"How long do you keep insulting people who have suffered by claiming that their suffering is good, actually?"
This is because people are given up to a reprobate mind, thinking evil is good and good is evil. Rom 1:28.
Your writing is insightful. Mental health is a real problem, not a strength, but people are making it cool for attention, similar to other immoral behaviors.
I agree with Harvard's solution to mental health - not just a religious organization but a Bible-believing charismatic church, especially for students like myself.
A Christian sees tragedy as a part of life, and in everything, we give thanks, good or bad. 1 Thessalonians 5:18.
It’s human nature to find comfort in the empathy of fellow humans. But a tough-minded Christian always finds it in Jesus Christ, and that is the strongest foundation. 2 Corinthians 12.
It's also sad to learn psychiatry substituted for church. Tons of fake Christians are to blame. John 8:44.
I also enjoyed reading this statement:
“Although it’s also worth noting that in many ways, some of the sanest people enjoy the most bizarre delusions ('God has a plan for me', 'my life has a real impact in the world', etc.). Choose your delusions wisely.”
Although God has a plan for everyone, that plan is found in doing God’s will. And the way I’m finding His plan for me is by knowing Him through the Bible.
We’d rather make people feel better about themselves than actually be better themselves. We avoid confrontation as a society above everything. Nobody has social skills to navigate it so we avoid it and this is part of the reason we have so much mental health advocacy. 1-people say they have autism instead of admitting they can learn to be better socially 2-people don’t want to get pushback for saying a sad person can fix it with work
Really great read. Another thing I have noticed in my own circles is also.. I’m not even sure how to say this - but mental illnesses have become a norm + an excuse for almost anything. “Sorry, but yes unfortunately I’m ADHD so I simply find it hard to get up in the morning for work”.. replace that with any other random thing. Especially when it comes to character traits - “.. Unfortunately because I’m XYZ I’m like this. And I know multiple people who have fought long battles for being recognized as mentally challenged, while psychologists have refused doing so because they didn’t consider them ill. Another area I wrote about myself is how this whole situation also somehow creates a distance between people- I’ve had and have friends that have very close yearlong relationships with their psychiatrists.. and everything of significance was discussed with the psychiatrist..in the end leaving the friendship itself that we had / have quite .. hollow in a way. Stripped for anything of value.
People will do anything to avoid addressing their own inadequacies. Dr John Sarno was ahead of his time in discovering the physical manifestations of unaddressed anger/anxiety, which is still seen as a bit of taboo. Mental health going mainstream created community, comfort, and identity around normal feelings, removing the need or desire for personal agency in finding a solution.
It's interesting you mention how you believe the mental health industry appears more influenced by Freud, Jung, and their acolytes rather than Adler, Bandura, Frankl, etc. - when I was going for my social work degree, CBT was all but lauded as the gold standard of therapy, and trendy modalities like mindfulness and trauma-informed approaches were sold to us as offshoots of CBT rather than the bad old "psychodynamic" way of thinking. And some of the first things we were taught were: Follow the code of ethics. Work with your clients to the point where you're no longer needed. Focus on their strengths. Validate their feelings, but your job is not to tell them that nothing is wrong with them. Respect diversity of thought. And so on.
This made me think of two explanations to the phenomena you describe, although obviously they are not the only ones. First, I believe the therapeutic-ization of everything points to a massive failure on the part of the systems meant to educate our therapists and counselors. Many of these ways to avoid the failure modes of therapy culture are taught in master's-level and doctorate programs, but in my experience they are not strongly reinforced - a MSW program is only around 2 years, and most classes are about diagnosis, specific focus areas (e.g. substance abuse, children and adolescents, etc.), and social justice. As a result, program graduates - who, let's be honest, are not always the sharpest tools in the proverbial shed - misinterpret and misapply what they learn to disastrous effect. For example, "validate your client's emotions" can easily turn into "accept and affirm your client's emotions." "Don't force your client to do anything they're not ready for at that particular moment" can become "you'll never be able to make your client do anything if they're even the slightest bit uncomfortable about it, and if you try your client will hate you and the treatment won't work." (Nevermind that if you don't motivate and encourage your client to change at least a little bit, the treatment won't work anyway!) This kind of practice is meant to help build rapport and trust with whoever it is you're working with, which you have to establish before any treatment could hope to work, but the line between treating mental illness and reinforcing it is an extremely blurry one, and I would say that many therapists - especially those who are more "woke" - don't always know what side of the line they're on. And if a therapist's supervisor - whose role is to guide them into following good practice and how treatment modalities like CBT are supposed to be used - does these same things and has this same lack of insight, well...
The other explanation has to do with the role mass media culture has played in skewing's people's expectations of reality and their own lives to lead them to think that, for example, normal feelings of sadness, discomfort, or frustration can be fixed instead of just tolerated. Even before smartphones, social media, and the rise of the therapy culture you described, we (at least in American society) were inundated with TV shows, movies, billboards, newspaper advertisements, etc. Fictional media, by necessity, excises all the mundane responsibilities of life (e.g. going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, sleeping, etc.), simplifies people's motives and relationships and inner lives, makes the universe into something comprehensible, and makes the character's experiences more energizing than reality could ever hope to be (e.g. with soundtracks, explosions, high stakes, etc.). And in advertisements, we see people smiling in the sunshine and seeming to enjoy life thanks to something they bought (e.g. those infamous stock photos of women laughing while eating salad). One of the consequences of modern living is less avenues to experience and learn about the world directly (e.g. exploration, farming and hunting for survival, conflict and conquest, etc.), meaning that mass media ends up becoming the main way we come to conclusions about how the world works, just by sheer virtue of how ubiquitous and inescapable it is. Which in turn leads to us comparing our lives to the hyper-idealized visions we see in media and finding them wanting. If my life isn't as exciting and satisfying as those of the people on the screen, if no matter how much I accomplish I'm not experiencing the constant overt happiness I see is possible, if even something as simple as a salad can't fill me with so much joy that I laugh - well, there must be something wrong with me. Thus normal life experiences - boredom, disappointment, discomfort - become pathologized, and therapy - created for the treatment of actual mental illness - starts to be seen as the way to meet these unrealistic expectations. Of course to a certain degree the vast majority of us know consciously that mass media is not reality, but even then, with us not experiencing the kinds of hardships our ancestors had no choice but to face, inconveniences that would be minor at best to them turn into our most pressing issues, and we treat them accordingly.
"How long do you keep insulting people who have suffered by claiming that their suffering is good, actually?"
This is because people are given up to a reprobate mind, thinking evil is good and good is evil. Rom 1:28.
Your writing is insightful. Mental health is a real problem, not a strength, but people are making it cool for attention, similar to other immoral behaviors.
I agree with Harvard's solution to mental health - not just a religious organization but a Bible-believing charismatic church, especially for students like myself.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/regularly-attending-religious-services-associated-with-lower-risk-of-deaths-of-despair
A Christian sees tragedy as a part of life, and in everything, we give thanks, good or bad. 1 Thessalonians 5:18.
It’s human nature to find comfort in the empathy of fellow humans. But a tough-minded Christian always finds it in Jesus Christ, and that is the strongest foundation. 2 Corinthians 12.
It's also sad to learn psychiatry substituted for church. Tons of fake Christians are to blame. John 8:44.
I also enjoyed reading this statement:
“Although it’s also worth noting that in many ways, some of the sanest people enjoy the most bizarre delusions ('God has a plan for me', 'my life has a real impact in the world', etc.). Choose your delusions wisely.”
Although God has a plan for everyone, that plan is found in doing God’s will. And the way I’m finding His plan for me is by knowing Him through the Bible.
We’d rather make people feel better about themselves than actually be better themselves. We avoid confrontation as a society above everything. Nobody has social skills to navigate it so we avoid it and this is part of the reason we have so much mental health advocacy. 1-people say they have autism instead of admitting they can learn to be better socially 2-people don’t want to get pushback for saying a sad person can fix it with work
Quite an insightful piece. The one quote that reverberated in my mind throughout was:
"Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs." - Joan Didion
Really great read. Another thing I have noticed in my own circles is also.. I’m not even sure how to say this - but mental illnesses have become a norm + an excuse for almost anything. “Sorry, but yes unfortunately I’m ADHD so I simply find it hard to get up in the morning for work”.. replace that with any other random thing. Especially when it comes to character traits - “.. Unfortunately because I’m XYZ I’m like this. And I know multiple people who have fought long battles for being recognized as mentally challenged, while psychologists have refused doing so because they didn’t consider them ill. Another area I wrote about myself is how this whole situation also somehow creates a distance between people- I’ve had and have friends that have very close yearlong relationships with their psychiatrists.. and everything of significance was discussed with the psychiatrist..in the end leaving the friendship itself that we had / have quite .. hollow in a way. Stripped for anything of value.
People will do anything to avoid addressing their own inadequacies. Dr John Sarno was ahead of his time in discovering the physical manifestations of unaddressed anger/anxiety, which is still seen as a bit of taboo. Mental health going mainstream created community, comfort, and identity around normal feelings, removing the need or desire for personal agency in finding a solution.
We covered some similar issues would be curious to hear your thoughts on this other piece: https://americaninequality.substack.com/p/mental-health-and-inequality
It's interesting you mention how you believe the mental health industry appears more influenced by Freud, Jung, and their acolytes rather than Adler, Bandura, Frankl, etc. - when I was going for my social work degree, CBT was all but lauded as the gold standard of therapy, and trendy modalities like mindfulness and trauma-informed approaches were sold to us as offshoots of CBT rather than the bad old "psychodynamic" way of thinking. And some of the first things we were taught were: Follow the code of ethics. Work with your clients to the point where you're no longer needed. Focus on their strengths. Validate their feelings, but your job is not to tell them that nothing is wrong with them. Respect diversity of thought. And so on.
This made me think of two explanations to the phenomena you describe, although obviously they are not the only ones. First, I believe the therapeutic-ization of everything points to a massive failure on the part of the systems meant to educate our therapists and counselors. Many of these ways to avoid the failure modes of therapy culture are taught in master's-level and doctorate programs, but in my experience they are not strongly reinforced - a MSW program is only around 2 years, and most classes are about diagnosis, specific focus areas (e.g. substance abuse, children and adolescents, etc.), and social justice. As a result, program graduates - who, let's be honest, are not always the sharpest tools in the proverbial shed - misinterpret and misapply what they learn to disastrous effect. For example, "validate your client's emotions" can easily turn into "accept and affirm your client's emotions." "Don't force your client to do anything they're not ready for at that particular moment" can become "you'll never be able to make your client do anything if they're even the slightest bit uncomfortable about it, and if you try your client will hate you and the treatment won't work." (Nevermind that if you don't motivate and encourage your client to change at least a little bit, the treatment won't work anyway!) This kind of practice is meant to help build rapport and trust with whoever it is you're working with, which you have to establish before any treatment could hope to work, but the line between treating mental illness and reinforcing it is an extremely blurry one, and I would say that many therapists - especially those who are more "woke" - don't always know what side of the line they're on. And if a therapist's supervisor - whose role is to guide them into following good practice and how treatment modalities like CBT are supposed to be used - does these same things and has this same lack of insight, well...
The other explanation has to do with the role mass media culture has played in skewing's people's expectations of reality and their own lives to lead them to think that, for example, normal feelings of sadness, discomfort, or frustration can be fixed instead of just tolerated. Even before smartphones, social media, and the rise of the therapy culture you described, we (at least in American society) were inundated with TV shows, movies, billboards, newspaper advertisements, etc. Fictional media, by necessity, excises all the mundane responsibilities of life (e.g. going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, sleeping, etc.), simplifies people's motives and relationships and inner lives, makes the universe into something comprehensible, and makes the character's experiences more energizing than reality could ever hope to be (e.g. with soundtracks, explosions, high stakes, etc.). And in advertisements, we see people smiling in the sunshine and seeming to enjoy life thanks to something they bought (e.g. those infamous stock photos of women laughing while eating salad). One of the consequences of modern living is less avenues to experience and learn about the world directly (e.g. exploration, farming and hunting for survival, conflict and conquest, etc.), meaning that mass media ends up becoming the main way we come to conclusions about how the world works, just by sheer virtue of how ubiquitous and inescapable it is. Which in turn leads to us comparing our lives to the hyper-idealized visions we see in media and finding them wanting. If my life isn't as exciting and satisfying as those of the people on the screen, if no matter how much I accomplish I'm not experiencing the constant overt happiness I see is possible, if even something as simple as a salad can't fill me with so much joy that I laugh - well, there must be something wrong with me. Thus normal life experiences - boredom, disappointment, discomfort - become pathologized, and therapy - created for the treatment of actual mental illness - starts to be seen as the way to meet these unrealistic expectations. Of course to a certain degree the vast majority of us know consciously that mass media is not reality, but even then, with us not experiencing the kinds of hardships our ancestors had no choice but to face, inconveniences that would be minor at best to them turn into our most pressing issues, and we treat them accordingly.
Rocking the Notion 💪