A short conversational clip (Dr. Don Wood with Sicily) exploring root causes of anxiety and depression. Dr. Wood argues anxiety and depression are symptoms produced by survival-based brain responses—behaviors labeled as "self-sabotage" are reframed as attempts to avoid perceived pain or threats, prompting inquiry into underlying fears.
Chapters
So people come in and say, you know, I have really bad anxiety. I say, well, that's a symptom. So let's figure out why is your mind anxious, right? Or I have depression. Why is your mind depressed? There's a reason why that's right. And Sicily, one of the things I always talk about too, which is I say, people say I sabotage myself. I say, it's impossible. The brain is not capable of sabotage. It's totally survival based. Everything is about survival. Why is it doing this particular thing? Because there's a fear of pain, right? Or something going to happen. So it'll take you in another direction to try to avoid that pain. So when you're coaching, I mean, how many people do you see, right? That will tell you, you know, oh, I sabotage myself, right? Have you ever heard them say that?
Absolutely. And you're right. It's getting to the root cause, you know, not the root of it, but getting to the root cause of what's going on.