Evolution Counseling

The theory of Evolution was the first door I cracked open to peek outside of my Mormon worldview.

Accepting that the earth is not 6000 years but billions of years old, and how life slowly changed and adapted over eons was a massive existential shift. It changed my perspective on myself, animals, plants, and the earth. It made me smaller. I remember going to Bryce Canyon and feeling an intense awe considering the long arduous process of water and wind creating these enormous red rock formations. I marveled at how just a few years before, I would have admired these same red rocks as a father god's work of art made specifically for human appreciation. But they actually have nothing to do with me. I am entirely insignificant in this desert that exists on a timescale I can't begin to understand. There's a freedom in this.

Evolutionary psychology is what grounds my practice and my worldview. If you zoom out far enough in time, most of our human behaviors make sense as adaptations to our environment. For most of the time we have existed, humans lived in small bands in close relationship with the land. We had to. We developed oral traditions to pass along vital survival knowledge from generation to generation. Myths, songs, and art held the keys to navigating changes only observable across generations. We likely understood ourselves as part of a greater whole, across space and time. We had an intergenerational and interspecies sense of self. This perspective still exists in indigenous philosophies that have survived colonialism and monotheism.

Since the industrial revolution, our cultures have evolved so quickly that we have made our artificial environments too harsh for big swathes of the population. We're over-controlled in the industrial capitalist empires and it is making us sick - we are trying to be all the same instead of finding our unique role in a larger community. Those of us who display symptoms of being human animals in a poor fit environment are diagnosed as disordered and then medicated or treated to come back to expected levels of productivity and emotional numbness. We have designed poor enclosures for our self-imposed domestication. Relating to each other as individuals, divorced from time and environment, has created the power abuse culture that is accelerating tyranny and climate change.

In the future, we will adapt more completely in one way or another. Probably some of us will evolve with the culture, and subcultures will continue to fragment off and then fight for dominance in the predictable sociopolitical patterns.

My issue with traditional counseling and psychology is they are too narrow in scope. They lack a deep time perspective on the human condition. Psychiatric diagnoses and detention often serves to bend the evolution of humans toward cruel conformity. Good for controlling a population but bad for individuals and the creative flourishing of different thinkers, artists, philosophers, revolutionaries that counterbalance this conformity with beautiful creatively weird and new perspectives.

What I do as a counselor, supervisor, and teacher is encourage people to understand themselves through an intergenerational, deep time perspective, and develop the capacity for self compassion. Many of us need new creation stories for our pain, our struggles, our perceived flaws and unique challenges. Understanding these as symptoms of disordered behavior can lead to self-flagellation and despair when we cannot overcome or permanently alter our unique traits. It's important to understand what's changeable and what needs acceptance and accommodation.

I see body care as absolutely foundational for any mental health improvements. Without good sleep, good food, movement, and authentic socializing, no one can make significant progress on managing depression, anxiety, or any other struggles. There is no medication, coping skill, or hack to overcome these basics. I am not against medication or traditional therapy - these are important tools for survival. They are not cures, however. Often what we are striving to cure are our unique characteristics and traits that when accepted, can lead to a comfortable, content life.

When these needs are met, it's possible to do deep ontological restructuring. It's possible to change ones sense of identity, place in the world, and perspective on reality.

If you’re ready for this deeply transformative work, reach out to Dr. Tanya Johnson today using the form below.