The
Institute conducts research and study dealing with the two most fundamental problems we
face in the world today, a growing mental health crisis and an environmental crisis.
The
mental health crisis consists of persisting and growing mental health problems - mental
disorder and instability, doubt and confusion, uncertainty and insecurity, feelings of
fear, stress, anxiety, frustration and depression, and resulting substance use, abuse,
addiction, overdose and suicide. They affect everything we do and we engage in, in all
areas of human activity, in all sectors and at all levels of society, in private and in
public life, in government, business, social services, health care, education and
training. They affect how we understand and conduct ourselves individually, how we relate
and interact with each other, and how we deal with the world around us, with nature and
the natural environment.
The
environmental crisis includes climate change and global warming, pollution of air, soil
and water - rivers, lakes and oceans, the introduction of millions of synthetic compounds
into the natural environment, the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of ecosystems, and
the exploitation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources beyond nature’s
regenerative capacity. It is leading to changes in nature that in the long-term will
render the natural environment of the Earth uninhabitable for the human species.
In
response the Institute advocates, promotes and facilitates changing how traditionally and
today we understand, organize and manage human existence and development, and shifting the
primary focus from quantitative physical-material to qualitative mental development and
growth, through education and training in mental development and growth. Developing
individually the knowledge, the understanding and the mental faculties to establish the
necessary internal mental conditions for a sustainable, equitable, secure and peaceful
development and future. Establishing the conceptual foundation and the framework of
understanding to understand and manage human existence and development, existing in and as
part of a constantly changing and transforming natural world, in an environmentally
sustainable, socially equitable, and individually secure and peaceful way, within the
natural parameters, the boundaries and limits of existence and development and our role
and responsibility in them set by nature.
