Mental Health Has Come a Long Way — Are We Better Off?

Over the part 30-40 years, the mental health industry has definitely come a long way.

Nowadays, we have awareness of many aspects of the human psyche and how it works, as well as the myriad things that happen to many people that create psychological wounds that end up informing their entire subsequent lives.

This is, by most measures, a good thing, right?

On the surface, most of us would be inclined to say an emphatic "yes," but sometimes it bears pausing to ask the broader question of whether or not we are really better off.

I remember listening to a lecture by a prominent psychotherapist in which he pointed out that the mental health industry has — for example — don an excellent job of teaching people how to not be depressed, but being "not depressed" is not the same thing as "being happy," and the mental health industry has actually done a lousy job of teaching people how to be happy.

In other words, we've gotten really good at putting effective bandages on "wounds" but we spend too little time and effort on determining how to avoid getting those wounds, in the first place.

Much of the mental health field remains reactive, rather than preventive.

Based on my own private practice, a large part of the problem is that there's still a certain level of stigma attached to mental illness and mental health "issues."

The classic example is that it makes us "good responsible adults" to book regular health checkups with our physicians, but if we are booking a mental health checkup with a therapist — even if we're not troubled by anything specific — people immediately look at us askance and wonder whether we're "mentally disturbed."

Why is that? Why the subtle judgment?

That fear of judgment is definitely part of the issue at hand. One of the mental health issues I have often talked about is the fact that in order for our psychological wounds to be healed, we must first create safe spaces in which people feel free to share their stories authentically, without fear of judgment.

If people don't feel safe, they are unlikely to truly share what's going on with them, and we'll just end up recycling back to the starting point... because the client will only share the sterilized and "socially acceptable" version of what is wrong... and that's not going to be enough to get to the bottom of their issues and heal them.

Maybe it has to start with simply consciousness and awareness of the ways in which we might be judging subtly... like whispering with a neighbor because someone we know is "seeing a shrink."

Consider how that might be uncomfortable for that person... and might result in their clamming up!

So whereas we might be better off as a result of the progress the mental health field has made, we still have a long way to go! So let's keep working to create safe spaces for healing!

Thanks for visiting, and Bright Blessings to all!

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