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What if our good intentions are causing the mental health crisis?
I want to ask some tough and important questions.
We often talk about a “mental health crisis” that’s believed to be an almost inevitable impact on children and teens today. We read that there’s a much larger proportion of people who suffer from psychological issues, such as depression and anxiety, with young people particularly impacted.
The consensus is that many people urgently need mental health assistance but aren’t getting it. During the pandemic, psychologists became busy, and now many must wait long periods of time to get help, potentially putting them at some risk.
I am not doubting there is some truth in the ideas I have just stated. But I am not sure that there aren’t some basic misunderstandings of the issues that are proving to be unhelpful. In fact, I am so concerned about current misinterpretations, I feel that questions need to be posed. I don’t necessarily know the answers, but I think there are some topics that we need to discuss properly and promptly.
What if we are blaming the wrong things? It seems universally accepted that COVID has caused the current issues in young people, and I don’t doubt that many were worse off for a time. But what if it didn’t impact as much as we think it did? There’s a…
