The book starts with some popular but outdated clichés about psychiatry, including about the nature of diagnosis. The bulk of the book comprises case reports from the first-person perspective, arranged according to diagnosis of people who have found the Three Principles existential counselling approach helpful, interspersed with interviews with professionals who use it in their clinical practice. The book concludes with a brief summary of studies providing evidence of effectiveness of this existential psychology model.

The Three Principles model of psychology (created by the Scottish Canadian Sydney Banks) rests on the concepts of universal mind, consciousness and thought. Universal mind is the spiritual energy source of innate well-being and health. Universal consciousness is the capacity of awareness of life and experiences. Universal thought is a spiritual energy that creates personal experience of reality.

In this model there is one generic mental illness created by ‘erroneous thoughts’ (presumably dementia and such like are not regarded as mental illness). The plentiful case reports show that this type of existential counselling can be helpful for some people (including those suffering severe conditions). For example ‘Belle’, who has anorexia nervosa, discusses how realising that her experiences are the contents of her thoughts has allowed her to react to circumstances differently. Many of the case reports describe how such a cognitive shift enabled the patient to move away from deeply ingrained problematic thoughts and behaviours and tap into innate well-being on their way to personal recovery.

Unfortunately, the book does not give us crucial information about this existential counselling approach, such as how often it is successful (and how this varies by condition), what is the range of expected improvements and what adverse effects can be caused. Psychiatrists tend to focus on treating illness/disorder and preventing complications of mental health conditions (such as self-harm) but this book is more about improving mental well-being, which does not correlate much with illness/disorder. It does not really explain what the Three Principles are beyond a basic description nor give much information about how to apply them to the severe conditions that National Health Service psychiatrists see.