[tonguez]

The problem with framing this as a mental health crisis is that it implies the solution is in mental health services. Is there a mental health crisis in North Korea? No their lives are just terrible. Therapy isn’t going to help people in North Korea. Similarly the worse material conditions are in the West the more people are going to kill themselves. I think it’s about 200 a day in the US and it has been for many many years. The fact that this is not talked about on the news is an example of one of the negative material conditions in the West that result in worse health outcomes. It is depressing to live in a society where everything is controlled by rich people who torture the population, and the answer is not therapy or drugs.

[skim_milk]

I disagree, the goal of therapy (should) be to make the patient more self-efficacious, NOT about making them happy or instilling the right mental gymnastics to feel OK about their situation. The more self-efficacious a person is, the more likely they are to figure out what is causing them problems and find meaning in their life by rising to the challenge and organizing action with either themselves or within their peer group in order to deal with their situation that causes them and their peers distress. A depressed, non-self-efficacious person will be less capable of figuring out and making plans to deal with situations that cause them distress.

Would a mentally healthy, self-efficacious population be more or less likely realize their problems and organize collective action to correct their situation?

[astrange]

> Is there a mental health crisis in North Korea? No their lives are just terrible.

Do they even have poor mental health there? It's quite likely, but most people throughout history lived in terrible conditions, sometimes resorting to cannibalism way back in the day[1], and probably did not have depression from it. It's all about relative expectations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor#Cannibalism

[Dumblydorr]

Are you a mental health professional? Seems you're overconfident that therapy and drugs aren't the solution to mental health problems, given those are the two main treatments used by doctors who are actually experts on the matter.

[kar5pt]

This is circular reasoning. "Only mental health professionals can have an opinion on the matter because mental health professionals say so, and the opinion of mental health professionals is authoritative because it's a mental health issue". Why can't we disagree that it's solely a mental health matter?

[math_denial]

>Seems you're overconfident that therapy and drugs aren't the solution to mental health problems

And seems like mental health professionals are overconfident that their methods work. And the evidence that they do is weak, especially for the talk therapy.