Power Threat Meaning Framework

What is the Power Threat Meaning Framework?

• Structure that was built with the intent to spearhead a paradigm shift in how we currently understand and treat emotional distress.

  • This framework has been endorsed and funded by the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

• The authors of this framework make it apparent that they do not subscribe to a fixed theoretical ideology, such as biological, cognitive, or psychological, as a means of explaining behavior but instead describe their approach as a meta-framework (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018).

  • Branching away from the medical model as a means of conceptualizing emotional distress. Cannot approach mental health in the same capacity that we approach physical health due to the level of complexity and variability involved.

• Intentional in the verbiage that is used to describe psychotic experiences

  • Uses “emotional distress,” “unusual experiences,” or “troubling behavior” instead of mental illness

• Authors state that there are several core needs that must be met in an individual’s life in order to maintain emotional well-being (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018). Needs that are articulated by this framework are: a sense of justice and fairness within the wider community, a sense of belonging within a social group or family, a sense of love and acceptance in early relationships with caregivers, physical needs met for themselves and individuals who depend on them, forming and maintaining intimate partnerships, feeling effective and valued in social roles, to adequately manage a range of emotions, to achieve goals, exercise a sense of agency and to have a sense of purpose (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018).

• Anything that poses a risk to these needs being met is considered to be a threat

• This framework proposes that we shift our approach to diagnosing mental illness to conceptualizing certain “symptoms” as “survival strategies.”

• An example of this in clinical practice may look like replacing “suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD)” with “surviving rejection, entrapment, and invalidation.”

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Sources:

Johnstone, L., & Boyle, M. (2018). The power threat meaning framework: An alternative nondiagnostic Conceptual System. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 002216781879328. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167818793289