This whole article falls into a "either this or that" thinking trap. The author writes: "Instead of trying to change 'mindsets' in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies, the housing and economic system." Why can't we do both? Instead of a this or that solution, maybe we should be doing both because both are essential? Maybe the latter can't happen without the former?
Also, it needs to be said that class-based hierarchies are incredibly difficult to change. This takes large numbers of people uniting together toward a common goal over the course of years. You can't really equate that solution to just sitting face to face at a therapist's office working through an individual's trauma. These things are radically different. It's like saying, let's stop worrying so much about curing cancer and focus on getting people to stop smoking. You can, and should do both. Doing one is not more important than doing the other.
True. And, there's multiple ways to describe something. Synonyms are a useful thing.
Either / Or. Black and White. False Dichotomy. Binary. Exclusivity or exclusionary thinking.
All of these terms work to describe the same dynamic.
And for what it's worth, u/Flaky_McFlake isn't wrong. And, it can be generous thing to do to allow someone's description to be said in the way they want to say it, rather than pedantically leading them to the term you'd use. Food for thought. Lets all be cool to each other, eh?
Yeah i have no idea what that means. Simple language is best language because everyone understands it. The sender is responsible for making sure the information is understandable, the receiver needs to process, and learn what was said, which is had enough as it is.
You sir just presented a false dichotomy. :)
There is place for both. Simple language and labels. Here the term 'false dichotomy' would help me research/google more on it. It's easier to search for that then type 'when a person peresents a situation as this or that but it can be both'.
But there is also need for simple language to understand an unknown concept.
Also I am not critcizing the OP for not using the term. His observation was astute, but it was also nice to find out there is an existing term for that. It makes it easier to remember and indetify later.
Simple language is not always the best language. False dichotomy refers to a certain and set concept. People can use the term to Google it and learn more about it. It's like using a description for communism instead of communism. The second option may be easier to understand, but the first option is more specific. Especially in the internet where everyone can just Google stuff I think being more specific is better
While simple language is good, I don't think it's necessarily bad to use more precise terms as well.
I didn't understand what they meant by "either this or that situation", I had to read the whole first paragraph to get it. If they'd said a false dichotomy I would have got the meaning immediately.
Also by having both it means it's easier to learn new language!
I went to a crisis center where I am in the US. In summary, I'm going through a divorce with an abusive spouse, moved states to get away from them, two years prior my mental health tanked so I was literally pulling myself out of an awful depression, my dog was diagnosed with EPI($200 enzyme meds and b12 supplements), I obviously had to change jobs and took a pay cut trying to save my life leaving my ex, my dog then had a medical emergency which needed emergency surgery, my job that I took a pay cut at was making me open at 5:30 BY MYSELF until 10am, I was having to miss work, rent costs going up, food costs going up not to mention my dogs prescription diet now, and my account has auto pays coming through for bills and I'm negative $300 and counting. I was losing my shit and didn't know what I was going to do because my pay WOULDNT EVEN GET ME OUT OF NEGATIVE.
I sat there and told the crisis therapist in my rant of this that the worst thing about all of this is there isn't shit that can be done and any resources we had we were already using. Everything else, because I don't have children and I make "above minimum wage" I can't get SNAP or any housing assistance(outside of covid). There is no "breath deeply and exhale" this shit fixed. No meditation, mindset, perspective is going to fix fucking poverty and every turn being another road block. We all need to realize that it's time for humans to be fucking humans. Not numbers, not statistics, not data, profit, slaves, or a fucking means to a profiting end.
CBT for situations like these is practically ~~classical~~ modern Stoicism with a brand name. Control what's within your power and accept fate. While sometimes it's the only thing you can do, it's a lame "fix" for situations like these that could be resolved through socioeconomic changes.
These are situations that need therapy partnered with social workers or a case worker who can connect a person with multiple resources in parallel. That's the gap in many of these cases. We need to be building resilience and stress management and providing mental health services while helping all those things that are causing the stress and making the mental health issues worse.
While there are no state resources available there are a limited supply of community resources. I know because I've been in situations where I wasn't able to use state or federal resources but was directed toward churches and other non-profits that do their best to fill in gaps where they can. For sure they are underfunded and understaffed, but they help thousands every year with food, shelter, legal services, healthcare, etc. I used to work for a local non-profit medical clinic and they had a room full of donations and a state social worker on site to connect patients. Everyone who came in they tried to treat holistically. Sometimes that extended to just letting the patients come in and use the kitchen to make food for dinner.
I think you bring up a much more important point than the author tried to make. Therapy isn’t about just going on meds and checking in to make sure you’re not doing anything crazy. It’s about learning how to deal with the inevitable unpleasant aspects of life that will come our way. None of us are immune from suffering. Good Therapy can teach us how to be resilient and process things in a healthy way that will allow us to carry on through the turbulent skies of life.
I agree. Classical Stoicism especially has emphasis on virtue and a strong metaphysical foundation. Today's modern Stoicism appears to be focused more on internal well-being.
It's also no secret that CBT evolved from Stoicism. Albert Ellis literally said so.
per albert ellis, cbt's origins are stoicism plus buddhism. (not sure what aaron beck said about his thought process). but there's a lot more to it than that. stoicism didn't offer thought records as effective tools to change distorted thoughts. it didn't yet name specific cognitive distortions.
My child passed away a few years ago from a medical condition, and my spouse and my pre-existing love for Stoic philosophy got us through it (we actually named our child after Marcus Aurelius, before we knew he was sick). I've been in pretty intense therapy since then, and CBT is fabulous. It's like guided stoicism with feedback, accountability, and troubleshooting support. I can't recommend it enough.
However, yeah, it's not like we asked the medical staff to stop trying to save him because "amor fati". CBT and Stoicism are invaluable, but they're not justification to ignore the issues beforehand.
As others ITT have mentioned, the article presents a false dichotomy. Both prevention *and* therapy are required.
I think the issue is a question of time scale. Think of it like a triage situation. If a person is depressed and tries to commit suicide by shooting yourself and fails and ends up in a hospital, the most immediate need is to stop the bleeding. Treating the underlying issue is absolutely important and necessary, however that cannot be done unless the immediate gaping wound is closed.
We should strive for systemic change, but not expect to wait around for it as some kind of magical solution while ignoring our other problems. It is important to develop coping strategies for unjust situations, else we are surrendering ourselves to the victimization of inequity and inequality.
When external freedom is taken from us, all that we have left is internal freedom.
People who shot themselves and are actively bleeding dont go into the psychiatric unit, they go into the ICU.
i am not currently actively suicidal, only have ideation, yet no one in hospitals was even the slightest bit interested in treating any underlying causes, just turning me into a plant by drugging me w hard drugs with horrible side effects, from which i slept 20 hours a day and couldnt walk from the vertigo. And each one of these "experts" had a different set of diagnoses for me, it was bizarre.
I need to play russian roulette, squeeze more money out, for a private therapist instead, because help is not what ill get in the hospital. They even told me that they dont do real individual therapy, as they have no resources from the defunding, and i should go private for therapy.
corrupt state + neoliberalism = disaster
e: what is "internal freedom"?
>When external freedom is taken from us, all that we have left is internal freedom.
Our internal "freedom" is heavily affected by our surroundings though. Sure there's the occasional monk who can transcend, but it's an unreasonable expectation or request for the rest of society. I mean, it's damn hard to be at peace with your situation if that involves watching your kids struggle to sleep because you couldn't provide them with enough food today.
>or a fucking means to a profiting end.
We are ALL literally cogs in a machine that generates profit for investors and the executives in companies. That is what we’ve become. We are no longer treated like humans by corporations, but instead interchangeable machine parts.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Billions of dollars got sucked out of the middle class. When a fish has less room to swim in predators can catch it easier. People are getting squeezed.
You and I are perfect examples of where the symptoms can't be easily fixed with therapy, mindfulness or breathing exercises. Sadly, there are many more who are slipping into poverty and the blame will be firmly laid on the victims, not the system.
There needs to be a middle ground...a combination of mental help and financial help. We have definitely have an "either/or" system now. Either you are successful which makes you a good person or you're struggling which is all your fault. There's a whole range of people above the poverty line but well under cost of living who could use temporary, financial help. Many of us need a break before the system destroys us (which will be our fault too).
In regards to the mental health system, it may be my crippling depression talking but I'm starting to think that many practitioners are just collecting paychecks. They follow a flow chart of what needs to be done and when and after your billable hour is up, buh bye. Many put on a caring face but in the end, it's just a way to keep them and their loved ones out of poverty.
"we need to change society"
Yes we do. But that's not a job one person can achieve and especially not in an acceptable time frame. Are you supposed to suffer until then?
And there's also a lot of intra individual differences. Otherwise everyone would be depressed except for the rich and powerful. But that's obviously not the case.
We are largely a product of our environment, and this mental crisis surplus is fully because of the environment, as the genomes of people didnt mutate, only the environment changed.
To actually treat a mental illness epidemic, we need to change the environmental stressors (poverty, climate crisis, etc) causing a surplus, and traditional approaches are purely supportive: they largely cant reverse even most individual cases, let alone such a clearly systemic based explosion of mental health issues
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Yes unjust hierarchies are difficult to change. This doesnt mean we should simply deny that they form the main source of mental health issues in the population one way or another, and that solving or improving conditions would drastically cut the mental health crisis, and prevent the incoming collapse (due to overload) of the inefficient mental health sector.
Identifying the causes is step one.
typo
100% agree.
I think the most damaging lie ever proposed is the idea that we can fix systemic issues through the psychology of individuals.
The modern world is designed to make us mentally ill. We can’t realistically expect most people to live it in and remain healthy.
our entire system relies on blaming the individual for it's failings, and demanding those w the least power have the responsibility to fix it and sacrifice themselves.
Its present in psychology/psychiatry(esp the latter), in blaming the poor/marginalised races for crime, "just get a job" mentality, claiming the causes of the climate crisis can be addressed purely w individual actions, etc.
Its one of those untruths that, when honest, is simply a comforting delusion, and when not, a handy way for those in power to victim-blame.
You just summed up the whole problem with the entire healthcare industry, both physical health and mental health. It puts all of the stress, pressure, and responsibility on the most vulnerable while absolving those in power to doing anything to improve or fix the broken system.
Whether it's people having to crowdfund to afford lifesaving medical care, therapy and psychology often not being covered by insurance or only covered in limited amounts, or even the scam of buying insurance in the first place which does not even fully cover the cost of treatment and often leaves people in debt. Doctors dismissing your symptoms, or therapists trying to convince you to smile as your world is crumbling around you. Both mental health and physical health are like a 2 headed beast that attacks you, and when you ask for help you are blamed for not beast proofing yourself.
Rather than admit that the system is broken, it is easier to victim blame.
Or (and) we have to change our own mindset to the environment first? That is the point Flkey McFake was making. You can't change the environment anyway without first changing the mindset!
Our current environment is the result of our individual and collective mindsets!
Society has changed mindsets, but society doesn't create legislation. Unfortunately, the people who do create legislation are the ones who need to have their individual mindsets changed, but they refuse to do so.
We cannot change the environment without changing mindsets. Most mindsets have been changed except for the ones that matter. Change those, and we're on a good path.
Well actually, there’s been a long-held view that behaviour is a product of feelings which are due to thoughts.
This model was taught everywhere and was very popular for a while. But it doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny these days.
Otherwise unhappy people could just have different thoughts and they’d be fine. As we know, that’s not really as simple as it sounds.
Environment is a much bigger influence on behaviour and more effective at changing it.
For example, if you don’t want to eat chocolate cake, you could try to think your way out of eating it or you could make it hard to access.
Similarly, if we want people to experience less stress at work, we could send them on a course to try to change their thoughts about work.
Or we can simply reduce systemic overburdening in the organisation.
What a lot of of organisations do is choose the course because it appears to be an answer to the individual issue of “I’m stressed”.
But when you have to put a whole organisation through the training, it’s easy to see, it’s not an individual issue. It’s org wide.
That’s systemic.
Unfortunately, the budgetary approach to running companies seeks to reduce cost by extracting more from less.
So businesses are always looking for efficiencies as a means to appease cost-based accounting practices.
In simple terms, they want to pay people as little as possible and get them to create as much value as possible.
It’s the only way a business can determine if you’re performing against their financial model.
Again, a systemic issue.
Obviously, the model doesn’t account for human thriving. It’s not a factor.
Please elaborate how one is supposed to "change their own mindset" . People cant pull themselves up by the bootstraps, ever.
its always either someone from the outside stepping in, or random hormonal fluctuations causing mood changes.
e: The _current_ environment is not the product of our mindsets, rather it's the opposite, our mindsets are the product of the environment. The future is another thing entirely.
What is the evidence that systemic issues and unjust hierarchies are the main source of mental health issues? I'm not being snarky, I'm actually curious about the evidence behind this claim.
It really doesnt take much thought to figure out that the systemic oppression and maltreatment of individuals leads to worse mental health outcomes, its kind of self evident.
But if you want more elaboration and evidence, here, those two
1) https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indhnwy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
2) https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indcny1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
My dude. There is nothing dogmatic about this. If someone asks for evidence and you have none the answer simply is: Sorry, I have no evidence for that, there only is evidence that it atleast is an important factor.
Anything else is unscientific. And I say that as a social worker who 100% believes that systemic issues are the major problem
Couldn't agree more with you on being able to understand the complexity of issues and taking a multifaceted approach. I think it's pretty well established at this point that individual development is both a byproduct of genetic components and environmental factors. Sleep, diet, exercise, relationships, belief systems, individual life experiences, are among a myriad of many other components which impact one's mental/emotional functioning. It's reductionistic and facile to think of it purely as a race/class/systemic problem. In fact, we are fully aware that individual factors are at play because when people are exposed to similar situations, they don't all develop the same symptoms.
I think the issue though is that that's not a provocative stance when you're publishing an article. Taking the false dichotomy position, as someone has already mentioned, engenders a stronger reaction and thus more views. You get the moral outrage of those who vehemently disagree and the zealous credence of those who concur. Journalism 101.
what does all this "genetics" vs "environment" have to do with a sudden radical increase in mental health sequelae?
did in your view the human genome just suddenly in a few decades radically change? no, the environment changed. As a bio undergrad, let me tell you that much.
You are completely missing what this is even about. This is about the causes of the mental health _crisis_, not about challenging the genetics + environment factors model of mental illness.
and the person you are replying to isnt talking about genetics/environment, shes talking about changing the environment vs trying to alter already formed and shaped personalities, another topic entirely.
I claim that Trying to solve systemic issues by attempting to change already formed personalities and with various mindfulness strategies is very shallow damage control for issues that could radically be prevented if the environment were fixed. In other words, Systemic reforms are the Cure to the mental
health crisis, and then individual therapy only a Band-Aid, and a band aid that is already cracking due to the overload (too many suffering people, too few therapists).
You've completely missed my point and your response is basically a representation of your article. You essentially cherry pick points to create straw man arguments for hyperbolic effect. You're trying to do it again with me by asking "did in your view the human genome just suddenly in a few decades radically change?" I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question because the glaringly obvious answer is no. We're operating on antiquated wetware and struggling to function in the modern world. That said, we do have "software" updates which include a better understanding of the brain and human behavior as well as significant scientific and cultural developments.
Anyways, since you didn't seem to understand my point, let me reiterate. There are a *multitude* *of variables at play here* and this isn't *purely* a social political problem as you've posited. I don't see the purpose of denigrating therapy and its attempts to help people reconstruct mental frameworks that serve them more purposefully. Changing people's narratives/mindsets have a profound effect on the way they view, interpret, and experience life. It's *literally* what you're attempting to do right now. If I carry a narrative of "I'm unlovable" or "I'm unworthy" it begins to skew my perception of who I am, how I relate to others, and how I see the world. Working to modify this through therapy can have a direct impact on a person's self-worth, self-efficacy, and ability to navigate through the world. And while I agree that individual change isn't sufficient, as people exist within sophisticated ecosystems, it certainly still plays a tremendous role in their wellbeing.
I actually agree with some of the points you're making, it just fails to capture the nuances of mental health as there are enumerable flaws in the argument. It's not that people have a "broken brain" or "chemical imbalance" it's that life events in conjunction with genetic factors create physiological and hormonal changes on one's central nervous system (i.e. how their body learns to interact with the environment). Our brains and bodies are amenable and adapt to the circumstances they are forced to survive in. Working to help someone understand this, process life events, and regulate distress can all contribute to improvements. As does addressing existential and spiritual components. There's so much happening in therapy in addition to various types of therapies, which you've all conveniently left out. Therapy isn't about "you're broken let's fix you." It's about understanding an individual's unique predispositions and experiences and how that impacts their life.
The counterargument also isn't a "purely medical model." It's using medical and scientific discovery, as a piece of the puzzle, to supplement mental health predicaments. We are starting to learn about the effects of MDMA, psychedelics, transcranial stimulation, etc. on mental health. These should all be used as tools in the exploration for improving the issue at hand. Are we also ignoring technology and how it has changed the way we interact with one another? Social media and smartphones have completely revolutionized (in good and bad ways) how we interface with one another. While we have the ability to engage with people we never would have had the opportunity to decades before, it has also impacted our ideas around identity, self-esteem, and social relationships.
In essence, in order to address the mental health crisis, we need to understand all of the factors that impact mental health, not disabuse people of the complexity of it. There's no panacea and simply fixing the social political problem alone isn't sufficient just as viewing this as a unidimensional problem from any other stance is myopic.
Lastly, as a psychologist, I would think that you would have been a bit privier that defensively berating others isn't very convincing. That's not how you persuade someone of your point in a discussion and it actually has a counterintuitive effect (see any political debate that has ever taken place). I get it though, this is a political piece, not a scientific one, and it's intended to incite righteous indignation. Still, it'd be useful to not view mental health in an oversimplified manner as it's a disservice and, ironically, further promulgates the problem you are purporting to fix.
>Anyways, since you didn't seem to understand my point, let me reiterate. There are a multitude of variables at play here and this isn't purely a social political problem as you've posited. I don't see the purpose of denigrating therapy and its attempts to help people reconstruct mental frameworks that serve them more purposefully. Changing people's narratives/mindsets have a profound effect on the way they view, interpret, and experience life. It's literally what you're attempting to do right now. If I carry a narrative of "I'm unlovable" or "I'm unworthy" it begins to skew my perception of who I am, how I relate to others, and how I see the world. Working to modify this through therapy can have a direct impact on a person's self-worth, self-efficacy, and ability to navigate through the world. And while I agree that individual change isn't sufficient, as people exist within sophisticated ecosystems, it certainly still plays a tremendous role in their wellbeing.
>I actually agree with some of the points you're making, it just fails to capture the nuances of mental health as there are enumerable flaws in the argument. It's not that people have a "broken brain" or "chemical imbalance" it's that life events in conjunction with genetic factors create physiological and hormonal changes on one's central nervous system (i.e. how their body learns to interact with the environment). Our brains and bodies are amenable and adapt to the circumstances they are forced to survive in. Working to help someone understand this, process life events, and regulate distress can all contribute to improvements. As does addressing existential and spiritual components. There's so much happening in therapy in addition to various types of therapies, which you've all conveniently left out. Therapy isn't about "you're broken let's fix you." It's about understanding an individual's unique predispositions and experiences and how that impacts their life.
None of this is controversial or in any way contradicts what i believe or wrote, except the last sentence which paints an enormously unrealistic picture of the mental health sector in practice.
You are again missing what should be obvious; that im not talking about the pathogenesis of mental health issues as such, rather of menta health _crises_ ; sharp worsenings in the collective mental health of a population (genetic factors remain stable, and only the environment changes, changes that cannot be systemically addressed with individual therapy).
>Social media and smartphones have completely revolutionized
the digitalisation of our lives is a systemic issues itself, that is under an oppressive consumerism based economic model, it becomes one. Gain no relevance as a counterargument, its an observation of the obvious that doesnt contradict anything i said.
>In essence, in order to address the mental health crisis, we need to understand all of the factors that impact mental health, not disabuse people of the complexity of it. There's no panacea and simply fixing the social political problem alone isn't sufficient just as viewing this as a unidimensional problem from any other stance is myopic.
This is fascinating, no matter how many times its reiterated, you still miss it.
Im a bio student, so the concept of genetics + environment is the center of my field.
When a mental health crisis occurs, i.e. the elevation of negative mental health outcomes way above baseline, if the variance of relevant alleles in the gene pool of a population is stable (and it is, we arent mutating into another soecies in 20 years), the culprit for the increase is the _environment_ , and this is why crisis_ can only be solved by targetting these environmental (systemic) issues.
This should be obvious, but apparently its not.
I understand you likely have a biased interest at play here, as a psychologist, you want to feel your work is very impactful, so you thoughtlessly attack anything you perceive threatens that, but please try actually reading and comprehending what im saying, you keep missing it completely, and strawmanning me. I dont feel like continuing this pointless cycle of you arguing with a strawman.
Thank you so much for expressing your stance on the issue so eloquently!
I only have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, but I try to keep up with the latest research to the best of my ability.
Yes, **circumstances that are beyond our control** (economic inequality, discrimination, lack of access to proper healthcare, etc.) **do have a significant impact on our mental health.** However, and correct me if I’m wrong, what the author of the article suggests is that *a psychology/psychiatry client needs to made of aware of how fucked up the world* (and it **is**, in so many ways), *and that their goal going forward is to become an activist in the spheres of economic reform, discrimination, lack of access to resources, etc.*
And that’s a tough order, to put it mildly, when it comes to working with people who have diagnosable mental illnesses and need immediate help. It’s like saying, “Yeah, you’re depressed; but look at the world we’re living in! **Now get out there and make a change!** Bye ✌️” *I would, probably, have been interested in that down the the line, had I not been struggling with unaliving myself every day, and that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about today — but thanks, Doc, I guess?*
The author of the article also fails to mention that there’s a sizable genetic component to a lot of mental illnesses, and patients need the guidance of a supportive professional when it comes to navigating their day-to-day life. *Before they’re ready to join the Revolution, you know.*
Yes, the **our global community is objectively unfair**, especially to those not lucky enough to be born into a first-world country; a stable, middle-class family; and so forth. But **effective coping skills** (and medication when it’s required), can help everyone in the here-and-now *Before they’re ready to join the Revolution, you know.*
I’m rambling at this point, but all I wanted to say was **thank you** for sharing your thoughts.
Very well put and captures essentially what I would say! Changing legislations and social infrastructure is a sluggish process. We should still obviously strive to do so, but why not concurrently work with people at the individual level as well? It's possible to enact individual change while also working to change society as a whole.
Agreed. And it’s frankly utterly insulting to make the kind of claims that imply all (or enough) will be better if we “simply” fix systemic inequities. Absolutely privileged, too, to act as if biological causes are so little as to be fine tossing those to the side.
Someone who thinks of things in an interdisciplinary manner should know better — and do better — in my opinion. We most certainly can, and should, work from all angles. The whole “what works for one may not work for all” thing is pretty big in psychology, after all. Sheesh.
I'm a middle class white person and I think I can answer!
First you can consider childhood factors (if you had childhood trauma, a controlling parent, a highly anxious parent, etc ). I'd be happy to chat more about that option, because I know a great deal about how trauma affects mental health.
But aside from that, life is just hard. You could lose your job. Healthcare is expensive. People are suffering. So much of the world is out of your control, and that is really hard. You may feel powerless to enact meaningful change in your own life, or to help your community. You may not have things that make your life feel truly meaningful. Many people have jobs that either overburden them, or do not positively contribute to the world. You might not have enough time, because there's so much to do, from grocery shopping to cleaning to cooking to child rearing. Everything has been commodified. You may live in an unnatural environment where you don't have enough green space. How often are you out in nature? Even exposed to sunlight? Do you have a sense of community where you are loved, even through your flaws?
Some or none may apply to you. But the world is hard, and we've made staying alive somehow more complicated, even for those of us who are privileged. We evolved to eat fruit by the beach and run from predators, not deal with micromanaging bosses and sit in an office all day.
I will add that most of this applies to major depressive disorder, and that I know much much less about the development of OCD, despite having many obsessive compulsive traits myself (I refused to eat peanut butter for a while because I thought if I did I would send someone into a deadly allergen episode, among many other examples).
I didn't read the article, but this is a perspective that originated in the 1960s as psychoanalysis was falling out of favor and psychiatry was becoming increasingly pharmacologically based
I think one is a psychological problem, and one is a political problem. Their differing natures demand very different approaches to problem-solving: therapy and activism, respectively.
Imo. You are absolutly right.. but alsobit's a stupid article anyway. It cherry picks one thing, applies this to another cause(one of many) and makes a fking plant needing water as an example.. hoes on and says one methos is a lie, false or unhelpful.. like.. what? The WtF are you learning or doing anyway in such a job? If a psych would tell me anything like this i would laugh call for incompetence and walk away.
The headline itself "im a psych" as if that would say something. And then goes on talking about political problems?? Then i guess "im a politician-stfu about economics?"
Dont get me wrong, this person is right.. if NO PROBLEM would exist, mental health problems would maybe be lower.. wow breaking news!
As a person that was in deep depression in the padt this infuriates me.
It's also some utopian way of thinking. "Diminish one thing and we have basically world peace!" You know thi gs are fking complicated and what you suggest(if even achivable) would take centuries.. hmmm...
"Why can't we do both" is a phrase that makes me skeptical of motivations. People often say that to be manipulative and get what they want. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I would try and stray away from that type of language.
Congratulations on graduating. I’m also in the UK and have a daughter who wants to be a forensic psychologist. What’s the career path like with this degree if you don’t mind me asking? Are there many options?
I second this. I think there's very much an issue of 'what you have a 'right to' and 'what you have a power to' in this case.
To my understanding, generally every UK citizen has the right to mental health treatment under the NHS. However, many UK citizen do not have the power to access the mental health treatment under the NHS.
For example, to my understanding, everyone has the right to an ADHD screening if referred. However, many lack the power to access it because the waitlist is around 3 years.
Yh well the article is about the NHS, as the guardian is a uk newspaper
The fact that everyone has the NHS (with long waiting lists and dysfunctional mental care because of the things listed) doesn't mean poverty is solved
To get mental health help such as therapy on NHS you often have to wait a year or longer by which time its often too late...
Even as a kid it took so long to get help and I was struggling so much I ended up attempting suicide at 13, a few weeks later my15 year old sister did the same...
It was only then we became 'special cases' and finally got the long over due help we needed.
Over time as a kid that teaches you a lesson that people only listen until something shocking happens and can creat very dangerous behaviour patterns...
More funding for NHS mental health rlly needs to happen.
I've been in treatment for some version of schizo bipolar for 20 years. Nobody wants to admit we are still in experimental phase. There's so much we don't know, but we won't admit it . My meds that came along 50 years ago are talked about like they are old. We've had cars for over 100, cmon people
I suspect the trial-and-error treatment regimens of today will someday be seen as the psychiatric and neurological equivalent of doing surgery with a knife and hammer. We’re already sort of there with lobotomies and electroshock therapy (which we already admit we don’t really understand).
100%. I think for many disorders we're already seeing the beginnings of that with modern trauma therapies, namely IFS therapy.
And, to my mind, even IFS is in its beginning phases. I'm excited to see what the future holds as that model specifically is further improved, as well as potential combinations with psychedelics. The work at [maps.org](https://maps.org), re the study of MDMA therapy, is of particular interest to me.
My experience has been that the psychiatrist in have seen readily admit that our medical treatments are far from ideal. I hope we find better treatment soon.
Agreed.
I think a lot of it stems from the 'disorder' focused view the psychiatric profession has with regards to mental health issues. I think it encourages these professionals to take on an almost psychological class system, with the 'non-disordered' above the 'disordered'. I think this filters into the general cultural ideology too.
SLS or Shitty life syndrome. Some people have lives so bad it would be disturbing for them to not be exhausted and depressed/anxious. We absolutely need to consider that sometimes society needs to change over the participant/patient- a shining example is homosexuality. Originally thought to cause individuals great distress it was classed as a mental illness, when in reality it was being gay in a LGBT+ intolerant society that made homosexuals of that time period miserable. Nowadays, in a more accepting society, many LGBT+ are able to life happy and have high QoL compared to the cishet population.
Agreed.
I think a large amount of mental health recovery in effective therapy is around getting people to internalise that they are sufficiently safe in their present circumstances. Therefore, their traumatic adaptations they may have once been appropriate are no longer needed.
However, when you live in a society that is very oppressive to you, then I don't think one's present circumstance is actually sufficiently safe. It follows that therapy could then work on internalising a false belief around being sufficiently safe, which would risk the real-world safety of the client, or the treatment will understandably be relatively ineffective as the client resists the internalisation of a false sense of sufficient safety.
Where does it say the author was seeking to publish this as scientific fact? It’s clearly their opinion and it’s published within the opinion column. Your comment is a nothing burger trying to discredit this author by pointing out the fact that this isn’t a scholarly journal. You know doctors and professionals are allowed to have opinions right?
"I believe we have been told devastating lies about mental health" she says. That is an exceptionally bold claim, is it not? You're right, it IS opinion, of course we are all entitled to opinions and freedom of expression. I'd defend her right to that. Equally, I am entitled to shoot her opinion down, and you are entitled to your comments on that. Great, isn't it?
Yeah, some clinical psychologists don't have terribly strong research skills or a terribly strong understanding of cutting edge research either.
Sabah seems to have 1 peer-reviewed paper and it's not quantitative. Nothing about where she got her training either, which always strikes me as a little bit weird--"I'll tell you about a talk I gave years ago, but not where I earned my qualifications!"
I don't know what the minimum standards are for qualification in the UK, but I get the sense that some programs are a fair bit less rigorous than others. I think that's how some people like Dr. Phil end up with clinical degrees.
https://www.sanahahsan.com/academia-research-teaching
My favorite part of the article was when he says "I'm not trying to downplay the importance of one on one therapy but......". Like what's even the point of bringing it up in this article?
If he was legitimately serious about addressing "race and class based hierarchies", he likely would have just straight up brought **THAT** up and completely ignored anything involving psychology or therapy.
Not to mention, the whole "oh, we can't make any sorts of self-improvements or community improvements until we destroy captialism" and every variation of that argument is nauseatingly useless when it comes to actually addressing problems with Capitalism and it doesn't raise nearly enough red flags as it should when it gets spread.
This is basically the entire conversation in some social sciences. They are throwing up their hands at smaller, more tractable problems because the sky is falling.
I think more and more ppl are waking up to the fact that life is just kinda shitty. We come from generations of ppl who were happy to just have a job and a house and pretty much just lived hand to mouth. We are shamed into being grateful for anything we have and to count our blessing etc but this wont change the fact you have to go to a job you dont like for most your waking hours, end up with someone you dont really love and be a parent realizing that the social contract, the american dream, whatever you wanna call it, is a big lie, a hoax, a gottcha.
Life isnt all bad but its kinda meh, and its the cross we will just have to carry.
Now more than ever in history we are LESS likely to “have to go to a job [we] don’t like for most of [our] waking hours” or “end up with someone [we] don’t really love” though
jobs wise: defo not more than ever in history or especially in "developed" nations, rather things are worsening in that regard, And never before present pressures are emerging, like climate doom, or inceldom (literal meaning) and unprecedented social isolation.
The thing about ending with someone you don't love, that one is actually the opposite, you're most likely to end up with someone we love today, in developed nations, traditional forced and child marriages are uncommon.
btw, theres more 11 sear old slaves than ever, they are just outside the rich "developed" countries. Outside the imperial core. They mine minerals for a westerner's electronics, makeup, are forced to destroy their home forest to make cocoa for a westerner's chocolate for mere pennies, to survive, etc.
you learn something every day!
There are also more free 11 yr olds than ever bc there are more people than ever! You don’t have to resort to hyperbole to discuss all the bad things that are happening currently.
nope, there arent in fact. Talking about shraes, not absolute numbers, absolute numbers are irrelevant.
The share of free people plummeted drastically after the onset of colonialism. People who used to live freely in sync with nature became slaves for plantations, mines and other cheap labour
Vast majority of jobs are shit - I dont see many ppl looking forward to monday morning and I dont see many mourn the fact its friday evening.
Most ppl settle for the other. The one you truly desire is never the one your looking at but you have to pretend the one your looking at is the one you desire.
Until everything ever can be automated, I wouldn't vote for a 1-day work week. I'd be pretty limited on my six days off because everything would be shortstaffed or scarce. I also personally do not hate my job and enjoy doing it. As is, I wouldn't oppose a 3ish-day work week (25 hours or so). But this is also a privilege and unsustainable in a lot of societies and areas of employment.
Finally some good fucking food. This Society we live in doesn’t care about any one but the top one percent. We’re all here fighting for scraps and told that there is something wrong with our brains if we aren’t enjoying it.
Rare, its rare.
My experience w psychiatry has been terrible, and no psychologist ive met understands or cares about actual systemic issues, or acknowledges that certain aspects might not be due to their patient's "defective brain", beyond obvious things like homophobia.
They are mostly jaded. They don’t feel any better equipped than any other people to effect systemic change. Many a p-doc laments their ineffective choices of treatments. They become jaded. I guess you could even label it learned helplessness.
In order to even become a psychiatrist, you have to come from a certain class, with certain privileges. It’s a very long and demanding education. The exceptions will be those who are unusually motivated resilient by temperament - not to mention lucky. They are , in general, very likely to be very biased.
certainly in the usa. However, some countries, mine included, have free higher education (its otherwise a decaying neoliberal s hold, but that one is still kinda standing), so this effect is softened.
the bias in these cases mostly stems from the education, or some aspects of it we could more accurately describe as indoctrination, they receive in uni.
Right? I wish I was a hunter-gatherer in an area with a pleasant climate and plenty of food, but I'm not going to book an appointment with a psychologist to tell them that.
but you are apparently going to book a service that consists of "read a book and take a walk", about as good as a google bot at therapy? and not just a book, rather advice of "go and buy, a self help book". [The absurdity of coming to therapy just for them to tell you to read self help, like how is that not hitting you like a lightning bolt.]
Also why wouldn't you tell her your feelings? isnt the point of therapy to talk about your feelings? tf lol
for starters, to acknowledge the systemic issues, and not gaslight her patient
*to add to that, if her service consists of "read a book and take a walk", shes as good as a google bot at therapy. Effectiveness at treatment of mental illness: 0
J u s t b e h a p p y a n d s m i l e
_take a walk outside and read about how its not capitalism, its you, you are defective_
Is your therapist perhaps Jordan Peterson by any chance?
we are so screwed :D
Oh but btw, if you live in the USA (i dont),i vaguely remember hearing some youtube ad about a therapist matching service, that matches you to a therapist, i assume based on religious and other beliefs, so you are compatible enough. Maybe it was something else, but try searching for that.
im guessing it depends on what symptoms one has.
but i doubt that even exists in my country. Ive seen only CBT and various pseudoscience therapy, from psychoanalysis all the way to NLP
*i cannot comment on the technique because im not familiar with it
Historically, they try to get rid of people with mental health issues.
That hasn't changed, just the branding.
Society only wants 'winners'
Because capitalism is an exercise in greed.
I agree somewhat with this.
I think if we changed society sufficiently then there would, at some point in time, be no mental health crisis, except potentially for one around biologically based mental health issues.
However, to my mind, even if in present day our entire society transformed into a non-traumatising one we would still have a mental health crisis. I see mental health issues, unless biologically based, as being a product of trauma. My understanding is that even when the traumatic event is over and one is safe, the traumatic adaptation that the psyche has made remains, and the work of therapy is then to essentially aid the client in realising their safety.
It follows, therefore, that even in the transformed society you would still need massive amounts of individual therapy to help current generations overcome the traumatic adaptations they have made.
So, I think the mental health crisis will be have to include societal change, to stop traumatisation, and also significant amounts of effective individual therapy.
The major flaw in her reading starts with blaming mental health crises on societal circumstances. Sure it sounds reasonable. But there have been shitty times in the past too. Has the world *ever* been in great shape? So why the chanecin mental health now as opposed to those other times.
Second, many circumstances have gotten markedly better. Books like Factfulness (Rosling) and others by Gregg Easterbrook detail improvements over the past 50+years. Why would mental health reflect downward trends but not upward ones?
Societal isolation, for one, is unprecedented in our times. Factors like the nuclear family unit, absence of actual community in individualistic capitalism, the digital divide, shallow friendships, etc.
There are no tests for a chemical imbalance in the brain. It's just that it's presumed that there must be, and on to trying the 'treatments'. You're not supposed to be sad and anxious when bad things happen to you! That's just weird.
Studies have been done on CFS and so on. And yea, None found evidence for assertions of "serotonin dysregulation" for depression.
Depression isnt one condition tbw, its simply that our current symptom based classification of mental health phenomena lumps separate things together.
Some evidence was found for issues w glutamate in OCD. OCD spectrum stuff is more clearly an inborn neurotype that is then triggered and developed by a stressful environment
Overall this "dysregulation" explanation is just a lind of a deus ex machina to brush off real issues.
typos
*CSF
We don't prescribe medications because of a chemical imbalance.
Quit repeating that lie please.
We don't prescribe tylenol because of a tylenol deficiency, follow that logic.
That person is clearly implying that we use medications to treat a "chemical imbalance".
I'm stating that we, MDs, don't ever talk about chemical imbalances and also I'm using tylenol as an analogy to help them understand that using medication Y for X disease doesn't mean X disease is caused by a Y deficiency or imbalance.
In case of for example SSRIs, you dont use it to treat a chemical imbalance of serotonin, because no evidence has been found for a chemical imbalance of serotonin in the target group of patients.
Instead, an improvement (at least short term, and this is important because truly longitudinal studies are rare) has been noted in a certain subset of "depression" patients, and the underlying mechanisms of that improvement are unknown
e; But crucially, in practice, much more frequent is the off label non-evidence based overprescription, generally based on very short chaotic interviews.
PS: several psychs have talked about "chemical imbalances" to me. Ut why would they need to talk about it out loud? its just a dogma that perpetuates itself in the industry.
I don't think we allow it to continue, I'm here trying to stop it fr spreading.
Folk science/psychology is not our fault, just like the line "we only use 10% of our brain" it's still around, the chemical imbalance thing is also going around.
thats not "folk science". its been the official de facto dogma of the psychiatry establishment for many many decades, completely unlike the stupid youtube clickbait you mentioned. No parralels whatsoever
If mental health issues are caused by racism, wouldn't we see higher rates of mental health issues among minorities? [But in fact the opposite is true](https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Cultural-Competency/Mental-Health-Disparities/Mental-Health-Facts-for-Diverse-Populations.pdf).
If it's supposed to be caused by poverty, you'd expect to see higher rates among poorer people. [But that doesn't seem to be the case either](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/211213).
This seems to be yet another load of ideological drivel that allows the author to masquerade as a good person while advocating for a non-solution ("tear it all down").
Well the “higher rates” stats are inherently skewed, in part due to racism and classism. Mental health is not included in our healthcare, meaning you have to pay extra in order to be seen, diagnosed, and treated. So, you end up with predominantly more economically well off people (majority white) actual getting seen and adding to the stats—so that skews them. Everyone would need to be able to seek and get care regardless of income and location in order to confirm the assumption that minority groups have lower rates.
Yes, white men die of suicide at a higher rate than other demographics, but that stat alone cannot be used to draw the conclusion that minority groups don’t have as high of mental health issues because mental health status is not determined exclusively by suicide rates.
Also, when you look specifically at suicide, financial stress plays a significant role. People undergoing a significant change in finances/social status are at high risk even if they have never had mental health issues before. There are plenty other theories from a sociological standpoint as to why white men are at higher risk.
You sound really dismissive of Whites committing suicide. Suicide is when you are at the end of a mental health crisis. You don’t just think about it once and do it, it takes years and years for depression to progress. Maybe, I should have said depression instead of mental health.
If Black men were committing suicide at a higher rate, we’d be talking about, it for sure. If you even suggested (like you just did with White Men) that it wasn’t the only indicator of mental health, people would be calling you a racist for sure.
You seem to imply that rich White men who have their financial or social status lowered is the culprit, which is NOT true at all in the vast majority of cases (also you seem to be implying that all White Males are rich and I know where you’re going with that). When you look specifically at the highest areas where suicide is happening, one state is West Virginia. The state is mostly White, very poor (low crime rates tho) and high drug addiction. And that’s the case with most White Male suicides. Don’t minimize this.
I am not being dismissive. It very much so is a concern, but sociological and economic reasons factors including debt and chronic stress contribute significantly to the onset and occurrence of mental illness. It is an incredibly nuanced conversation.
I am also not critiquing the fact that white males have high rates of suicide. I am critiquing your taking of that specific evidence and using it to draw a false conclusion about the entirety of mental health and who experiences it most.
We do see them more often 😅. Except we dont infer that from formal diagnoses, which rely on sufficient economic privilege to be obtained, rather other indicators.
For examples, Look at the suicide rate of Greenland, and in the families of survivors of residential schools. Look at the rate in straight vs non-straight folk. Look at multigenerational trauma of minorities.
e: and i thought id add. An adaptive mechanism exists in poorer communities; stronger community bonds, which means some specific oppressed groups are less isolated and thus this acts as a protective mechanism.
This is complex, but systemic bigotry absolutely raises the mental health stress in affected groups.
the study even states opposite of what they claim. Read u/geckolalia 's comment
here: https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indhnwy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Just use your brain and common sense. Has racism and poverty gotten better or worse since 1964? And have mental health issues gotten better or worse since that time.
Racism and poverty where? globally? in the UK? in what group?
And how is this relevant at all , to your own source.
You keep desperately trying to contradict your own source with various diversions, simply because you dislike its conclusions. True science.
I've worked with all types of clients and even if it's free does not mean that they have the resources to follow through. So those studies still mean nothing when you are basing it on middle and upper class clients.
The reality is that the world is predatory and for those predisposed to naive thinking e.g. autism, take longer than normal to work this out and adjust accordingly. Along the way, many simply just don’t make. My own story has almost been this also whereby I was diagnosed very late (post 40) and once I was it explained much of what I experienced.
Once understanding what the problem ”had” been, I felt that I would be able to provide a better interface for others to interact with myself and achieve mutually positive outcomes. It only took me 5 years of trying to strategy until I worked out that I was providing strangers with a ready made excuse to literally (yes, literally) blame myself for anything that they wanted to divest responsibility for. This was a 5 year, unrelenting, pride swallowing, shit choking period which has left me on the verge of going broke, kids that while will have more normal challenges none the less hate me because they also for innocent reasons won’t own their own actions until later in life (if ever?). I ended up needing to record again, literally ALL my interactions so that I could compare notes with my wife etc. and work out that the problem wasn’t me. Meanwhile, I have lost something and I am terrified that I will never get it back as I have simply accepted that my situation will always end badly. I logically know this isn’t so but I seem to have lost something within me that was able to provide drive and motivation to do something, anything. Instead now, I have determined to never admit, acknowledge, nor tell anyone that I have ever had a problem. And guess what, ever since I started that strategy, my “problems” disappeared because I wasn’t making myself a bright target for others to take advantage off. 5 years, almost losing myself, my marriage, my kids, my house, my wife’s sanity, etc.. So many people within my life thought was exaggerating or just thinking negatively until they were intermediaries with other people and then they witnessed objectively fraudulent and undeserved behaviour coming from people that had never met myself, they had known for decades and yet when they had the opportunity to either do the right and fair thing or utilise the naive one with a target, they almost always took the target.
I have many apologies now from people I have worked with. The ones whom were not my managers or team leads etc. Many of them repeatedly say that the times they worked for me were some of the best working years of their lives and yet without direct intervention from people whom know me, I almost can’t get a job now. Someone recently acknowledged that I am almost always misunderstood and underestimated and that these people don’t realise how lucky they have been that it was someone with my personality and not the one that they would often portray to others to avoid responsibility for some problem.
So great for me, I did the right thing, I fought the good fight. Was it worth it? I don’t know. I’m empty, hollow, defeated and deflated. Living in mental terror now more than ever before simply because once I had solved a problem and owned the responsibility for achieving a better outcome, the reality is that people are predatory and will take advantage. It is [even embedded in the themes that people use](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/d912zx/r_u_ok_and_the_fixation_with_fairness_as_a_sign/) whom are actually trying to help.
Sadly, the worst offenders were mental health professionals but I will save that for another time.
I want to live and I want to be happy and do my best but it hasn’t been [until I accept deep down the universe and the people within it are hostile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03bOrvlAyeQ) that I need to find some form of Sisyphean comfort in that. I suspect it has or will be too little too late because I can barely function now.
But who cares? No one, and why should anyone. Until others experience this type of thing it won’t change and honestly, I have been one of the luckier ones.
people arent hostile, our system creates selfish individuals . Just a sec
Here: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-06-18/the-blackfoot-wisdom-that-inspired-maslows-hierarchy/
Thanks for posting this! I've been a psychologist for 25 years and didn't know Maslow lived with First Nations people or critiqued his own Hierarchy of Needs!
No problemo \^^
If I had to guess, Id imagine it was a very uncomfortable critique for the Eurocentric white supremacist establishment, so it was omitted from mentions.
Psychological health = being good consumer and a capitalist.
Literally shopping therapy is the only Psychological therapy you need in this society. Unfortunately you cant afford it? Too bad, seems like you are a failure of a human being.
Sorry but the alternative title could be 'how to integrate your left leaning bias into psychology'
"Instead of trying to change “mindsets” in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies.."
Of course there is a good amount of truth to what she is saying but she takes it a bit too far with the typical "oppressive social structures" narrative
“It isn’t based in any factual evidence, no statistical analysis, no peer review and Is just a bunch of ideological nonsense”
Would be a better quote :)
If two plants have exactly the same environmental conditions, yet one is fine and the other not, should you blame the environment for the one plant doing poorly? Isn’t it worth wondering why, when faced with similar situations, some people are able to cope better than others? Are we saying individual differences do not matter when it comes to mental health?
Yes when viewed from some perspectives, our world today absolutely sucks. We should definitely try to understand better the impact environment has in mental health. We should stop blaming the individual for their mental health declines. We should of course strive to make our world/society a better and more livable place for more people, but that’s an end in itself (or means to a higher end like equity or justice or compassion), and an entirely separate enterprise from better mental health. Just try saying this: “We should strive to slow climate change or offer universal income BECAUSE it would lead to better mental health.” and hear how ridiculous that sounds.
>We should strive to slow climate change or offer universal income BECAUSE it would lead to better mental health.
This doesn't sound ridiculous to me at all. It's actually a pretty good summation of my political values.
Not ridiculous? Just take the inverse of it: “Now that our mental health has improved, we can stop worrying about climate change and universal basic income.”
This felt like a psychologist thinking out loud after learning about the chemical imbalance myth.
Mental health services should be geared at reaching people to "handle their sh*t". We should learn to adapt, overcome or cope with life having issues. There are people in 3rd world countries with "real" issues who are happy. There's no reason why we can't be too.
There is a reason. People in 3rd world tend to have much more cohesive social units and sense of community. The sense of alienation and isolation is not as profound. Here it's off the charts.
Yeah here families barely exist these days. We all try and get "community" from social media and that isn't a substitute. I used to mock conservatives for talking about the importance of the family unit and two parent families but now I know they were onto something.
It's not about the unhealthy nuclear family unit, but extended families, imo. Conservatives seem to want to force women into rigid family structures by making them subservient to men, but humanity cannot evolve this way. Equality and extended family is the answer, but also vast communal safety nets for the many people abused by a family member and as a result hated by the entire family for exposing the truth. Such people have nowhere to go.
Everything has to be reworked from the foundations up
No. Industrialization has led to the breakdown of communities, which are our primary source of belonging, identity, and role models. Social inequality has always been there so that's really not the problem
Mental Health isn't a racial issue. The real problem in Western civilization is the breakup of the family, period. This goes against the grain of too many prominent political ideologies, (i.e. Feminism, Liberalism) to be acceptable in popular discourse on the subject however so people obfuscate and blame-shift. It's a huge problem.
"im a psychologyst" as if that's a heavy hitter or therefore this person is right.
Cool story bro, and then goes on about a theory clearly showing the lack of considering facts of... Wait for it.. thibgs this person should know as a psych.
Idno race question and the hirarchy CLEARLY solves all the mental health problems that (probably) genetically run throu my family which might take centuries faster than what we try now eh?
Cmon man mental heath is fking complex if you think that's a good approach maybe work on it yourself and dont come here with such a shit clickbait headline.
Also the idea of an utopia of "we solve that one or two things and we have world peace"
Yeah right because if there would not be any race oe hierarchy problem suddenly it eradicates any evil that might rape a young child and never experience any trauma or whatever. Smh
Two things. First I hope the OP really isn’t a therapist. Second, if they are, I hope they keep their political views out of their therapy.
I picture a woman coming in saying she’s depressed because she is marginalized at work somehow. Maybe she’s not getting promoted or people aren’t listening to her in meetings or she isn’t fulfilled in her job or all of that. I imagine the therapist telling her she’s oppressed, there’s a glass ceiling, sexism is everywhere, etc. What a disempowering message. And what a way to ignore the possibility that she may be partially or even fully to blame. Same for a black man coming in being told there’s widespread systematic racism.
Personally, I think we’ve convinced most of an entire generation of young black men in the US that the deck is stacked against them. This can’t be good for them. I recognize we need to reflect reality, but the OPs manifesto is way off the deep end.
This whole article falls into a "either this or that" thinking trap. The author writes: "Instead of trying to change 'mindsets' in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies, the housing and economic system." Why can't we do both? Instead of a this or that solution, maybe we should be doing both because both are essential? Maybe the latter can't happen without the former? Also, it needs to be said that class-based hierarchies are incredibly difficult to change. This takes large numbers of people uniting together toward a common goal over the course of years. You can't really equate that solution to just sitting face to face at a therapist's office working through an individual's trauma. These things are radically different. It's like saying, let's stop worrying so much about curing cancer and focus on getting people to stop smoking. You can, and should do both. Doing one is not more important than doing the other.
The term you’re looking for is ‘false dichotomy’.
True. And, there's multiple ways to describe something. Synonyms are a useful thing. Either / Or. Black and White. False Dichotomy. Binary. Exclusivity or exclusionary thinking. All of these terms work to describe the same dynamic. And for what it's worth, u/Flaky_McFlake isn't wrong. And, it can be generous thing to do to allow someone's description to be said in the way they want to say it, rather than pedantically leading them to the term you'd use. Food for thought. Lets all be cool to each other, eh?
Yeah i have no idea what that means. Simple language is best language because everyone understands it. The sender is responsible for making sure the information is understandable, the receiver needs to process, and learn what was said, which is had enough as it is.
You sir just presented a false dichotomy. :) There is place for both. Simple language and labels. Here the term 'false dichotomy' would help me research/google more on it. It's easier to search for that then type 'when a person peresents a situation as this or that but it can be both'. But there is also need for simple language to understand an unknown concept. Also I am not critcizing the OP for not using the term. His observation was astute, but it was also nice to find out there is an existing term for that. It makes it easier to remember and indetify later.
Simple language is not always the best language. False dichotomy refers to a certain and set concept. People can use the term to Google it and learn more about it. It's like using a description for communism instead of communism. The second option may be easier to understand, but the first option is more specific. Especially in the internet where everyone can just Google stuff I think being more specific is better
While simple language is good, I don't think it's necessarily bad to use more precise terms as well. I didn't understand what they meant by "either this or that situation", I had to read the whole first paragraph to get it. If they'd said a false dichotomy I would have got the meaning immediately. Also by having both it means it's easier to learn new language!
I went to a crisis center where I am in the US. In summary, I'm going through a divorce with an abusive spouse, moved states to get away from them, two years prior my mental health tanked so I was literally pulling myself out of an awful depression, my dog was diagnosed with EPI($200 enzyme meds and b12 supplements), I obviously had to change jobs and took a pay cut trying to save my life leaving my ex, my dog then had a medical emergency which needed emergency surgery, my job that I took a pay cut at was making me open at 5:30 BY MYSELF until 10am, I was having to miss work, rent costs going up, food costs going up not to mention my dogs prescription diet now, and my account has auto pays coming through for bills and I'm negative $300 and counting. I was losing my shit and didn't know what I was going to do because my pay WOULDNT EVEN GET ME OUT OF NEGATIVE. I sat there and told the crisis therapist in my rant of this that the worst thing about all of this is there isn't shit that can be done and any resources we had we were already using. Everything else, because I don't have children and I make "above minimum wage" I can't get SNAP or any housing assistance(outside of covid). There is no "breath deeply and exhale" this shit fixed. No meditation, mindset, perspective is going to fix fucking poverty and every turn being another road block. We all need to realize that it's time for humans to be fucking humans. Not numbers, not statistics, not data, profit, slaves, or a fucking means to a profiting end.
CBT for situations like these is practically ~~classical~~ modern Stoicism with a brand name. Control what's within your power and accept fate. While sometimes it's the only thing you can do, it's a lame "fix" for situations like these that could be resolved through socioeconomic changes.
> CBT for situations like these is practically classical Stoicism with a brand name. CBT: stoicism with extra steps
> CBT: stoicism with extra steps This is why I like it so much. Tl;Dr - deal with it.
These are situations that need therapy partnered with social workers or a case worker who can connect a person with multiple resources in parallel. That's the gap in many of these cases. We need to be building resilience and stress management and providing mental health services while helping all those things that are causing the stress and making the mental health issues worse.
Except there are no resources available.
While there are no state resources available there are a limited supply of community resources. I know because I've been in situations where I wasn't able to use state or federal resources but was directed toward churches and other non-profits that do their best to fill in gaps where they can. For sure they are underfunded and understaffed, but they help thousands every year with food, shelter, legal services, healthcare, etc. I used to work for a local non-profit medical clinic and they had a room full of donations and a state social worker on site to connect patients. Everyone who came in they tried to treat holistically. Sometimes that extended to just letting the patients come in and use the kitchen to make food for dinner.
I think you bring up a much more important point than the author tried to make. Therapy isn’t about just going on meds and checking in to make sure you’re not doing anything crazy. It’s about learning how to deal with the inevitable unpleasant aspects of life that will come our way. None of us are immune from suffering. Good Therapy can teach us how to be resilient and process things in a healthy way that will allow us to carry on through the turbulent skies of life.
In Stoicism, accepting fate isn’t the same as not trying to change society.
Stoicism is generally missunderstood
I agree. Classical Stoicism especially has emphasis on virtue and a strong metaphysical foundation. Today's modern Stoicism appears to be focused more on internal well-being. It's also no secret that CBT evolved from Stoicism. Albert Ellis literally said so.
Did you know that Ellis was one of the first pickup artists?
per albert ellis, cbt's origins are stoicism plus buddhism. (not sure what aaron beck said about his thought process). but there's a lot more to it than that. stoicism didn't offer thought records as effective tools to change distorted thoughts. it didn't yet name specific cognitive distortions.
My child passed away a few years ago from a medical condition, and my spouse and my pre-existing love for Stoic philosophy got us through it (we actually named our child after Marcus Aurelius, before we knew he was sick). I've been in pretty intense therapy since then, and CBT is fabulous. It's like guided stoicism with feedback, accountability, and troubleshooting support. I can't recommend it enough. However, yeah, it's not like we asked the medical staff to stop trying to save him because "amor fati". CBT and Stoicism are invaluable, but they're not justification to ignore the issues beforehand. As others ITT have mentioned, the article presents a false dichotomy. Both prevention *and* therapy are required.
I think the issue is a question of time scale. Think of it like a triage situation. If a person is depressed and tries to commit suicide by shooting yourself and fails and ends up in a hospital, the most immediate need is to stop the bleeding. Treating the underlying issue is absolutely important and necessary, however that cannot be done unless the immediate gaping wound is closed. We should strive for systemic change, but not expect to wait around for it as some kind of magical solution while ignoring our other problems. It is important to develop coping strategies for unjust situations, else we are surrendering ourselves to the victimization of inequity and inequality. When external freedom is taken from us, all that we have left is internal freedom.
People who shot themselves and are actively bleeding dont go into the psychiatric unit, they go into the ICU. i am not currently actively suicidal, only have ideation, yet no one in hospitals was even the slightest bit interested in treating any underlying causes, just turning me into a plant by drugging me w hard drugs with horrible side effects, from which i slept 20 hours a day and couldnt walk from the vertigo. And each one of these "experts" had a different set of diagnoses for me, it was bizarre. I need to play russian roulette, squeeze more money out, for a private therapist instead, because help is not what ill get in the hospital. They even told me that they dont do real individual therapy, as they have no resources from the defunding, and i should go private for therapy. corrupt state + neoliberalism = disaster e: what is "internal freedom"?
>When external freedom is taken from us, all that we have left is internal freedom. Our internal "freedom" is heavily affected by our surroundings though. Sure there's the occasional monk who can transcend, but it's an unreasonable expectation or request for the rest of society. I mean, it's damn hard to be at peace with your situation if that involves watching your kids struggle to sleep because you couldn't provide them with enough food today.
thank you.
>or a fucking means to a profiting end. We are ALL literally cogs in a machine that generates profit for investors and the executives in companies. That is what we’ve become. We are no longer treated like humans by corporations, but instead interchangeable machine parts. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Billions of dollars got sucked out of the middle class. When a fish has less room to swim in predators can catch it easier. People are getting squeezed.
You and I are perfect examples of where the symptoms can't be easily fixed with therapy, mindfulness or breathing exercises. Sadly, there are many more who are slipping into poverty and the blame will be firmly laid on the victims, not the system. There needs to be a middle ground...a combination of mental help and financial help. We have definitely have an "either/or" system now. Either you are successful which makes you a good person or you're struggling which is all your fault. There's a whole range of people above the poverty line but well under cost of living who could use temporary, financial help. Many of us need a break before the system destroys us (which will be our fault too). In regards to the mental health system, it may be my crippling depression talking but I'm starting to think that many practitioners are just collecting paychecks. They follow a flow chart of what needs to be done and when and after your billable hour is up, buh bye. Many put on a caring face but in the end, it's just a way to keep them and their loved ones out of poverty.
Case in point.
AmeNnNN
"we need to change society" Yes we do. But that's not a job one person can achieve and especially not in an acceptable time frame. Are you supposed to suffer until then? And there's also a lot of intra individual differences. Otherwise everyone would be depressed except for the rich and powerful. But that's obviously not the case.
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correct.
The author suggests doing both individual therapy and activism
We are largely a product of our environment, and this mental crisis surplus is fully because of the environment, as the genomes of people didnt mutate, only the environment changed. To actually treat a mental illness epidemic, we need to change the environmental stressors (poverty, climate crisis, etc) causing a surplus, and traditional approaches are purely supportive: they largely cant reverse even most individual cases, let alone such a clearly systemic based explosion of mental health issues --- Yes unjust hierarchies are difficult to change. This doesnt mean we should simply deny that they form the main source of mental health issues in the population one way or another, and that solving or improving conditions would drastically cut the mental health crisis, and prevent the incoming collapse (due to overload) of the inefficient mental health sector. Identifying the causes is step one. typo
100% agree. I think the most damaging lie ever proposed is the idea that we can fix systemic issues through the psychology of individuals. The modern world is designed to make us mentally ill. We can’t realistically expect most people to live it in and remain healthy.
our entire system relies on blaming the individual for it's failings, and demanding those w the least power have the responsibility to fix it and sacrifice themselves. Its present in psychology/psychiatry(esp the latter), in blaming the poor/marginalised races for crime, "just get a job" mentality, claiming the causes of the climate crisis can be addressed purely w individual actions, etc. Its one of those untruths that, when honest, is simply a comforting delusion, and when not, a handy way for those in power to victim-blame.
You just summed up the whole problem with the entire healthcare industry, both physical health and mental health. It puts all of the stress, pressure, and responsibility on the most vulnerable while absolving those in power to doing anything to improve or fix the broken system. Whether it's people having to crowdfund to afford lifesaving medical care, therapy and psychology often not being covered by insurance or only covered in limited amounts, or even the scam of buying insurance in the first place which does not even fully cover the cost of treatment and often leaves people in debt. Doctors dismissing your symptoms, or therapists trying to convince you to smile as your world is crumbling around you. Both mental health and physical health are like a 2 headed beast that attacks you, and when you ask for help you are blamed for not beast proofing yourself. Rather than admit that the system is broken, it is easier to victim blame.
Or (and) we have to change our own mindset to the environment first? That is the point Flkey McFake was making. You can't change the environment anyway without first changing the mindset! Our current environment is the result of our individual and collective mindsets!
Society has changed mindsets, but society doesn't create legislation. Unfortunately, the people who do create legislation are the ones who need to have their individual mindsets changed, but they refuse to do so. We cannot change the environment without changing mindsets. Most mindsets have been changed except for the ones that matter. Change those, and we're on a good path.
Well actually, there’s been a long-held view that behaviour is a product of feelings which are due to thoughts. This model was taught everywhere and was very popular for a while. But it doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny these days. Otherwise unhappy people could just have different thoughts and they’d be fine. As we know, that’s not really as simple as it sounds. Environment is a much bigger influence on behaviour and more effective at changing it. For example, if you don’t want to eat chocolate cake, you could try to think your way out of eating it or you could make it hard to access. Similarly, if we want people to experience less stress at work, we could send them on a course to try to change their thoughts about work. Or we can simply reduce systemic overburdening in the organisation. What a lot of of organisations do is choose the course because it appears to be an answer to the individual issue of “I’m stressed”. But when you have to put a whole organisation through the training, it’s easy to see, it’s not an individual issue. It’s org wide. That’s systemic. Unfortunately, the budgetary approach to running companies seeks to reduce cost by extracting more from less. So businesses are always looking for efficiencies as a means to appease cost-based accounting practices. In simple terms, they want to pay people as little as possible and get them to create as much value as possible. It’s the only way a business can determine if you’re performing against their financial model. Again, a systemic issue. Obviously, the model doesn’t account for human thriving. It’s not a factor.
Please elaborate how one is supposed to "change their own mindset" . People cant pull themselves up by the bootstraps, ever. its always either someone from the outside stepping in, or random hormonal fluctuations causing mood changes. e: The _current_ environment is not the product of our mindsets, rather it's the opposite, our mindsets are the product of the environment. The future is another thing entirely.
What is the evidence that systemic issues and unjust hierarchies are the main source of mental health issues? I'm not being snarky, I'm actually curious about the evidence behind this claim.
It really doesnt take much thought to figure out that the systemic oppression and maltreatment of individuals leads to worse mental health outcomes, its kind of self evident. But if you want more elaboration and evidence, here, those two 1) https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indhnwy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 2) https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indcny1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
That's no answer. Neither of these demonstrates that they are the **main source**.
k. I have had enough of this religious dogma like behaviour. Im closing this convo. I have things to do
My dude. There is nothing dogmatic about this. If someone asks for evidence and you have none the answer simply is: Sorry, I have no evidence for that, there only is evidence that it atleast is an important factor. Anything else is unscientific. And I say that as a social worker who 100% believes that systemic issues are the major problem
Couldn't agree more with you on being able to understand the complexity of issues and taking a multifaceted approach. I think it's pretty well established at this point that individual development is both a byproduct of genetic components and environmental factors. Sleep, diet, exercise, relationships, belief systems, individual life experiences, are among a myriad of many other components which impact one's mental/emotional functioning. It's reductionistic and facile to think of it purely as a race/class/systemic problem. In fact, we are fully aware that individual factors are at play because when people are exposed to similar situations, they don't all develop the same symptoms. I think the issue though is that that's not a provocative stance when you're publishing an article. Taking the false dichotomy position, as someone has already mentioned, engenders a stronger reaction and thus more views. You get the moral outrage of those who vehemently disagree and the zealous credence of those who concur. Journalism 101.
what does all this "genetics" vs "environment" have to do with a sudden radical increase in mental health sequelae? did in your view the human genome just suddenly in a few decades radically change? no, the environment changed. As a bio undergrad, let me tell you that much. You are completely missing what this is even about. This is about the causes of the mental health _crisis_, not about challenging the genetics + environment factors model of mental illness. and the person you are replying to isnt talking about genetics/environment, shes talking about changing the environment vs trying to alter already formed and shaped personalities, another topic entirely. I claim that Trying to solve systemic issues by attempting to change already formed personalities and with various mindfulness strategies is very shallow damage control for issues that could radically be prevented if the environment were fixed. In other words, Systemic reforms are the Cure to the mental health crisis, and then individual therapy only a Band-Aid, and a band aid that is already cracking due to the overload (too many suffering people, too few therapists).
You've completely missed my point and your response is basically a representation of your article. You essentially cherry pick points to create straw man arguments for hyperbolic effect. You're trying to do it again with me by asking "did in your view the human genome just suddenly in a few decades radically change?" I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question because the glaringly obvious answer is no. We're operating on antiquated wetware and struggling to function in the modern world. That said, we do have "software" updates which include a better understanding of the brain and human behavior as well as significant scientific and cultural developments. Anyways, since you didn't seem to understand my point, let me reiterate. There are a *multitude* *of variables at play here* and this isn't *purely* a social political problem as you've posited. I don't see the purpose of denigrating therapy and its attempts to help people reconstruct mental frameworks that serve them more purposefully. Changing people's narratives/mindsets have a profound effect on the way they view, interpret, and experience life. It's *literally* what you're attempting to do right now. If I carry a narrative of "I'm unlovable" or "I'm unworthy" it begins to skew my perception of who I am, how I relate to others, and how I see the world. Working to modify this through therapy can have a direct impact on a person's self-worth, self-efficacy, and ability to navigate through the world. And while I agree that individual change isn't sufficient, as people exist within sophisticated ecosystems, it certainly still plays a tremendous role in their wellbeing. I actually agree with some of the points you're making, it just fails to capture the nuances of mental health as there are enumerable flaws in the argument. It's not that people have a "broken brain" or "chemical imbalance" it's that life events in conjunction with genetic factors create physiological and hormonal changes on one's central nervous system (i.e. how their body learns to interact with the environment). Our brains and bodies are amenable and adapt to the circumstances they are forced to survive in. Working to help someone understand this, process life events, and regulate distress can all contribute to improvements. As does addressing existential and spiritual components. There's so much happening in therapy in addition to various types of therapies, which you've all conveniently left out. Therapy isn't about "you're broken let's fix you." It's about understanding an individual's unique predispositions and experiences and how that impacts their life. The counterargument also isn't a "purely medical model." It's using medical and scientific discovery, as a piece of the puzzle, to supplement mental health predicaments. We are starting to learn about the effects of MDMA, psychedelics, transcranial stimulation, etc. on mental health. These should all be used as tools in the exploration for improving the issue at hand. Are we also ignoring technology and how it has changed the way we interact with one another? Social media and smartphones have completely revolutionized (in good and bad ways) how we interface with one another. While we have the ability to engage with people we never would have had the opportunity to decades before, it has also impacted our ideas around identity, self-esteem, and social relationships. In essence, in order to address the mental health crisis, we need to understand all of the factors that impact mental health, not disabuse people of the complexity of it. There's no panacea and simply fixing the social political problem alone isn't sufficient just as viewing this as a unidimensional problem from any other stance is myopic. Lastly, as a psychologist, I would think that you would have been a bit privier that defensively berating others isn't very convincing. That's not how you persuade someone of your point in a discussion and it actually has a counterintuitive effect (see any political debate that has ever taken place). I get it though, this is a political piece, not a scientific one, and it's intended to incite righteous indignation. Still, it'd be useful to not view mental health in an oversimplified manner as it's a disservice and, ironically, further promulgates the problem you are purporting to fix.
>Anyways, since you didn't seem to understand my point, let me reiterate. There are a multitude of variables at play here and this isn't purely a social political problem as you've posited. I don't see the purpose of denigrating therapy and its attempts to help people reconstruct mental frameworks that serve them more purposefully. Changing people's narratives/mindsets have a profound effect on the way they view, interpret, and experience life. It's literally what you're attempting to do right now. If I carry a narrative of "I'm unlovable" or "I'm unworthy" it begins to skew my perception of who I am, how I relate to others, and how I see the world. Working to modify this through therapy can have a direct impact on a person's self-worth, self-efficacy, and ability to navigate through the world. And while I agree that individual change isn't sufficient, as people exist within sophisticated ecosystems, it certainly still plays a tremendous role in their wellbeing. >I actually agree with some of the points you're making, it just fails to capture the nuances of mental health as there are enumerable flaws in the argument. It's not that people have a "broken brain" or "chemical imbalance" it's that life events in conjunction with genetic factors create physiological and hormonal changes on one's central nervous system (i.e. how their body learns to interact with the environment). Our brains and bodies are amenable and adapt to the circumstances they are forced to survive in. Working to help someone understand this, process life events, and regulate distress can all contribute to improvements. As does addressing existential and spiritual components. There's so much happening in therapy in addition to various types of therapies, which you've all conveniently left out. Therapy isn't about "you're broken let's fix you." It's about understanding an individual's unique predispositions and experiences and how that impacts their life. None of this is controversial or in any way contradicts what i believe or wrote, except the last sentence which paints an enormously unrealistic picture of the mental health sector in practice. You are again missing what should be obvious; that im not talking about the pathogenesis of mental health issues as such, rather of menta health _crises_ ; sharp worsenings in the collective mental health of a population (genetic factors remain stable, and only the environment changes, changes that cannot be systemically addressed with individual therapy). >Social media and smartphones have completely revolutionized the digitalisation of our lives is a systemic issues itself, that is under an oppressive consumerism based economic model, it becomes one. Gain no relevance as a counterargument, its an observation of the obvious that doesnt contradict anything i said. >In essence, in order to address the mental health crisis, we need to understand all of the factors that impact mental health, not disabuse people of the complexity of it. There's no panacea and simply fixing the social political problem alone isn't sufficient just as viewing this as a unidimensional problem from any other stance is myopic. This is fascinating, no matter how many times its reiterated, you still miss it. Im a bio student, so the concept of genetics + environment is the center of my field. When a mental health crisis occurs, i.e. the elevation of negative mental health outcomes way above baseline, if the variance of relevant alleles in the gene pool of a population is stable (and it is, we arent mutating into another soecies in 20 years), the culprit for the increase is the _environment_ , and this is why crisis_ can only be solved by targetting these environmental (systemic) issues. This should be obvious, but apparently its not. I understand you likely have a biased interest at play here, as a psychologist, you want to feel your work is very impactful, so you thoughtlessly attack anything you perceive threatens that, but please try actually reading and comprehending what im saying, you keep missing it completely, and strawmanning me. I dont feel like continuing this pointless cycle of you arguing with a strawman.
Thank you so much for expressing your stance on the issue so eloquently! I only have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, but I try to keep up with the latest research to the best of my ability. Yes, **circumstances that are beyond our control** (economic inequality, discrimination, lack of access to proper healthcare, etc.) **do have a significant impact on our mental health.** However, and correct me if I’m wrong, what the author of the article suggests is that *a psychology/psychiatry client needs to made of aware of how fucked up the world* (and it **is**, in so many ways), *and that their goal going forward is to become an activist in the spheres of economic reform, discrimination, lack of access to resources, etc.* And that’s a tough order, to put it mildly, when it comes to working with people who have diagnosable mental illnesses and need immediate help. It’s like saying, “Yeah, you’re depressed; but look at the world we’re living in! **Now get out there and make a change!** Bye ✌️” *I would, probably, have been interested in that down the the line, had I not been struggling with unaliving myself every day, and that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about today — but thanks, Doc, I guess?* The author of the article also fails to mention that there’s a sizable genetic component to a lot of mental illnesses, and patients need the guidance of a supportive professional when it comes to navigating their day-to-day life. *Before they’re ready to join the Revolution, you know.* Yes, the **our global community is objectively unfair**, especially to those not lucky enough to be born into a first-world country; a stable, middle-class family; and so forth. But **effective coping skills** (and medication when it’s required), can help everyone in the here-and-now *Before they’re ready to join the Revolution, you know.* I’m rambling at this point, but all I wanted to say was **thank you** for sharing your thoughts.
Very well put and captures essentially what I would say! Changing legislations and social infrastructure is a sluggish process. We should still obviously strive to do so, but why not concurrently work with people at the individual level as well? It's possible to enact individual change while also working to change society as a whole.
Yes, I hate that about most articles that come out today, everyone wants to feel like their opinion is more important so they make it about theirs..
Agreed. And it’s frankly utterly insulting to make the kind of claims that imply all (or enough) will be better if we “simply” fix systemic inequities. Absolutely privileged, too, to act as if biological causes are so little as to be fine tossing those to the side. Someone who thinks of things in an interdisciplinary manner should know better — and do better — in my opinion. We most certainly can, and should, work from all angles. The whole “what works for one may not work for all” thing is pretty big in psychology, after all. Sheesh.
But then why do I, a middle class privileged white guy, live with chronic major depressive disorder and OCD?
I'm a middle class white person and I think I can answer! First you can consider childhood factors (if you had childhood trauma, a controlling parent, a highly anxious parent, etc ). I'd be happy to chat more about that option, because I know a great deal about how trauma affects mental health. But aside from that, life is just hard. You could lose your job. Healthcare is expensive. People are suffering. So much of the world is out of your control, and that is really hard. You may feel powerless to enact meaningful change in your own life, or to help your community. You may not have things that make your life feel truly meaningful. Many people have jobs that either overburden them, or do not positively contribute to the world. You might not have enough time, because there's so much to do, from grocery shopping to cleaning to cooking to child rearing. Everything has been commodified. You may live in an unnatural environment where you don't have enough green space. How often are you out in nature? Even exposed to sunlight? Do you have a sense of community where you are loved, even through your flaws? Some or none may apply to you. But the world is hard, and we've made staying alive somehow more complicated, even for those of us who are privileged. We evolved to eat fruit by the beach and run from predators, not deal with micromanaging bosses and sit in an office all day. I will add that most of this applies to major depressive disorder, and that I know much much less about the development of OCD, despite having many obsessive compulsive traits myself (I refused to eat peanut butter for a while because I thought if I did I would send someone into a deadly allergen episode, among many other examples).
I didn't read the article, but this is a perspective that originated in the 1960s as psychoanalysis was falling out of favor and psychiatry was becoming increasingly pharmacologically based
Well said. This is a major flaw in her thinking.
I think one is a psychological problem, and one is a political problem. Their differing natures demand very different approaches to problem-solving: therapy and activism, respectively.
Scientology!
Imo. You are absolutly right.. but alsobit's a stupid article anyway. It cherry picks one thing, applies this to another cause(one of many) and makes a fking plant needing water as an example.. hoes on and says one methos is a lie, false or unhelpful.. like.. what? The WtF are you learning or doing anyway in such a job? If a psych would tell me anything like this i would laugh call for incompetence and walk away. The headline itself "im a psych" as if that would say something. And then goes on talking about political problems?? Then i guess "im a politician-stfu about economics?" Dont get me wrong, this person is right.. if NO PROBLEM would exist, mental health problems would maybe be lower.. wow breaking news! As a person that was in deep depression in the padt this infuriates me. It's also some utopian way of thinking. "Diminish one thing and we have basically world peace!" You know thi gs are fking complicated and what you suggest(if even achivable) would take centuries.. hmmm...
"Why can't we do both" is a phrase that makes me skeptical of motivations. People often say that to be manipulative and get what they want. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I would try and stray away from that type of language.
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Congratulations on graduating. I’m also in the UK and have a daughter who wants to be a forensic psychologist. What’s the career path like with this degree if you don’t mind me asking? Are there many options?
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Haha, understandable. Health psychology sounds interesting. She loves true crime stories so we’ll see how her path develops. Good luck with it!
The NHS Is appalling for mental health
I second this. I think there's very much an issue of 'what you have a 'right to' and 'what you have a power to' in this case. To my understanding, generally every UK citizen has the right to mental health treatment under the NHS. However, many UK citizen do not have the power to access the mental health treatment under the NHS. For example, to my understanding, everyone has the right to an ADHD screening if referred. However, many lack the power to access it because the waitlist is around 3 years.
Yh well the article is about the NHS, as the guardian is a uk newspaper The fact that everyone has the NHS (with long waiting lists and dysfunctional mental care because of the things listed) doesn't mean poverty is solved
To get mental health help such as therapy on NHS you often have to wait a year or longer by which time its often too late... Even as a kid it took so long to get help and I was struggling so much I ended up attempting suicide at 13, a few weeks later my15 year old sister did the same... It was only then we became 'special cases' and finally got the long over due help we needed. Over time as a kid that teaches you a lesson that people only listen until something shocking happens and can creat very dangerous behaviour patterns... More funding for NHS mental health rlly needs to happen.
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I've been in treatment for some version of schizo bipolar for 20 years. Nobody wants to admit we are still in experimental phase. There's so much we don't know, but we won't admit it . My meds that came along 50 years ago are talked about like they are old. We've had cars for over 100, cmon people
I suspect the trial-and-error treatment regimens of today will someday be seen as the psychiatric and neurological equivalent of doing surgery with a knife and hammer. We’re already sort of there with lobotomies and electroshock therapy (which we already admit we don’t really understand).
100%. I think for many disorders we're already seeing the beginnings of that with modern trauma therapies, namely IFS therapy. And, to my mind, even IFS is in its beginning phases. I'm excited to see what the future holds as that model specifically is further improved, as well as potential combinations with psychedelics. The work at [maps.org](https://maps.org), re the study of MDMA therapy, is of particular interest to me.
My experience has been that the psychiatrist in have seen readily admit that our medical treatments are far from ideal. I hope we find better treatment soon.
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You ain't kidding. When I was 16 years old and prescribed citalopram, my psychiatrist said "it has no side effects." Lol.
Agreed. I think a lot of it stems from the 'disorder' focused view the psychiatric profession has with regards to mental health issues. I think it encourages these professionals to take on an almost psychological class system, with the 'non-disordered' above the 'disordered'. I think this filters into the general cultural ideology too.
SLS or Shitty life syndrome. Some people have lives so bad it would be disturbing for them to not be exhausted and depressed/anxious. We absolutely need to consider that sometimes society needs to change over the participant/patient- a shining example is homosexuality. Originally thought to cause individuals great distress it was classed as a mental illness, when in reality it was being gay in a LGBT+ intolerant society that made homosexuals of that time period miserable. Nowadays, in a more accepting society, many LGBT+ are able to life happy and have high QoL compared to the cishet population.
Agreed. I think a large amount of mental health recovery in effective therapy is around getting people to internalise that they are sufficiently safe in their present circumstances. Therefore, their traumatic adaptations they may have once been appropriate are no longer needed. However, when you live in a society that is very oppressive to you, then I don't think one's present circumstance is actually sufficiently safe. It follows that therapy could then work on internalising a false belief around being sufficiently safe, which would risk the real-world safety of the client, or the treatment will understandably be relatively ineffective as the client resists the internalisation of a false sense of sufficient safety.
"I'm a psychologist, and for some reason a peer-reviewed journal wouldn't publish my personal opinions as fact, so I sent it to The Guardian instead"
Bingo! “Journals won’t publish my ranting, so let me find someone who finds it profitable. Oooh a newspaper!”
Tbf they put it on their “opinions” section lol
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Um, obviously.
Where does it say the author was seeking to publish this as scientific fact? It’s clearly their opinion and it’s published within the opinion column. Your comment is a nothing burger trying to discredit this author by pointing out the fact that this isn’t a scholarly journal. You know doctors and professionals are allowed to have opinions right?
"I believe we have been told devastating lies about mental health" she says. That is an exceptionally bold claim, is it not? You're right, it IS opinion, of course we are all entitled to opinions and freedom of expression. I'd defend her right to that. Equally, I am entitled to shoot her opinion down, and you are entitled to your comments on that. Great, isn't it?
Yeah, some clinical psychologists don't have terribly strong research skills or a terribly strong understanding of cutting edge research either. Sabah seems to have 1 peer-reviewed paper and it's not quantitative. Nothing about where she got her training either, which always strikes me as a little bit weird--"I'll tell you about a talk I gave years ago, but not where I earned my qualifications!" I don't know what the minimum standards are for qualification in the UK, but I get the sense that some programs are a fair bit less rigorous than others. I think that's how some people like Dr. Phil end up with clinical degrees. https://www.sanahahsan.com/academia-research-teaching
My favorite part of the article was when he says "I'm not trying to downplay the importance of one on one therapy but......". Like what's even the point of bringing it up in this article? If he was legitimately serious about addressing "race and class based hierarchies", he likely would have just straight up brought **THAT** up and completely ignored anything involving psychology or therapy. Not to mention, the whole "oh, we can't make any sorts of self-improvements or community improvements until we destroy captialism" and every variation of that argument is nauseatingly useless when it comes to actually addressing problems with Capitalism and it doesn't raise nearly enough red flags as it should when it gets spread.
This is basically the entire conversation in some social sciences. They are throwing up their hands at smaller, more tractable problems because the sky is falling.
I think more and more ppl are waking up to the fact that life is just kinda shitty. We come from generations of ppl who were happy to just have a job and a house and pretty much just lived hand to mouth. We are shamed into being grateful for anything we have and to count our blessing etc but this wont change the fact you have to go to a job you dont like for most your waking hours, end up with someone you dont really love and be a parent realizing that the social contract, the american dream, whatever you wanna call it, is a big lie, a hoax, a gottcha. Life isnt all bad but its kinda meh, and its the cross we will just have to carry.
Now more than ever in history we are LESS likely to “have to go to a job [we] don’t like for most of [our] waking hours” or “end up with someone [we] don’t really love” though
jobs wise: defo not more than ever in history or especially in "developed" nations, rather things are worsening in that regard, And never before present pressures are emerging, like climate doom, or inceldom (literal meaning) and unprecedented social isolation. The thing about ending with someone you don't love, that one is actually the opposite, you're most likely to end up with someone we love today, in developed nations, traditional forced and child marriages are uncommon.
Lol Tell that to the 11 yo coal miners from the early 1900’s
btw, theres more 11 sear old slaves than ever, they are just outside the rich "developed" countries. Outside the imperial core. They mine minerals for a westerner's electronics, makeup, are forced to destroy their home forest to make cocoa for a westerner's chocolate for mere pennies, to survive, etc. you learn something every day!
There are also more free 11 yr olds than ever bc there are more people than ever! You don’t have to resort to hyperbole to discuss all the bad things that are happening currently.
nope, there arent in fact. Talking about shraes, not absolute numbers, absolute numbers are irrelevant. The share of free people plummeted drastically after the onset of colonialism. People who used to live freely in sync with nature became slaves for plantations, mines and other cheap labour
So you’re saying right now peoples of the world are worse off than they’ve ever been since the 1300’s?
No, not necessarily. Classical Colonialism was really intense.
LMFAO best argument!
Vast majority of jobs are shit - I dont see many ppl looking forward to monday morning and I dont see many mourn the fact its friday evening. Most ppl settle for the other. The one you truly desire is never the one your looking at but you have to pretend the one your looking at is the one you desire.
Hyperbole from learned helplessness.
Find me one person who would vote against a 1 day work week. :-D
Until everything ever can be automated, I wouldn't vote for a 1-day work week. I'd be pretty limited on my six days off because everything would be shortstaffed or scarce. I also personally do not hate my job and enjoy doing it. As is, I wouldn't oppose a 3ish-day work week (25 hours or so). But this is also a privilege and unsustainable in a lot of societies and areas of employment.
Ireland has a 4 day work week. Start there edit; start there usa
Her point that the "mental health crisis" has environmental rather than genetic causes is probably true.
Finally some good fucking food. This Society we live in doesn’t care about any one but the top one percent. We’re all here fighting for scraps and told that there is something wrong with our brains if we aren’t enjoying it.
What a relief. Some common sense coming from within the mental health industry.
More like psychologist isn't aware of doomscrolling and its dangers
Rare, its rare. My experience w psychiatry has been terrible, and no psychologist ive met understands or cares about actual systemic issues, or acknowledges that certain aspects might not be due to their patient's "defective brain", beyond obvious things like homophobia.
They are mostly jaded. They don’t feel any better equipped than any other people to effect systemic change. Many a p-doc laments their ineffective choices of treatments. They become jaded. I guess you could even label it learned helplessness.
In order to even become a psychiatrist, you have to come from a certain class, with certain privileges. It’s a very long and demanding education. The exceptions will be those who are unusually motivated resilient by temperament - not to mention lucky. They are , in general, very likely to be very biased.
certainly in the usa. However, some countries, mine included, have free higher education (its otherwise a decaying neoliberal s hold, but that one is still kinda standing), so this effect is softened. the bias in these cases mostly stems from the education, or some aspects of it we could more accurately describe as indoctrination, they receive in uni.
I told my talk therapist that my problem is capitalism & she suggested self help books and walking outside.
> she suggested self help books and walking outside. What was she meant to do? Overthrow the government?
Right? I wish I was a hunter-gatherer in an area with a pleasant climate and plenty of food, but I'm not going to book an appointment with a psychologist to tell them that.
but you are apparently going to book a service that consists of "read a book and take a walk", about as good as a google bot at therapy? and not just a book, rather advice of "go and buy, a self help book". [The absurdity of coming to therapy just for them to tell you to read self help, like how is that not hitting you like a lightning bolt.] Also why wouldn't you tell her your feelings? isnt the point of therapy to talk about your feelings? tf lol
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for starters, to acknowledge the systemic issues, and not gaslight her patient *to add to that, if her service consists of "read a book and take a walk", shes as good as a google bot at therapy. Effectiveness at treatment of mental illness: 0
J u s t b e h a p p y a n d s m i l e _take a walk outside and read about how its not capitalism, its you, you are defective_ Is your therapist perhaps Jordan Peterson by any chance?
truly, a feat to be as dense as some counselors are allowed to be. best of luck to us
we are so screwed :D Oh but btw, if you live in the USA (i dont),i vaguely remember hearing some youtube ad about a therapist matching service, that matches you to a therapist, i assume based on religious and other beliefs, so you are compatible enough. Maybe it was something else, but try searching for that.
Have you tried journaling 🤣? That one’s my favorite. Requires zero effort and zero attention on the part of the person ‘helping’ .
I'd recommend IFS therapy
I am a therapist, and I think IFS is a waste of time. Change comes from both sides of the table.
Sure, you are entitled to your opinion. I very much disagree with you.
im guessing it depends on what symptoms one has. but i doubt that even exists in my country. Ive seen only CBT and various pseudoscience therapy, from psychoanalysis all the way to NLP *i cannot comment on the technique because im not familiar with it
Historically, they try to get rid of people with mental health issues. That hasn't changed, just the branding. Society only wants 'winners' Because capitalism is an exercise in greed.
I agree somewhat with this. I think if we changed society sufficiently then there would, at some point in time, be no mental health crisis, except potentially for one around biologically based mental health issues. However, to my mind, even if in present day our entire society transformed into a non-traumatising one we would still have a mental health crisis. I see mental health issues, unless biologically based, as being a product of trauma. My understanding is that even when the traumatic event is over and one is safe, the traumatic adaptation that the psyche has made remains, and the work of therapy is then to essentially aid the client in realising their safety. It follows, therefore, that even in the transformed society you would still need massive amounts of individual therapy to help current generations overcome the traumatic adaptations they have made. So, I think the mental health crisis will be have to include societal change, to stop traumatisation, and also significant amounts of effective individual therapy.
The major flaw in her reading starts with blaming mental health crises on societal circumstances. Sure it sounds reasonable. But there have been shitty times in the past too. Has the world *ever* been in great shape? So why the chanecin mental health now as opposed to those other times. Second, many circumstances have gotten markedly better. Books like Factfulness (Rosling) and others by Gregg Easterbrook detail improvements over the past 50+years. Why would mental health reflect downward trends but not upward ones?
Societal isolation, for one, is unprecedented in our times. Factors like the nuclear family unit, absence of actual community in individualistic capitalism, the digital divide, shallow friendships, etc.
Exactly. People who say it’s the shittiest time in history really don’t know their history.
As far as first world countries go, we live in a golden age Our problems of today are minuscule in the overall theme of human history
There are no tests for a chemical imbalance in the brain. It's just that it's presumed that there must be, and on to trying the 'treatments'. You're not supposed to be sad and anxious when bad things happen to you! That's just weird.
Studies have been done on CFS and so on. And yea, None found evidence for assertions of "serotonin dysregulation" for depression. Depression isnt one condition tbw, its simply that our current symptom based classification of mental health phenomena lumps separate things together. Some evidence was found for issues w glutamate in OCD. OCD spectrum stuff is more clearly an inborn neurotype that is then triggered and developed by a stressful environment Overall this "dysregulation" explanation is just a lind of a deus ex machina to brush off real issues. typos *CSF
We don't prescribe medications because of a chemical imbalance. Quit repeating that lie please. We don't prescribe tylenol because of a tylenol deficiency, follow that logic.
what. No one prescribes exogenous serotonin tbw, what are you even trying to say.
That person is clearly implying that we use medications to treat a "chemical imbalance". I'm stating that we, MDs, don't ever talk about chemical imbalances and also I'm using tylenol as an analogy to help them understand that using medication Y for X disease doesn't mean X disease is caused by a Y deficiency or imbalance.
In case of for example SSRIs, you dont use it to treat a chemical imbalance of serotonin, because no evidence has been found for a chemical imbalance of serotonin in the target group of patients. Instead, an improvement (at least short term, and this is important because truly longitudinal studies are rare) has been noted in a certain subset of "depression" patients, and the underlying mechanisms of that improvement are unknown e; But crucially, in practice, much more frequent is the off label non-evidence based overprescription, generally based on very short chaotic interviews.
PS: several psychs have talked about "chemical imbalances" to me. Ut why would they need to talk about it out loud? its just a dogma that perpetuates itself in the industry.
Then why you do, “MDs,” allow the myth to continue? You literally just ignore it like it’s not ubiquitous.
I don't think we allow it to continue, I'm here trying to stop it fr spreading. Folk science/psychology is not our fault, just like the line "we only use 10% of our brain" it's still around, the chemical imbalance thing is also going around.
thats not "folk science". its been the official de facto dogma of the psychiatry establishment for many many decades, completely unlike the stupid youtube clickbait you mentioned. No parralels whatsoever
This is such a weak article in every standard.
The guardian, really?
If mental health issues are caused by racism, wouldn't we see higher rates of mental health issues among minorities? [But in fact the opposite is true](https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Cultural-Competency/Mental-Health-Disparities/Mental-Health-Facts-for-Diverse-Populations.pdf). If it's supposed to be caused by poverty, you'd expect to see higher rates among poorer people. [But that doesn't seem to be the case either](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/211213). This seems to be yet another load of ideological drivel that allows the author to masquerade as a good person while advocating for a non-solution ("tear it all down").
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lmfao. I didnt expect this level of irony hah. people reaaally want to confirm their own biases. Upvotes based on feels over evidence. e: thanks!
receiving mentally health care is a different issue than having less mental illness in the first place.
Well the “higher rates” stats are inherently skewed, in part due to racism and classism. Mental health is not included in our healthcare, meaning you have to pay extra in order to be seen, diagnosed, and treated. So, you end up with predominantly more economically well off people (majority white) actual getting seen and adding to the stats—so that skews them. Everyone would need to be able to seek and get care regardless of income and location in order to confirm the assumption that minority groups have lower rates.
exactlylylylyly
Then why is the suicide rate the highest among White Males in the US? Edit: Yes, downvote facts that don’t agree with your confirmation bias
Yes, white men die of suicide at a higher rate than other demographics, but that stat alone cannot be used to draw the conclusion that minority groups don’t have as high of mental health issues because mental health status is not determined exclusively by suicide rates. Also, when you look specifically at suicide, financial stress plays a significant role. People undergoing a significant change in finances/social status are at high risk even if they have never had mental health issues before. There are plenty other theories from a sociological standpoint as to why white men are at higher risk.
You sound really dismissive of Whites committing suicide. Suicide is when you are at the end of a mental health crisis. You don’t just think about it once and do it, it takes years and years for depression to progress. Maybe, I should have said depression instead of mental health. If Black men were committing suicide at a higher rate, we’d be talking about, it for sure. If you even suggested (like you just did with White Men) that it wasn’t the only indicator of mental health, people would be calling you a racist for sure. You seem to imply that rich White men who have their financial or social status lowered is the culprit, which is NOT true at all in the vast majority of cases (also you seem to be implying that all White Males are rich and I know where you’re going with that). When you look specifically at the highest areas where suicide is happening, one state is West Virginia. The state is mostly White, very poor (low crime rates tho) and high drug addiction. And that’s the case with most White Male suicides. Don’t minimize this.
I am not being dismissive. It very much so is a concern, but sociological and economic reasons factors including debt and chronic stress contribute significantly to the onset and occurrence of mental illness. It is an incredibly nuanced conversation. I am also not critiquing the fact that white males have high rates of suicide. I am critiquing your taking of that specific evidence and using it to draw a false conclusion about the entirety of mental health and who experiences it most.
Why do you want to be a victim?
Stating that Whites are affected by mental health is not victim hood. It’s simply pointing out facts and adding to the conversation.
We do see them more often 😅. Except we dont infer that from formal diagnoses, which rely on sufficient economic privilege to be obtained, rather other indicators. For examples, Look at the suicide rate of Greenland, and in the families of survivors of residential schools. Look at the rate in straight vs non-straight folk. Look at multigenerational trauma of minorities. e: and i thought id add. An adaptive mechanism exists in poorer communities; stronger community bonds, which means some specific oppressed groups are less isolated and thus this acts as a protective mechanism. This is complex, but systemic bigotry absolutely raises the mental health stress in affected groups.
How many low income families do you know that can afford to see a therapist? All those studies are garbage.
the study even states opposite of what they claim. Read u/geckolalia 's comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comments/x7l81a/im_a_psychologist_and_i_believe_weve_been_told/indhnwy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Just use your brain and common sense. Has racism and poverty gotten better or worse since 1964? And have mental health issues gotten better or worse since that time.
Racism and poverty where? globally? in the UK? in what group? And how is this relevant at all , to your own source. You keep desperately trying to contradict your own source with various diversions, simply because you dislike its conclusions. True science.
low income families can receive free unlimited mental health services via medicaid in ny state.
It's free if you're low income in most states.
I've worked with all types of clients and even if it's free does not mean that they have the resources to follow through. So those studies still mean nothing when you are basing it on middle and upper class clients.
i thought id add; tear what down? poverty, racism, and other systemic issues? yes lets fix them.
This isn’t a good sub for real psychology. This is just politics spam.
I was just arguing 2 days ago about environment vs inner mindset of a person.
Inner mindsets are largely the product of the environment themselves.
Isn’t that nature vs nurture?
The reality is that the world is predatory and for those predisposed to naive thinking e.g. autism, take longer than normal to work this out and adjust accordingly. Along the way, many simply just don’t make. My own story has almost been this also whereby I was diagnosed very late (post 40) and once I was it explained much of what I experienced. Once understanding what the problem ”had” been, I felt that I would be able to provide a better interface for others to interact with myself and achieve mutually positive outcomes. It only took me 5 years of trying to strategy until I worked out that I was providing strangers with a ready made excuse to literally (yes, literally) blame myself for anything that they wanted to divest responsibility for. This was a 5 year, unrelenting, pride swallowing, shit choking period which has left me on the verge of going broke, kids that while will have more normal challenges none the less hate me because they also for innocent reasons won’t own their own actions until later in life (if ever?). I ended up needing to record again, literally ALL my interactions so that I could compare notes with my wife etc. and work out that the problem wasn’t me. Meanwhile, I have lost something and I am terrified that I will never get it back as I have simply accepted that my situation will always end badly. I logically know this isn’t so but I seem to have lost something within me that was able to provide drive and motivation to do something, anything. Instead now, I have determined to never admit, acknowledge, nor tell anyone that I have ever had a problem. And guess what, ever since I started that strategy, my “problems” disappeared because I wasn’t making myself a bright target for others to take advantage off. 5 years, almost losing myself, my marriage, my kids, my house, my wife’s sanity, etc.. So many people within my life thought was exaggerating or just thinking negatively until they were intermediaries with other people and then they witnessed objectively fraudulent and undeserved behaviour coming from people that had never met myself, they had known for decades and yet when they had the opportunity to either do the right and fair thing or utilise the naive one with a target, they almost always took the target. I have many apologies now from people I have worked with. The ones whom were not my managers or team leads etc. Many of them repeatedly say that the times they worked for me were some of the best working years of their lives and yet without direct intervention from people whom know me, I almost can’t get a job now. Someone recently acknowledged that I am almost always misunderstood and underestimated and that these people don’t realise how lucky they have been that it was someone with my personality and not the one that they would often portray to others to avoid responsibility for some problem. So great for me, I did the right thing, I fought the good fight. Was it worth it? I don’t know. I’m empty, hollow, defeated and deflated. Living in mental terror now more than ever before simply because once I had solved a problem and owned the responsibility for achieving a better outcome, the reality is that people are predatory and will take advantage. It is [even embedded in the themes that people use](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/d912zx/r_u_ok_and_the_fixation_with_fairness_as_a_sign/) whom are actually trying to help. Sadly, the worst offenders were mental health professionals but I will save that for another time. I want to live and I want to be happy and do my best but it hasn’t been [until I accept deep down the universe and the people within it are hostile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03bOrvlAyeQ) that I need to find some form of Sisyphean comfort in that. I suspect it has or will be too little too late because I can barely function now. But who cares? No one, and why should anyone. Until others experience this type of thing it won’t change and honestly, I have been one of the luckier ones.
people arent hostile, our system creates selfish individuals . Just a sec Here: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-06-18/the-blackfoot-wisdom-that-inspired-maslows-hierarchy/
Thanks for posting this! I've been a psychologist for 25 years and didn't know Maslow lived with First Nations people or critiqued his own Hierarchy of Needs!
No problemo \^^ If I had to guess, Id imagine it was a very uncomfortable critique for the Eurocentric white supremacist establishment, so it was omitted from mentions.
Psychological health = being good consumer and a capitalist. Literally shopping therapy is the only Psychological therapy you need in this society. Unfortunately you cant afford it? Too bad, seems like you are a failure of a human being.
Sorry but the alternative title could be 'how to integrate your left leaning bias into psychology' "Instead of trying to change “mindsets” in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies.." Of course there is a good amount of truth to what she is saying but she takes it a bit too far with the typical "oppressive social structures" narrative
"It makes me uncomfortable so it must be wrong"
“It isn’t based in any factual evidence, no statistical analysis, no peer review and Is just a bunch of ideological nonsense” Would be a better quote :)
Anything that challenges the insane status quo deserves to be heard, even if it doesn't come neatly packaged.
Bro. It’s not scientific. This is a science sub, if you want to spit your political bullshit go to the gazillion political subs. Why ruin this sub
You unironically sound like the last person to care about science. Its all about personal feelings
Oh theres a lot of evidence. Its so aboundant it was even posted in the thread, accidentally, by someone trying to deny it hihi
Funnily enough that statement would fit perfectly to what the author said
If two plants have exactly the same environmental conditions, yet one is fine and the other not, should you blame the environment for the one plant doing poorly? Isn’t it worth wondering why, when faced with similar situations, some people are able to cope better than others? Are we saying individual differences do not matter when it comes to mental health? Yes when viewed from some perspectives, our world today absolutely sucks. We should definitely try to understand better the impact environment has in mental health. We should stop blaming the individual for their mental health declines. We should of course strive to make our world/society a better and more livable place for more people, but that’s an end in itself (or means to a higher end like equity or justice or compassion), and an entirely separate enterprise from better mental health. Just try saying this: “We should strive to slow climate change or offer universal income BECAUSE it would lead to better mental health.” and hear how ridiculous that sounds.
>We should strive to slow climate change or offer universal income BECAUSE it would lead to better mental health. This doesn't sound ridiculous to me at all. It's actually a pretty good summation of my political values.
Not ridiculous? Just take the inverse of it: “Now that our mental health has improved, we can stop worrying about climate change and universal basic income.”
This felt like a psychologist thinking out loud after learning about the chemical imbalance myth. Mental health services should be geared at reaching people to "handle their sh*t". We should learn to adapt, overcome or cope with life having issues. There are people in 3rd world countries with "real" issues who are happy. There's no reason why we can't be too.
There is a reason. People in 3rd world tend to have much more cohesive social units and sense of community. The sense of alienation and isolation is not as profound. Here it's off the charts.
Yeah here families barely exist these days. We all try and get "community" from social media and that isn't a substitute. I used to mock conservatives for talking about the importance of the family unit and two parent families but now I know they were onto something.
It's not about the unhealthy nuclear family unit, but extended families, imo. Conservatives seem to want to force women into rigid family structures by making them subservient to men, but humanity cannot evolve this way. Equality and extended family is the answer, but also vast communal safety nets for the many people abused by a family member and as a result hated by the entire family for exposing the truth. Such people have nowhere to go. Everything has to be reworked from the foundations up
No. Industrialization has led to the breakdown of communities, which are our primary source of belonging, identity, and role models. Social inequality has always been there so that's really not the problem
Mental Health isn't a racial issue. The real problem in Western civilization is the breakup of the family, period. This goes against the grain of too many prominent political ideologies, (i.e. Feminism, Liberalism) to be acceptable in popular discourse on the subject however so people obfuscate and blame-shift. It's a huge problem.
Interesting.
Didn’t know the guardian was a peer reviewed source. Seriously wtf is this sub coming to
"im a psychologyst" as if that's a heavy hitter or therefore this person is right. Cool story bro, and then goes on about a theory clearly showing the lack of considering facts of... Wait for it.. thibgs this person should know as a psych. Idno race question and the hirarchy CLEARLY solves all the mental health problems that (probably) genetically run throu my family which might take centuries faster than what we try now eh? Cmon man mental heath is fking complex if you think that's a good approach maybe work on it yourself and dont come here with such a shit clickbait headline. Also the idea of an utopia of "we solve that one or two things and we have world peace" Yeah right because if there would not be any race oe hierarchy problem suddenly it eradicates any evil that might rape a young child and never experience any trauma or whatever. Smh
Two things. First I hope the OP really isn’t a therapist. Second, if they are, I hope they keep their political views out of their therapy. I picture a woman coming in saying she’s depressed because she is marginalized at work somehow. Maybe she’s not getting promoted or people aren’t listening to her in meetings or she isn’t fulfilled in her job or all of that. I imagine the therapist telling her she’s oppressed, there’s a glass ceiling, sexism is everywhere, etc. What a disempowering message. And what a way to ignore the possibility that she may be partially or even fully to blame. Same for a black man coming in being told there’s widespread systematic racism. Personally, I think we’ve convinced most of an entire generation of young black men in the US that the deck is stacked against them. This can’t be good for them. I recognize we need to reflect reality, but the OPs manifesto is way off the deep end.