The Four Pillars Model is a visual framework I developed to represent my healing journey and highlight the four most critical components that have shaped and sustained it. It emerged from my personal experiences, beginning in 2013 during a mental health crisis triggered by undiagnosed bipolar disorder. During my time working with Dr. Cindy H. Carr, we explored what my support system needed to look like, and she helped me recognize the need for four essential elements. Through guided imagery, we made those elements take root, and today I call it The Four Pillars Model because it’s what worked for me. This framework stands as a model of my lived experience and the foundation of my ongoing healing process.

In 2025, after years of overfunctioning in the corporate business world, I reached a point of burnout and knew I needed to step back to prioritize my mental health. It took a few weeks to find my balance, and I even required a slight, temporary medication adjustment. I felt a deep sense of pride in my self-awareness, in recognizing my limits, in taking myself to Dr. Christensen, and in talking openly with my family, my pastor, and Hannah. During this time of reflection and support, I examined the systems and practices that had been essential to my healing. From this process, I developed The Four Pillars Model. This framework is grounded in my lived experience and highlights four domains that have been critical to my stability and growth: psychiatry, therapy, family, and faith.

In the beginning, working with Dr. Cindy H. Carr marked the start of a long and transformative journey. It’s fascinating to reflect on it twelve years later, now moving at a slower pace and guided by what I call the four Ps: power, perspective, passion, and purpose. This reflection has led me to think back to my academic roots at Bridgewater College, George Mason University, and the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I spent a semester studying.

My endorsement in education required several psychology courses, along with the philosophy classes that came with a liberal arts degree. Those studies helped shape my early understanding of human behavior, purpose, and growth. Later, however, my experiences within the legal system, through incarceration and the realities of jail, challenged many of those academic frameworks.

Over time, I learned how to bridge those two worlds: the academic and the experiential. Today, with a clearer mind and steadier awareness, I am no longer just managing my condition; I am striving to understand it.

The model draws inspiration from several established psychological frameworks that have shaped my perspective. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, with its emphasis on self-actualization, resonated deeply with me. I came to understand self-actualization as purpose, a sense of meaningful contribution aligned with one's identity. For me, this purpose was found through faith, particularly the teachings and example of Jesus, which allowed me to reframe my suffering as part of a redemptive journey rather than a narrative of failure or pathology.

Erik Erikson's ideas about purpose also stayed with me from my education courses, where I admired how his work emphasized helping individuals, especially children, discover their sense of purpose. But my own experience forced me to confront a deeper question: what happens when that purpose is lost? My identity had been anchored in teaching and pursuing big dreams, and when that foundation collapsed, my world became unrecognizable. Recovery meant not only rebuilding my identity but also rediscovering purpose, learning to forge a new path when everything I once aimed for felt gone.

From a clinical perspective, George Engel's Biopsychosocial Model profoundly influenced my thinking. Engel argued that biological, psychological, and social factors are all essential to understanding and treating illness. While his model is robust, I found it incomplete for my journey. It lacked a spiritual dimension, which has been a vital part of my healing process. The Four Pillars Model expands on Engel's framework by incorporating faith as a fourth pillar, addressing the existential, moral, and spiritual dimensions of recovery that biological and psychosocial approaches alone cannot fully encompass.

As I have slowed down and taken time to readjust to my new baseline, I have chosen to go beyond simply managing my condition. I now devote intentional time to understanding it, to learning about the science behind it, reflecting on my patterns, and exploring how faith and insight work together to sustain lasting healing.

In essence, The Four Pillars Model is an integrative framework that blends clinical insight, psychological theory, spiritual growth, and personal experience. It provides a practical and adaptable structure for individuals navigating mental illness, trauma, and transformation, offering a path not only to recovery but also to discovering meaning, belonging, and purpose.

I present four interlocking pillars that, when attended to together, support stronger mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual health:

1. Psychiatry: This pillar involves medical treatment, including medication and diagnostic care, to stabilize my mood and brain chemistry. I emphasize consistency, patience, and partnership with a psychiatrist to find the right treatment. Stable psychiatry provides a foundation for clearer thinking and enables other forms of healing to be more effective for me.

2. Therapy: Therapy provides me a space to process trauma, emotions, thought patterns, and behavioral change. I engage in exercises such as personifying my medications, giving them voice and meaning, as a way to shift my relationship to treatment. Through therapy, I learn to confront shame, integrate past wounds, and cultivate self-awareness, strengthening my capacity to heal emotionally.

3. Family: My family functions as an anchoring support system, providing love, accountability, and a sense of belonging. My experiences show that relationships rooted in unconditional love become lifelines during periods of struggle. This pillar highlights the relational aspect of my recovery, emphasizing that I cannot heal in isolation.

4. Faith: Faith represents my spiritual or transcendent dimension, offering meaning, hope, and connection to something larger than myself. For me, faith is not separate from psychiatry or therapy but is integrated throughout. My trust in God provides a lens to interpret suffering, redemption, and purpose, giving me emotional courage to face stigma and reframe my identity beyond brokenness.

I view the pillars as interconnected rather than isolated compartments. Stable psychiatry enables more clarity in my therapy, therapy improves my relational dynamics with family, and family and faith provide emotional grounding to remain committed to treatment. When one pillar is neglected or collapses, my whole system becomes more vulnerable. My own relapses illustrate the importance of balance across all four areas.