We Are Passionate About Elevating Mental Strength
Building mental strength is more purposeful than treating ‘mental illness’.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I am a physician but a different physician, perhaps just like Galileo who was an astronomer but a different astronomer. He did not follow the rules set out by Ptolemy in 70AD and accepted by the Church (the authority on science in those days). Using the calculations of Copernicus who concluded that Ptolemy’s deductions were mathematically incorrect, he hypothesized that a corrected mathematical equation would show that the earth could not be the center of the planetary systems. Using this, he explored the planets from a different perspective. You know what happened to him. He was fired from his posittion as professor at the university at Vienna, excommunicated, locked in the dungeons for two years and then placed in house arrest until he died. You know what happened to his theories. They are the backbone of astrophysics today.
Similarly, the traditional approaches to mental health do not compute. Worse, they leave humans in a state of controlled weaknes and perpetual ignorance. My proposal is that everyone starts life knowing nothing and afraid of reality. All babies retreat to their comfort zones. Therefore anxiety is innate. We inherit a world that is based on change and turmoil. Thus, comfort zones do not last. Yet, our power of reason can take us to states where what was once unknown and fearful could become known and acceptable. The trick is that we have to build that power of reason, a tough undertaking that impels us to run away. Yet, running away makes life even more fearful. You see? we are afraid to do. Yet we are even more afraid when we don’t do.
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Hello! I’m Andrea
Counsellor CACCF, ICADC
I was born and grew up in Hungary to professional parents. I was raised in a strong Christian family. These were two strikes against me in a communist country. My parents gave me a classical education, exposing me to The Arts, an interest in world religion, philosophy, gymnastics, and classical music. The combination of those three attitudes prepared me for university but banned me from being able to get in as I was not considered working-class. I did, however, attend university classes in psychology, philosophy, and comparative religion, doing so as an unregistered student or auditing. (I felt it was risky but not dishonest as University was free).
I escaped Hungary in 1989 and emigrated to Canada, two years before perestroika. Here I was able to attend college and did so as soon as I had settled in. After my initial studies, I did my practicum at CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. After completing this stage of my education, I volunteered at Queen Street Mental hospital and Humber River Regional Hospital. I enjoyed it. I was able to enlighten my clients using The Arts, philosophy, and music, and see their faces light up as they received education is areas once alien to them. I worked with street addicts and criminally inclined clients, gratified to see them years later at the Art Gallery, or graduated from college.
My association with Albert started twenty years ago at a treatment centre for street women with drug abuse issues. I was turned on by the approach to helping them through mental stimulation and education as it gelled with how I saw life. We have worked together since and I passionately love working with people and helping them grow mentally. We share the profound passion in the belief that all human beings are intelligent minds but with bodies that are sophisticated instruments of ambulation, perception, and expression. The body is a physical composite and can have flaws in a variety of areas. The mind, however, is metaphysical and develops as it is given the nutrition of information, the discipline to get it, and the encouragement to use it for personal development.
We share, therefore, the same belief that all people can develop the insight to manage purposefully and realize the power and contentment of self. They just have to be shown how. Those of us with deeper understanding are not in power over others to partially digest the information and feed it to them as finished products, but are simply ahead with the opportunity to show them how to do the same. Together, we attempt to teach, not just treat or save others.
Hello! I’m Albert
Physician (Retired cum emeritus)
I am a physician. I have retired my medical practice (cum emeritus) in order to concentrate on what is an educational, not a therapeutic process. This only no longer allows me to diagnose, treat, or prescribe for medical conditions. I have, however, been trained, first as a medical doctor, then through post graduate residencies, I have acquired knowledge, though not certificates, in psychiatry and neuropathology. I have also trained in causes and management of addictions. I have worked for forty years in this field of mental health and addictions. In that time, I have published numerous opinion articles, research papers, and a book on looking at the underlying cause of mental health insufficiency and unhealthy behaviours. The book is not about diagnosis and treatment of an end condition, but about searching for the underlying states and examining the exercises needed to fix them. I have been invited to present talks to professional associations, educators, corporate management teams, and lay community including people with addictions. This allows me to use my knowledge, if not to treat, then to teach what I know. In these pages, I wish to share this knowledge.
I am driven by a deep passion. This is the belief that all human beings are created with the same rudimentary or fetal mind but with bodies that are sophisticated instruments of ambulation, perception, and expression. The body is a physical composite and can have flaws in a variety of areas. The mind, however, is metaphysical and develops as it is given the nutrition of information, the discipline to get it, and the encouragement to use it for personal development. This can be determined by both the opportunities available and the ability of the body to bring those opportunities to mental awareness.
In short, I believe that all people can develop the insight to manage purposefully and realize the power and contentment of self. They just have to be shown how. Those of us with deeper understanding are not in power over others to partially digest the information and feed it to them as finished products, but are simply ahead with the opportunity to show them how to do the same. We must empower, not just treat or save others. My job in tghis organization is to do the background research that supports the tenets we both hold dearly. Andrea’s is the explanation, a skill she demonstrates superbly.
Our Corporate Profile
mental-STRENGTH
the podcasts
We function as a corporation, 2038626 Ontario Limited. We have chosen the name mental-STRENGTH in order to emphasize the underlying objective of our desire to work with you. We do not believe that we have to be better or more balanced than you to be the source of your direction and future management. Instead, we believe that our job is to show you how to get the mental STRENGTH to do it yourself. Our logo, the hand holding the flame, signifies the power of enlightenment we can share with you. We don’t own that power and neither will you. We use it and pass it on. We see the fire of the heavens as the passion to do, to live, to be the best we can be.
Though we will provide it to augment our delivery, our primary activity is not counselling. It is education, that of understanding and building self-realization, and the guidance to see and use that insight.
Getting Started is Easy
Self Study
Go ahead. Start looking into some interesting and penetrating discourses – about life, about you as a mind, about other people as you relate to them
Have a consultation
Sometimes you may need to bounce some ideas off someone who understands and will assist you in realizing and building your mental strength. We welcome that.
Request Personal Assistance
That’s okay, We love helping you to build that belief in yourself so you can take the ball and run with it… especially if you are too low to go it alone at this stage.