An Interview with Kelly Dehn and Michael Gibson: Misdiagnosis and Norm Therapy

By- Whitney Derman 

I had the honor of interviewing the two Co-Founders of Abuse Refuge Org (ARO), Kelly Dehn, Global Executive Director and certified Norm Therapy Intake Specialist (NTIS), and Michael Gibson, Global Managing Director of ARO and creator of Norm Therapy. We talked about Kelly’s experience as the first person ever to receive Norm Therapy, a program developed by Michael Gibson over the course of 25 years or more. I went into the interview to ask Kelly about her experience but came out with a much larger story to tell.

Kelly shared that she had diagnosed herself with dyslexia in her late 20s, but later learned that not only was this inaccurate, but the reason for her feeling she had dyslexia was that she had experienced abuse. As a child, Kelly struggled to learn in school because she was bullied often, which made focusing on her studies difficult. She was consistently ridiculed for being the last one in her class to finish tests and exams and struggled with severe test anxiety. Not realizing she had experienced several types of abuse, she came to believe that she must be stupid or have a learning disability that made her struggle to comprehend concepts.

While listening to Kelly, I couldn’t help but think about how I too forget basic words but never associated this inaccuracy to a learning disability. But there are a couple of differences between our experiences: I was never ridiculed or made to feel stupid because of my response behavior. This distinction is important because it shows how powerful self-fulfilling prophecies can be. A prophecy can can be self-imposed or other-imposed.

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Self-fulfilling prophecies are beliefs that others have about us that become true because those beliefs impact how we behave. Other-imposed prophecies are classified by the Pygmalion Effect and the opposing Golem Effect. The Pygmalion Effect occurs when other people have higher expectations of you, and you rise to this in performance and results. Therefore, if a person is treated as if they are smart, talented, etc., they will become better at whatever they are trying to do. On the other hand, the Golem Effect occurs when someone anticipates lower expectations of you, and after enough repetition, you start to believe it and have a lower performance. A person who is treated as if they can’t do a particular task will get worse at it, even if both people started from the same conditions. (Inclusive School Communities, n.d.)

Misdiagnoses

As both of these phenomena were in play, Kelly’s situation got worse over time. As she read more about dyslexia, she became convinced that she had this learning disability. Kelly also thought she had depression because a family member urged Kelly to see a doctor who immediately diagnosed her and prescribed her medication once she simply completed a ten-question test.  She stopped taking the medication long before going through Norm Therapy, but she professionally learned later that she had neither depression nor dyslexia.

One might question, ‘how was the depression a misdiagnosis if her doctor officially rendered her diagnoses?’ The answer is simple: a single test was not enough to assess Kelly. This is one reason why Norm Therapy plans to revolutionize the Abuse Care Industry. Norm Therapy is about challenging and questioning your beliefs and thinking about your life from a different perspective to remove unhelpful thought patterns that reinforce what you think you know so you can discover who you actually are and what you do know.

While self-reflection can be useful at times, it can also be dangerous. The lies you tell yourself and the harmful words from others that you believe can easily influence how you see yourself. This leads to an inaccurate self-image and a poor understanding.

One of the major reasons that many mental healthcare establishments miss the mark is that they validate how a person feels without challenging those beliefs—such as when a person seeks a diagnosis for a certain mental disorder and providers only ask them to check off which symptoms they have (“The impact of mental,” 2019). Relying on symptoms alone can prove to be inaccurate. A person can believe things that are untrue, and those things may vary day to day depending on how the individual is feeling. Or, a trauma may have occurred early in a person’s life when they were at an age not mature enough to understand its impact but their current belief system was built around that outcome many years earlier.

Self-diagnosis or certainty that a previous diagnosis is accurate limits the person to one narrative as opposed to the whole story. For example, someone with bipolar disorder may only talk about their depressive periods and not their manic episodes, believing the latter is not an issue—thus leading to a misdiagnosis (Williams, 2020). By going through Norm Therapy, a Norm Therapy Intake Specialist (NTIS) prepares the Victim or Survivor (V/S) for future traditional and professional therapies. Norm Therapy helps the Victim or Survivor discover who they are, discern their normal, the potential core issues surrounding their abuse(s), as well as the impact(s) associated.

In Kelly’s experience, finding the root cause for her issues was life-changing. She had spent so much time diagnosing herself and getting diagnoses from mental health practitioners who assumed something was wrong with Kelly’s biology. Going through Norm Therapy helped Kelly to find her truth and the root causes of her issues. Only then was she prepared to forge a path towards healing.

Not everyone’s story will be like Kelly’s, as abuse related issues are common. However, they cannot be determined solely by a questionnaire or self-examination. A misdiagnosis can deter progress and can be dangerous, therefore it is important to fully and accurately understand the root causes.

While Norm Therapy does not offer any diagnoses nor cures, it aims to play an important role in challenging the beliefs of the Victim or Survivor. We at ARO are here to support you in your personal healing journey to complete well being. We bring awareness and education to 11 different types of abuse and help others heal and find peace. Please support our life-saving efforts through your generous support and donations by clicking here or visiting GoARO.org.

References

Michael Gibson (Direct Source. See more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gibson-%E2%9C%94-956a4117.)

Inclusive School Communities. (n.d.). Pygmalion and Golem Effects: How positive expectations for all are critical to building inclusive school communities. JFA Purple Orange.
https://inclusiveschoolcommunities.org.au/resources/toolkit/pygmalion-and-golem

The impact of mental health misdiagnosis. (2019, October 18). Hillside. https://hside.org/impact-of-mental-health-misdiagnosis

Williams, P. (2020, June 19). Misdiagnosing mental health. Public Health Post. https://www.publichealthpost.org/research/misdiagnosing-mental-health/#:~:text=Misdiagnosis%20can%20be%20a%20matter%20of%20life%20and,are%20more%20likely%20to%20take%20their%20own%20life