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As a mental health worker, if a client got involved with something like this, I'd be thrilled. This sounds like it provides purpose and community to all involved. Good for them!
Yeah if half my patients just went out and found constructive hobbies that they can do with other people I would actually be really hyped. I especially like seeing young men stop fixating on women and just go develop things about themselves that are likeable and interesting to other people in general.
The craziest part is that I'd actually kind of prefer that they do this in most cases. Half the time this will be like 75% of what the therapist will tell them to do anyway and the other 25% is stuff like "stop getting most of your hydration from diet coke" and "yeah your dad was just kind of an asshole boomer; that happens a lot actually."
And I'll probably get shit for it again (but maybe I'll explain it better this time?) but it's actually really concerning how many people are leaning on therapy right now. I'm not saying it's their fault, but saying more people need to go to therapy isn't actually going to fix the issue. It would be like if were constantly maiming and injuring people and saying the problem was not enough people going to physical therapy. Therapists absolutely need to be a thing, but most people wouldn't be having these problems in the first place if we hadn't commoditized human interaction and largely eliminated publically / benefactor hosted social spaces.
And by commoditized I mean we've created this culture where we have all these rules for who gets to be mad or sad in each interaction and who is supposed to support who, often with the exchange of money involved. And I'm actually mostly talking about the service industry even more than I am about the mental health one, it's just that their bullshit is seeping over to us and making the mental health (and general healthcare) industry a toxic sludgepile too. The only therapist I could get to call me back is part of a large online franchise that basically pimps them out like onlyfans models except my insurance pays and there's no flirting or tiddy pics. I haven't had the heart to pry into how much they're actually making but I doubt it's a lot.
TLDR: I don't like modern "just go to therapy" culture because I think it's completely missing the point. Even if we were properly staffed, the healthcare industry can't conceivably fix the rest of society on it's own. Also just fix housing already ffs. It will literally just put a cap on the mental health crisis. Like if we just took blackrock's real estate and put homeless people in it the mental health crisis would just be like 80% solved. I'm not even kidding.
I actually agree with you in many aspects. Something new that is being taught in therapy training is that we have to be aware of systemic issues that are contributing to someone's mental health.
Example: someone is suicidal and feeling hopeless. Do they have clinical major depressive disorder? Maybe, but if we ask "how are your finances doing?" And they say they work full time at Walmart and get paid $10 per hour and have 3 kids... Yeah it makes sense why they feel helpless and suicidal.
For this reason, therapists and mental health workers have a duty to advocate for progressive social policies.
It would be like if were constantly maiming and injuring people and saying the problem was not enough people going to physical therapy.
In that I kind of agree with you. Many problems can be traced back to societal issues. Hell is other people. That's why we need to do better.
Sending those, damaged by society, to therapy is necessary, but we wouldn't be there if several root causes wouldn't exist.Like if we just took blackrock's real estate and put homeless people in it the mental health crisis would just be like 80% solved. I'm not even kidding.
Oversimplification, imo. But this is surely a contributing factor.
In one of my psych courses the professor noted a study (not sure of the source, this was closing in on twenty years ago now) that while psychotherapy had pretty good efficacy for certain things, it was equivalent with "talk openly with your friends about it" in most metrics. A therapist is great for providing specific strategies to address particular challenges (for issues like PTSD, for example, a therapist can help to manage an exposure therapy approach) but after a point you're kinda just paying through the nose for somebody to professionally emulate you having a healthy friendship with a well-adjusted person.