Our solution to stress is unique. Ask any one of 4,000 clients who use our solution on a daily basis. Fundamentally, the Fountainhead Method reveals our beliefs and where they come from in detail. It further discusses the lenses we all look at life through. One of my personal lenses is the one that seems to have created my career path today.

My mother Margaret was the person who taught our family compassion. She was always looking to help others, whether it was a stray cat, a relative or a friend of mine who needed taking in - all three instances of kindness happened frequently during my childhood.

Mum was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a cancer encompassing
a three-year death sentence in 1973, when I was about 14. This event helped create a path where I would look for what was the cause of illness for most of my adult life. I had the privilege of not going to university so I was not restricted to think in a certain way, or to look in the narrow area’s of traditional medical sciences for potential solutions.

During my quest to support mum’s battle with cancer, I was introduced to many life-changing healers and a potent list of complementary healing ideas. Patch Adams, Norman Cousin’s and Nathan Pritikin are three healers I great- ly admire who all helped in their own unique ways. Mum also received one of a kind medical service. She was privileged to be treated by one of the top immunologists in the World, Professor Tony Basten, at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (today chair of Immunology at Sydney University).

Tony was a wonderfully knowledgeable, patient, warm and encouraging man possessing a deep and critical insight into healing. I think his abilities and management of my mother’s illness were one of the two main factors that contributed to her exceeding the initial prognosis by almost ten years. Her confidence in him was the springboard for her own self-confidence needed to fight, as she so often had to do.

As it grew closer to the end (not knowing this at the time), my mother complained of a very sore neck. Our worries were eased when Tony assured us that this was not the behaviour of my mother’s particular type of cancer. Her neck grew worse and eventually the cancer was discovered to have indeed spread to her neck. This was the signal for the end.

She was admitted to Calvary Respite Centre in Sydney for her last days. We could not believe it, but in the very room next to hers was a man, who also had Multiple Myeloma, (her very same cancer) and also in his neck.

I learned a very important lesson during this life and death experience. No matter the quality of support and guidance, find out as much for yourself as possible. Every person, even the real experts (and I was honoured to have this one on mum’s team), are always limited by their own experience. I learned that people cannot see what they have not seen nor can they imagine what others can imagine. My learning did not stop there.

In 2000, I was studying Permaculture in Tasmania with Bill Mollison (the founder of this scientific study). One day I received a startling phone call from my best friend; he was in tears telling me of his depression. I had no experience with depression at all. I actually did not even know what depression was. So
began my quest to learn

During that time, then Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett was supporting the creation of the National Depression Initiative. I called Jeff and shared my friend’s situation. He was very supportive. He told me what could be done (support services, medication if required, and listing various associated resources). He also told me what could not be done; that my friend could not “be fixed”. Ten years later and I still have this underlined in my diary, “can’t be fixed”.

That day I was puzzled and my lens of “find out for yourself” kicked in. I thought to myself, surely serotonin depletion was an effect, not a cause. I then stared to learn that depression was not an illness that had a physical cause. As in all areas of my life, I turned to philosophy as I looked for the key. I started to think
we could find depression’s root cause in our beliefs and the started actions
those beliefs made us take. The Dalai Lama also shared this view. I was there when the Dalai Lama said that in order to cure depression, we must first find the cause. When trying to understand cause and effect, it is safe to look to Aristotle.

Over the ensuing decade, I have focused almost my entire attention on that answer and the question that precedes it. Clients from over 30 countries world-wide have completed our education programs since these questions started to give us answers. We have been privileged to learn from some great minds, both living and historical. The greatest minds have been the clients themselves and our passionate staff is fast approaching 100 in total.

One visionary staff member stands out. Without Michelle Mark joining the team in 2005, the Fountainhead Method never would have become what it is today. Michelle is responsible for turning our education based philosophy and practice it into a user friendly ‘how to’ system. The Fountainhead Method is used daily by over 4,000 people when they are faced with a stressful situation. It is a simple framework (using no drugs or counsellors) that successfully treats stress related illness. It does not work for everybody, but it does work for most. And although we do not claim a cure, many of our clients do.

In our pursuit to support men, women and youth that suffer from stress related illness, we have created five different businesses that deal with stress related
questions in one form or another. Most recently we founded the Anti-
Depression Association of Australia (ADAA), www.adaa.org.au, a non-profit organisation that is focusing on bringing solutions together that work in the community. The ADAA is starting with the solutions we have found ourselves and it is also searching for others.

My co-author Michele Mark, her team at The Mentoring Institute (www.the-mentoringinstitute.com) and the wonderful Life Coaches at our affiliated organisations are now expanding nationally. These passionate leaders have spent over a million hours studying, coaching and learning from our clients over a ten-year period. There are now real-life solutions available. These solutions work for people with depression or anxiety, or as we call them now, stress related illness.

Wayne Parrott
Chairman ADAA
Queensland Australia 2010