Mental Health is the Top Healthcare Concern of Americans
A 2023 Ipsos survey has found that mental health is now the chief health concern among U.S. adults, surpassing the coronavirus, obesity and cancer.
As the chart shows, 53 percent of U.S. respondents said that they thought mental health was the biggest health problem facing people in their country as of August this year, up from 51 percent in 2022. Where the coronavirus had been considered the biggest health problem by roughly two thirds of U.S. respondents through the pandemic, perceptions of the danger of the virus have now curtailed to just 15 percent of respondents
Majority of Americans Have Struggled with Mental Health
Having long been stigmatized as a sign of weakness, mental health problems have become much less of a taboo in recent years. The pandemic, with its unique set of challenges, accelerated that trend, as it not only caused a spike in symptoms of anxiety or depression, but also led to more people opening up about their problems.
In a recent Statista survey, 3 in 4 American adults reported that they have struggled with mental health in some form or other in the 12 months preceding the survey, making an open discourse about mental health issues all the more important.
What do I expect to happen to these posts?
!. The Executive Director last week sent me, and others, a request to promote the Levy in social media. That is where I got the sign above.
So, I am going to send her a link with my post and its related links. It is up to her what she does with it. I am sure she and the leadership of Citizens for Mental Health will have a lot of ideas.
2. The parish yearly sends us a list of members who have agreed to have their phone numbers, addresses, and e-mails published. During the rest of the month I am slowly going to send out e-mails. I realize that some people may vote before they get my e-mail. My real goal is the raise mental health awareness in the parish.
I was thinking of having a kiosk with Mental Health information in the narthex during October. However, the increase in Covid has made us decide to stay at home for Mass.
I am hoping that this will intrigue enough people that some sort of parish organization will form. I expect I will get a lot of replies asking "Did the pastor approve of this?" I never even asked. I know him and the parish bureaucracy enough that they would do nothing before election day. I have been that route before. Besides the pastor retires in May. When Covid goes down again in March or April I hope to assemble a group for Mental Health Month.
So I would appreciate your thoughts on these posts, and what could I do to improve them.
UPDATE
Cost As A Barrier to Mental Health Treatment
In the USA, 42% of adults with a mental illness whose treatment needs went unmet in 2022 said that this occurred because they simply couldn't afford it.
Also of concern, 27% said they didn't know where to go to get the support services they needed
and 17 percent said that, despite having health insurance, it didn't cover enough of the costs.
No idea how Catholics view mental illness now, but growing up in my neighborhood, unless you had behavior problems caused by lead poisoning, water on the brain, or some physical cause that the doctors could pinpoint, you were just self-indulgent. Church could straighten you out.
ReplyDeleteBishop Sheen gave several talks about this such as:
https://youtu.be/qFjXfYi6qBo?si=nKfGU0yOyCGxXS3O
Certainly my mother, who had lifelong depression and alcoholism, was viewed askance by other moms.
I know you have mentioned in some of your posts the unhealthy dependence pattern that can occur between patient and psychotherapist.
I have had some help from AlAnon, for family members of alcoholics, which the local parish promotes. Many AlAnons can be kind of cult-y about it, telling others they'll need the group for the rest of their lives.
So wondering what Catholic notions about mental health are now and how you build support for these issues given those attitudes.
AA means regularly in our parish and many of the parishes in our area. There was a support group for the mentally ill in one of our larger parishes in this county. I don't know if it still exists. Our parish has support groups for the divorced and separated, and well as "Blue Christmas" for those in grief.
DeleteWhen we became an Alcohol and Drug Addiction Board we tried to pass a levy targeted on those populations and failed miserably, only about 40% yes votes. Attitude then was lock them up and through away the key (at least to their cars).
Mental illness has gotten a lot of favorable press in the county newspaper, largely because of good stories of particular individuals that humanized mental illness.
Each year our board at its annual dinner honors a person with mental illness for their accomplishments. They or someone for them tells their story. That is what I would like to see happen in our parish. Information meetings about mental illness staffed by people who have had mental illness and their family members.
I think there is a "drug court" in the Cleveland area near you that has had some success. They are trying something similar in Lansing with alcoholics and addicts who have committed crimes. They just had a "graduation" for several people in that program.
DeleteSo far, it seems to reduce recidivism for those who make it. I'd support it.
Keep up your efforts, Jack. They are needed.
ReplyDeleteI think most communities have groups such as AA and Alanon, peer support groups. For people who need individual counseling, or medical support for conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar, it's a lot harder to get help. There's a shortage of providers such as clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. People can wait weeks and months for appointments. Insurance reimbursement for services is often not great, and limited to a certain number of appointments.
Honestly, there's a lot of people (or their families) who resort to emergency rooms for help. If they claim suicidal ideation they can get a 72 hour evaluation. But often that's not what they really need.
Mental health assistance is a good thing and should be promoted and supported. My unprofessional thinking is that a great deal of this is caused by social atomization and economic stress. Certainly, susceptibility varies from person to person but I think we’re all under stress. My father had life-ruining OCD. He also played war with the Emperor’s boys on Iwo Jima for the duration of that battle. If I had gone to Viet Nam, would I have turned out the same? Best not to judge, just help. But our whole society and economy is perpetually dysfunctional. I believe mental health assistance only addresses one dimension.
ReplyDeleteBTW, a blog login popped up somehow and now I can post from my iPhone. Hope it holds.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am struck by how much easier it is to access physical therapy than anything to do with mental health. Lately I have been having back trouble. It took one visit to my medical clinic to get a referral for pt. One phone call to the pt office and they got me in within two days. We are a medium-ish sized town, around 22,000. On the door to the pt clinic it lists about a dozen staff, some of them are board certified physical therapists, others are pt assistants. This isn't the only pt office in town, there are two others. It appears they are always busy, and they have Medicare and insurance reimbursement down pat.
ReplyDeleteThere is only one doctor of psychiatry who comes to town twice a month. There are several clinical psychologist offices and a couple of social work counselors. People tell me they are booked out for weeks. It can't be the money that is the difference, the pt people are reimbursed very well by Medicare and insurance. Maybe they are less willing to pay the mental health professionals? I don't know.
My doc was complaining about the lack of mental health care about a year ago. She said that COVID burned out a lot of people in mental health care, and online therapy rackets like Better Help have stepped in to fill the gap.
DeleteI see that evangelical ministers are putting themselves forth to serve as school counselors to fill that need. Yep, you just need a good whuppin' and then we'll pray away the gay! Idea is not getting traction in Michigan, I bet that religious nut state superintendent in Oklahoma is on board.
It's interesting that a lot of young people seem to be going into physical therapy. All the practitioners at the office I go to are relatively young. I suppose it's a less stressful profession than mental health care.
DeleteI think it is a bad idea if unqualified people (like evangelical ministers with no training in psychotherapy ) step in to fill the gap. When my husband was in deacon formation they stressed that they shouldn't attempt psychotherapy unless that had actually been their profession.
I have heard about Better Help and wondered how it works out. It would be harder to vet the counselors, but it could fill a need.
Regarding Catholic views of mental health: in diaconate formation, mental health is one of four dimensions of overall development and well-being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
ReplyDeleteWhen I applied to our archdiocese's diaconate formation program, I was given a lengthy mental health screening. The guy who administered it was a priest and psychologist. I've encountered a few of those guys over the years.
FWIW, one of the theories of the many, many ways in which the church has failed to protect abuse victims from clerical abusers is by allegedly putting too much faith in psychological treatment. Abusers who were caught were sent away to a treatment center, much as an addict might be sent to rehab. If the bishop received a letter from the treatment center that the priest patient had successfully completed the treatment program, he was recycled back into active ministry. This sequence led to recidivism so frequently and appallingly that it led to the current zero-tolerance regime which been imposed for the last 20 or so years.
I know a lot of people who suffer from depression and/or anxiety to the point that treatment seems indicated in order for them to be able to function in society. Any primary-care physician can prescribe meds for these disorders, so we are a heavily-medicated society. The patients around here also are referred to psychiatrists, of whom there are relatively few, even in this doctor-rich suburban area. If the patient follows through and sees a psychiatrist, the latter will (a) work with the patient to find meds that seem to work for a time; and (b) refer the patient for psychological counseling. Most of the people I know who have been through this have been in and out of counseling. Our work benefits packages cover some psychological counseling, at least at a minimal level. The patient ends up having to pick up at least part of the tab, while the psychologist complains about how stingy the insurance companies are. For a patient who sees a psychologist weekly, it can become quite expensive over the course of a year.
Re: clergy and other religious types posing as mental health counselors: that would be frowned upon around here. We're taught to stick to what we know. Even to hang up one's shingle as a spiritual director (spirituality being the one of the four dimensions named in my previous comment in which a member of the clergy might be thought to have some expertise) requires some additional training and formation above and beyond what we received during our path to ordination. For people who come to us with marital issues or other mental, behavioral or emotional issues, we're strongly advised to refer them to specialists rather than try to amateur-hour our way through it ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI assumed that the Catholic heirarchy would not cotton to playing school counselor.
DeleteI am a bit surprised to hear that deacons don't do marital counseling. We had one who did. Odd duck. He blabbed one couple's problems to other parishioners. He asked to be laicized after his wife died. I guess he wanted to get married again.
Fortunately he was in no way representative of Anglican or Catholic deacons I've known. Generally decent, pillar-of-the-community moderate Republican types. Good with finances and investments, organizing charitable events, by-the-book thinkers, able to keep the priests from doing anything too nutty, usually do good funeral services and baptisms because they know the families.