ defend against trauma to heal and to buy time to recover. And tools can be depression, anxiety. ⁓ and OCD behavior, then all the definitions of those symptoms or those diagnoses like ⁓ withdrawal avoidance or shutting down ⁓ of existential paralysis. Those my world, my clinical world ⁓ more existential kinds of expressions than they are or the stuff of pathology or pathology is ⁓ the for sickness. They're attempts be well, to balance the and maintain the system until the can take place. And then the work begins. Finding map towards healing is the fun part, the exciting part That makes my day.
Katie Brinkley: Yeah, well, what do you think the current model gets wrong about things like anxiety and depression?
Chris Wells: Well, we want to get rid of the symptoms right away. We just want to feel better. many current models, I can't generalize this current model because there's so many, but general current models will be to mitigate, minimize, shut down the symptoms. Even a great... model or one of my favorite models of cognitive behavioral therapy would be focus on mindfulness and ⁓ the to correct the self-talk. For me, ⁓ than looking unwanted and wanting to figure out how to shut that down ⁓ or... or change it into something more comfortable, tend to approach that with clients as saying, let's amused and curious about that ⁓ and self is generating the self-talk to get comfortable with being able to say, that's amusing ⁓ interesting. ⁓ say more. Tell more. I to know more.
Katie Brinkley: You Yeah.
Chris Wells: I look at to that focus on literal hardwiring ⁓ that connection between prefrontal cortex or the language part of ourselves ⁓ have metacognition ⁓ the limbic system, biological protective system and the that conducts information between the two and I see it as literal hardwires. So so wires like plumbing conduct stuff. want to know what's being conducted in the hardwiring. ⁓ rather than ⁓ it off or shut it off or it, I want to split it open ⁓ and see what's flowing in there ⁓ and it. So I'll ⁓ share with that what I've said you so far about
Katie Brinkley: Yeah.
Chris Wells: my approach I don't really have ⁓ model name for this other than maybe depth which would be sort of a Jungian would call their work without being an analyst. ⁓ And ⁓ often a client ⁓ we're interested in symptoms. ⁓
Katie Brinkley: Hmm.
Chris Wells: and if they need ⁓ something just ⁓ them or send them away or shut them up, they're the wrong office. ⁓ And I ⁓ will that it's probably gonna get worse before it gets better. ⁓ we to open up ⁓ and I'm sorry, medical models suppress this model, especially when,
Katie Brinkley: you Yeah.
Chris Wells: psychedelic assisted is if one model is to suppress this is to learn to express. we want psyche to express and that's goal of my work and I use tools from ⁓ model that can dig up to that end in service of greater expression and relief. ⁓ So is in the darkness grows and And so by up we create light, we bring an understanding, and by de-pathologizing the definition that is as simple as you don't to be afraid yourself. ⁓ You can stop being afraid. ⁓ It's okay, you're trying to heal you need to know what it is that needs healing.
Katie Brinkley: you work with people who are really seeking growth. looking to heal. ⁓ What are they experiencing when they come to your office?
Chris Wells: Somehow, maybe it's ⁓ way I've presented myself in my website, ⁓ my profile would be to explicitly I hold the belief that you were born whole and well and you seek ⁓ do that again. ⁓ state that I don't a medical model, which is focused, like something's sick and needs to be cured, but that we're to what one's ⁓ psyche or soul is seeking to say. So I get, I tend to get people who are starting with that idea and they're intrigued and they show up interested in growth versus I'm choking on anxiety. I'm, I'm, I'm, paralyzed by depression. Um, I don't mind that. I welcome those clients and those that, that are curious or interested how I present myself if they bother to look at ⁓ profile, we'll that if they need medication, if they need that kind of relief, they're calling wrong person.
Katie Brinkley: like you just said, people that are just looking some medication, they're in the wrong office. So let's talk about some of the ways you incorporate natural products into what you do.
Chris Wells: Actually, medicine is, places, it's now, ⁓ psychedelic therapy is now legal in Colorado. And there centers, including here in ⁓ my hometown, where ⁓ people do with practices ⁓ and clinicians licensed to that. And there are retreats all around the world where people can go and have a weekend have a great one-off psychedelic That's only part of practice with that understand their life has been a journey. So I don't psychedelic ⁓ do... ⁓ I will help with what we'll call spiritual ceremony is ⁓ ⁓ the journey before the ceremony ⁓ after this ceremony. ⁓ great preparation, half year of ⁓ doing depth before even a natural medicine. kind of ceremony is not in common. I do one-off psychedelic journeys
Katie Brinkley: who this type of work actually for who is it not for?
Chris Wells: Well, it's for people who are relatively ego-intact, who are afraid of their selves. ⁓ They feel that they're at thresholds of a much higher and deeper understanding of themselves. So think, you know, ready for, I hadn't of this before, ⁓ Katie, but integration therapy. is really different with my clients who have had that versus those who have not because of the dimensionality that into the therapy. it's particular ⁓ dimensional a vertical axis, ⁓ that can be with a higher self and be there ⁓ while exploring deep injury and wound. So they've had an experience of themselves as being well and an experience of wholeness and safety and belonging. I believe that they were, always deserve that and they've been ⁓ a journey of that their whole life. Versus, I was fine and then I started having anxiety and now I'm not fine and I don't know why this is something that came into my life and I gotta get rid of it. But people who can see that their life has brought them to where they are on purpose, that their whole life has been purposeful. to get that idea is the people who get that are who this is for. And then they see what the integration work is on the other side. That, ⁓ man, yeah, I don't need to be afraid. are all kinds of expressions of The root ⁓ that conjugated the word psychedelic ⁓ are psyche, soul, delic, which is or revealing. So if that doesn't have
Katie Brinkley: Yeah.
Chris Wells: If that has a place in someone's therapy journey, then that's the right person for that kind of experience. If that's not coming and someone just wants a, well, I heard this is really cool. Like I look like it's so colorful and I heard the visuals are awesome. ⁓ in the wrong place is the person who comes to be looking a referral for Seroquel.
Katie Brinkley: The name of your practice is holy you. does it ⁓ to be holy yourself?
Chris Wells: hole. it's a play on ⁓ spiritual holy, but it's about, know, and informs my statement that, true belief in, in my latter sixties. ⁓ was ⁓ licensed like people in ⁓ mid-twenties. Nothing in my practice in that period has convinced me otherwise that ⁓ we're born whole. We're born We weren't born the fear we show up with. Fear being the other name for anxiety. We weren't born for self We weren't made for that. These are things that printed on us along the way and need be discarded. So when think of ⁓ the Western ideas of, the idea enlightenment, Westerners tend to think that is process of acquisition, ⁓ acquiring greater Grace, more grace, acquiring more patience, more love, ⁓ more mercy, forgiveness. I ⁓ tend believe based on my developmental model, is brain-based, wrapped around the of ⁓ literal hardwiring from That the bigger part ⁓ of what Jung's of self-actualization be individuation. I believe the bigger part of is what we discard. which been into our hard wiring from the beginning. And I do believe that we could rewire. that rewiring, that discarding, what remains is that self that was well in a hole from the beginning and seeks to be restored.
Katie Brinkley: Have seen people move from feeling broken to actually understanding themselves in a new way?
Chris Wells: Yeah, I've seen changes in what showed identified as bipolar to looking like much close to symptom free to a point where described ⁓ results to other colleagues have ⁓ Well, clearly you had the wrong diagnosis. The bipolar was a life sentence. I reject that ⁓ powerfully I'm talking about clients who showed up after being throughout adolescence and adulthood. And they've had five psychiatrists them as bipolar. ⁓ It wasn't me, I just have people for whom the symptoms are pretty much either under or gone. ⁓
Katie Brinkley: So for someone who's listening who feels overwhelmed or stuck, is one way they can start relating to their distress differently?
Chris Wells: Well, ask what is it what what is this saying to me? What's what's the message? ⁓ Let's say that it's not sickness. Let's say that it's that psyche soul. You know, some you you you can't use the word right ⁓ in in clinical. environments, it's the S word, you know, you shouldn't say soul, but every time we say psychology, we're referring to psyche. that, none of us are without psyche, none of us are without soul. You don't even, you don't need to be religious to know that or feel that. And psyche has... For some of us it has a high level of autonomy that's separate from more comfortable word we use in psychology of ego. We're not promising but ego has a sometimes with what is psyche because will not be bossed around the way other parts of self will So greater the split, the greater the distress. So some to relate to oneself as a person with psyche of ⁓ or greater than usual best friend, ego, is starting ⁓
Katie Brinkley: Well, and Chris, I'll say this. Your perspective is really powerful. It's just about making sure that the right people hear it. If someone is listening right now and thinking, something feels off in my life, but I can't explain it, what would you say to them?
Chris Wells: ⁓ huh. Yeah. Let's talk about it. It's, that's, that's much in my wheelhouse than somebody saying, I have anxiety ⁓ attacks that me and think I'm gonna die. They probably need to see somebody a practice. better integrated with medical care get stabilized at least.
Katie Brinkley: Chris, this has been an awesome conversation. thank you again for coming ⁓ onto Behind the Practice today.
Chris Wells: Thank you for having me, Katie. It's been a pleasure.
Chris Wells: from the beginning of my career back in the early 80s, I've rejected the power and the stigma and the identification with diagnosis. there's really two sources of mental health distress, biogenic and psychogenic. And mostly shows up ⁓ at psychotherapist office is gonna be psychogenic, that of psychological origins, of developmental origins, and not biogenic, would be neurochemical, biochemical imbalance or ⁓ physical problem. ⁓ that's generating mental health distress. The psychogenic is that, that's the of my work as a psychotherapist. So I. I like the origins of the word psychotherapy because back to ⁓ century and alchemist work already the word. Psycho comes psyche, ⁓ the Greek for soul, and therapy is heal. So a great Jungian analyst and writer, James Hillman, talked about psychotherapy, the word, being healing, soul making. And ⁓ bought into that for most of my career. And I that with sort of my spiritual orientation and what I learned from a very education in developmental psychology that we're not ⁓ broken, we're actually whole. And... The work of psychotherapy, of soul healing, is to that, to restore the health of an And ⁓ we tools to know that needs to be done. And they are often depression or anxiety, or the other common diagnoses show up in my office. Even the effects of PTSD, the system adjustment to PTSD survival are ⁓ natural that born with to be able to ⁓ defend against trauma to heal and to buy time to recover. And tools can be depression, anxiety. ⁓ and OCD behavior, then all the definitions of those symptoms or those diagnoses like ⁓ withdrawal avoidance or shutting down ⁓ of existential paralysis. Those my world, my clinical world ⁓ more existential kinds of expressions than they are or the stuff of pathology or pathology is ⁓ the for sickness. They're attempts be well, to balance the and maintain the system until the can take place. And then the work begins. Finding map towards healing is the fun part, the exciting part That makes my day.
Katie Brinkley: Yeah, well, what do you think the current model gets wrong about things like anxiety and depression?
Chris Wells: Well, we want to get rid of the symptoms right away. We just want to feel better. many current models, I can't generalize this current model because there's so many, but general current models will be to mitigate, minimize, shut down the symptoms. Even a great... model or one of my favorite models of cognitive behavioral therapy would be focus on mindfulness and ⁓ the to correct the self-talk. For me, ⁓ than looking unwanted and wanting to figure out how to shut that down ⁓ or... or change it into something more comfortable, tend to approach that with clients as saying, let's amused and curious about that ⁓ and self is generating the self-talk to get comfortable with being able to say, that's amusing ⁓ interesting. ⁓ say more. Tell more. I to know more.
Katie Brinkley: You Yeah.
Chris Wells: I look at to that focus on literal hardwiring ⁓ that connection between prefrontal cortex or the language part of ourselves ⁓ have metacognition ⁓ the limbic system, biological protective system and the that conducts information between the two and I see it as literal hardwires. So so wires like plumbing conduct stuff. want to know what's being conducted in the hardwiring. ⁓ rather than ⁓ it off or shut it off or it, I want to split it open ⁓ and see what's flowing in there ⁓ and it. So I'll ⁓ share with that what I've said you so far about
Katie Brinkley: Yeah.
Chris Wells: my approach I don't really have ⁓ model name for this other than maybe depth which would be sort of a Jungian would call their work without being an analyst. ⁓ And ⁓ often a client ⁓ we're interested in symptoms. ⁓
Katie Brinkley: Hmm.
Chris Wells: and if they need ⁓ something just ⁓ them or send them away or shut them up, they're the wrong office. ⁓ And I ⁓ will that it's probably gonna get worse before it gets better. ⁓ we to open up ⁓ and I'm sorry, medical models suppress this model, especially when,
Katie Brinkley: you Yeah.
Chris Wells: psychedelic assisted is if one model is to suppress this is to learn to express. we want psyche to express and that's goal of my work and I use tools from ⁓ model that can dig up to that end in service of greater expression and relief. ⁓ So is in the darkness grows and And so by up we create light, we bring an understanding, and by de-pathologizing the definition that is as simple as you don't to be afraid yourself. ⁓ You can stop being afraid. ⁓ It's okay, you're trying to heal you need to know what it is that needs healing.
Katie Brinkley: you work with people who are really seeking growth. looking to heal. ⁓ What are they experiencing when they come to your office?
Chris Wells: Somehow, maybe it's ⁓ way I've presented myself in my website, ⁓ my profile would be to explicitly I hold the belief that you were born whole and well and you seek ⁓ do that again. ⁓ state that I don't a medical model, which is focused, like something's sick and needs to be cured, but that we're to what one's ⁓ psyche or soul is seeking to say. So I get, I tend to get people who are starting with that idea and they're intrigued and they show up interested in growth versus I'm choking on anxiety. I'm, I'm, I'm, paralyzed by depression. Um, I don't mind that. I welcome those clients and those that, that are curious or interested how I present myself if they bother to look at ⁓ profile, we'll that if they need medication, if they need that kind of relief, they're calling wrong person.
Katie Brinkley: like you just said, people that are just looking some medication, they're in the wrong office. So let's talk about some of the ways you incorporate natural products into what you do.
Chris Wells: Actually, medicine is, places, it's now, ⁓ psychedelic therapy is now legal in Colorado. And there centers, including here in ⁓ my hometown, where ⁓ people do with practices ⁓ and clinicians licensed to that. And there are retreats all around the world where people can go and have a weekend have a great one-off psychedelic That's only part of practice with that understand their life has been a journey. So I don't psychedelic ⁓ do... ⁓ I will help with what we'll call spiritual ceremony is ⁓ ⁓ the journey before the ceremony ⁓ after this ceremony. ⁓ great preparation, half year of ⁓ doing depth before even a natural medicine. kind of ceremony is not in common. I do one-off psychedelic journeys
Katie Brinkley: who this type of work actually for who is it not for?
Chris Wells: Well, it's for people who are relatively ego-intact, who are afraid of their selves. ⁓ They feel that they're at thresholds of a much higher and deeper understanding of themselves. So think, you know, ready for, I hadn't of this before, ⁓ Katie, but integration therapy. is really different with my clients who have had that versus those who have not because of the dimensionality that into the therapy. it's particular ⁓ dimensional a vertical axis, ⁓ that can be with a higher self and be there ⁓ while exploring deep injury and wound. So they've had an experience of themselves as being well and an experience of wholeness and safety and belonging. I believe that they were, always deserve that and they've been ⁓ a journey of that their whole life. Versus, I was fine and then I started having anxiety and now I'm not fine and I don't know why this is something that came into my life and I gotta get rid of it. But people who can see that their life has brought them to where they are on purpose, that their whole life has been purposeful. to get that idea is the people who get that are who this is for. And then they see what the integration work is on the other side. That, ⁓ man, yeah, I don't need to be afraid. are all kinds of expressions of The root ⁓ that conjugated the word psychedelic ⁓ are psyche, soul, delic, which is or revealing. So if that doesn't have
Katie Brinkley: Yeah.
Chris Wells: If that has a place in someone's therapy journey, then that's the right person for that kind of experience. If that's not coming and someone just wants a, well, I heard this is really cool. Like I look like it's so colorful and I heard the visuals are awesome. ⁓ in the wrong place is the person who comes to be looking a referral for Seroquel.
Katie Brinkley: The name of your practice is holy you. does it ⁓ to be holy yourself?
Chris Wells: hole. it's a play on ⁓ spiritual holy, but it's about, know, and informs my statement that, true belief in, in my latter sixties. ⁓ was ⁓ licensed like people in ⁓ mid-twenties. Nothing in my practice in that period has convinced me otherwise that ⁓ we're born whole. We're born We weren't born the fear we show up with. Fear being the other name for anxiety. We weren't born for self We weren't made for that. These are things that printed on us along the way and need be discarded. So when think of ⁓ the Western ideas of, the idea enlightenment, Westerners tend to think that is process of acquisition, ⁓ acquiring greater Grace, more grace, acquiring more patience, more love, ⁓ more mercy, forgiveness. I ⁓ tend believe based on my developmental model, is brain-based, wrapped around the of ⁓ literal hardwiring from That the bigger part ⁓ of what Jung's of self-actualization be individuation. I believe the bigger part of is what we discard. which been into our hard wiring from the beginning. And I do believe that we could rewire. that rewiring, that discarding, what remains is that self that was well in a hole from the beginning and seeks to be restored.
Katie Brinkley: Have seen people move from feeling broken to actually understanding themselves in a new way?
Chris Wells: Yeah, I've seen changes in what showed identified as bipolar to looking like much close to symptom free to a point where described ⁓ results to other colleagues have ⁓ Well, clearly you had the wrong diagnosis. The bipolar was a life sentence. I reject that ⁓ powerfully I'm talking about clients who showed up after being throughout adolescence and adulthood. And they've had five psychiatrists them as bipolar. ⁓ It wasn't me, I just have people for whom the symptoms are pretty much either under or gone. ⁓
Katie Brinkley: So for someone who's listening who feels overwhelmed or stuck, is one way they can start relating to their distress differently?
Chris Wells: Well, ask what is it what what is this saying to me? What's what's the message? ⁓ Let's say that it's not sickness. Let's say that it's that psyche soul. You know, some you you you can't use the word right ⁓ in in clinical. environments, it's the S word, you know, you shouldn't say soul, but every time we say psychology, we're referring to psyche. that, none of us are without psyche, none of us are without soul. You don't even, you don't need to be religious to know that or feel that. And psyche has... For some of us it has a high level of autonomy that's separate from more comfortable word we use in psychology of ego. We're not promising but ego has a sometimes with what is psyche because will not be bossed around the way other parts of self will So greater the split, the greater the distress. So some to relate to oneself as a person with psyche of ⁓ or greater than usual best friend, ego, is starting ⁓
Katie Brinkley: Well, and Chris, I'll say this. Your perspective is really powerful. It's just about making sure that the right people hear it. If someone is listening right now and thinking, something feels off in my life, but I can't explain it, what would you say to them?
Chris Wells: ⁓ huh. Yeah. Let's talk about it. It's, that's, that's much in my wheelhouse than somebody saying, I have anxiety ⁓ attacks that me and think I'm gonna die. They probably need to see somebody a practice. better integrated with medical care get stabilized at least.
Katie Brinkley: Chris, this has been an awesome conversation. thank you again for coming ⁓ onto Behind the Practice today.
Chris Wells: Thank you for having me, Katie. It's been a pleasure.
