The theme for Mental Health Day 2021 is ‘Mental health care for all: let’s make it a reality’. In a country as large and diverse as ours, availability of mental health support gets very difficult. It’s hard to keep fighting for change when there’s push-back on multiple fronts.
There have been a lot of misconceptions regarding the field, usually because of false or biased representation. Unfortunately, many movies and TV shows promote tropes of mental health issues being confined to unstable people who murder for fun. Their therapists are portrayed as being either wannabe do-gooders, who are helpless to affect their clients’ minds, or evil masterminds who use their clients as toys to do their bidding. Small wonder that therapists end up being seen as the last people who could help!
This mental health day, let’s identify where we can create small changes in working towards making accessibility a reality.
Create awareness of mental health – One can only reach out when they understand what they are getting into and why. Our work should be aimed at educating the public of all ages. We can start right from school, teaching simple self-soothing and self-regulating skills practiced in therapy. We can teach effective ways to communicate and how to have a better hold on our emotions. We can start bottom-up.
Remove the stigma–Therapy is not a bad word. We must aspire to live in a world where going to a Psychotherapist is as accepted as going to a Physiotherapist for help. People tend to understand mental illness, but it also becomes a point of gossip or reason for condescension. While there is a lot more awareness of it in recent times, we still have a long way to go. We can start by talking about our own mental health journeys. It does not have to be full disclosure and only if/when comfortable doing so.
Push for insurance and funding –Mental health becomes something that only the well-off gain access to as it does not always get covered under health insurance. Many are left without the help they need due to costs being out of their price range. While there has been a shift over the years and certain mental health illnesses are under insurance, there are still numerous others that are left not covered. When costs of mental health are taken care of, it becomes easier to approach professionals for the right help.
Call for regulatory bodies –We need more laws that safeguard us from unethical or quack therapists. Since there’s no one to keep us in check, we are left with people without the right qualifications doing what they think therapy is. We have a lot of ‘listeners’ and ‘advice givers’ who do not have the required training to take on such a difficult profession and can actually do more harm than good. In order to provide effective therapy, our professionals need to be properly equipped with sound theory and practical experience – something that is left unchecked with the current system.
Lastly, mental health professionals do not ‘deal with crazies’. We provide support to human beings.