Ecology of Decisions: Mental Health from the Individual to Society

The ecology of decisions

This book was born from the sense that in conversations about mental health we constantly lack a single shared language. We speak sometimes in the language of neurobiology, sometimes in the language of diagnoses, sometimes in the language of reforms and strategies, but we rarely see how all these levels meet in one place: in how a person and a community make decisions every day. In times of war, climate crises, and information storms, the question “why is this so hard for us” increasingly concerns not only the brain and not only politics, but the environment in which any “yes” or “no” becomes either possible or almost unattainable.

In international literature there are already powerful frameworks that help us see the person in context. Socio‑ecological and bioecological models by Urie Bronfenbrenner describe how micro‑, meso‑, exo‑ and macro‑systems interact, shaping development and wellbeing. Neo‑ecological approaches show how digital spaces and information technologies add new layers, creating separate “virtual” micro‑worlds for us. Decision‑making ecology frameworks examine how professionals in social services and child protection systems make decisions under pressure of uncertainty and risk.

In this book, we bring these lines together into one operational concept — the Ecology of decisions — and use it as a shared language to describe how decisions important for mental health are formed and sustained, from the level of neural circuits and personal life to state policy, climate strategies, and information ecosystems. Its theoretical foundation is Peter Anokhin’s Theory of Functional Systems, which explains how living systems construct and adjust goal‑directed action based on afferent synthesis, result prediction, and feedback. In our previous work we extended this logic to social systems as products of people’s mental and joint activity, which likewise gather, process, and verify information, form an image of a desired outcome, and change their behaviour under the influence of feedback.

Beyond the classical model

In this book, the ecology of decisions is not just a new label for the classical socio‑ecological model. Socio‑ecological approaches answer the question of which levels of environment affect a person — from family and school to institutions and culture. We take a different step: we focus not only on the layers of environment, but on how exactly these levels “thread through” the decision‑making cycle.

In the simplest terms, this is a book about the fact that the quality of our choices depends not only on “character”, but on how far the system allows us to understand what is happening, why we act, what resources we can use, how we will be heard, and whether we still have the freedom to say “yes” or “no”.

A framework for action

Ecology of decisions is not yet another self‑help manual or a purely academic monograph. We wrote this text as a foundational framework document — a basis for training professionals and for developing real‑world strategies in mental health, education, and public governance.

If you open this book as someone seeking resilience in times of major upheaval, you will find here orienting stories and explanations of your own mind’s mechanisms. If you are a professional — a doctor, psychologist, educator, or social worker — this work offers you a systematic language to connect individual support with institutional change. For managers and policymakers who set the “rules of the game” in communities or ministries, the book provides a scientific foundation for decision‑making — from curriculum reform to drafting new laws.

We write this text with a deep conviction that mental health is not a private matter. It is an invisible infrastructure without which neither a dignified human life nor the future of a free society is possible. If, after reading this book, you can see more clearly your own ecology of decisions and the environments you create as a professional, leader, or citizen, then its purpose will have been fulfilled.

Prologue. When the problem is not in the person but in the environment

When was the last time you made a decision and felt: “I really did the right thing”? Not just squeezed through under pressure, not reluctantly agreed to a “let’s hope it works out somehow” option, but felt a genuine inner calm, a joyful relief, and a quiet yet firm sense that “yes, this is exactly how it needed to be.” If you recall that moment more closely, almost always the same pattern emerges: you more or less understood what was really happening around you, you clearly saw a meaningful goal in front of you, you had at least minimal resources to pursue it, you could rely on someone’s honest feedback and, most importantly, you felt that this decision was truly yours, not imposed from outside.

In this book, we call these conditions the five axes of decision ecology. When these axes are relatively healthy, even in very difficult, catastrophic circumstances we retain the ability to make choices that do not destroy us or those around us. This is resilience in action. When these channels are “poisoned” — by distorted information, fear, or lack of support — we begin to suffer. The quality of our choices is not a verdict on our will, but a mirror of the ecology in which we are immersed. We often blame ourselves for being “weak”, while in fact our behaviour is a lawful consequence of living in a damaged, toxic environment.

Living stories of resilience: from the person to society

In 1985, in Geneva, Stephen Hawking developed severe pneumonia. He was close to death, and the doctors suggested to his wife Jane that they disconnect life support. She refused. After a tracheostomy, Hawking permanently lost his natural voice. Imagine that moment: a brilliant scientist whose mind works with black holes and the beginning of the Universe finds himself locked inside his own body, unable to utter even a single syllable. At that point, his personal ecology of decisions could have collapsed completely.

But this is where the system came into play: fellow scientists developed a computer program, the university provided conditions for him to continue working, and his family created a space where his intellect remained a subject, not an object of care. His decision to continue scientific work is not just a flash of individual will, but the outcome of an entire network that restored access to information and freedom of choice.

Another scene is a classroom. A child born without limbs enters under thousands of unseen glances filled with pity or disgust. Suicidal thoughts and a sense of complete isolation are already part of her experience. Then a teacher appears who refuses to see her as “disabled” and gives her the same difficult task as the others; a community that funds access to prosthetics; parents who grant the right to make mistakes. Where the external environment at least partially supports truthful information, clear goals, and real resources, inner resilience gains room to unfold. Survival turns into life at the moment when the ecology around the person ceases to be hostile.

At the collective level, we see veterans with post‑traumatic conditions for whom the world becomes a place without a future for a long time. Their bodies prepare every second for an explosion that never comes. And yet, thanks to systemic support programmes, veterans’ communities, adapted workplaces, and a willingness in society to welcome them back, these people return to active life, relationships, and creativity. Here resilience is no longer only an individual trait, but a systemic property of families, organizations, communities, and public policy. These stories highlight a central point: mental strength always operates within a particular ecology. Mental health is a state of a whole system, not just of an individual’s “head.”

From a “bad person” to a poisoned decision ecology

We are used to explaining life failures through simplistic labels: “he is too weak,” “she could not handle it,” “they are unreasonable.” In the best case, we apply a medical diagnosis; in the worst, we issue a harsh moral verdict. In both scenarios, the problem stays locked either inside one person’s mind or in the vague idea of an abstract “society.” We suggest a fundamentally different view. Mental health is not only an inner property of an individual; it is a state of a whole system. It has direct analogues at the level of the family, school, large organization, community, and state.

We can quite reasonably speak of “mentally healthy” or “mentally unwell” institutions. Healthy institutions can perceive reality adequately, learn from mistakes, acknowledge vulnerability, and support their members. Unhealthy ones deny obvious problems, punish truth‑telling, exhaust resources, and continually reproduce violence. Every person has their own neurobiological foundation and their own history of trauma, but whether this foundation “blooms” or is destroyed depends critically on the environment: war or peace, democracy or authoritarianism, basic safety or information chaos.

The question “what is wrong with us?” must be asked simultaneously at all levels — from neurons to parliament. In this book we speak about the ecology of decisions not as a pretty metaphor, but as a real, multilevel system in which each of our “yes” or “no” is born. A formal definition of this concept, the socio‑ecological model, and the five axes of decision ecology are set out in the first chapter.

More about this topic can be found in our book Ecology of Decisions: Mental Health from the Individual to Society on Our Books on Google Play.

Mykola Iabluchanskyi together with Andriy Yabluchanskiy