Mental Health Care is not a One-Time Affair : Post #1 - Why a Preventive Approach to Mental Health Care is Necessary

I, Jyotika Varmani, tutor students of Psychology at all levels. I reside in Mumbai and tutor students online. You can contact me personally on my e-mail id jyotikapsychology@gmail.com or call/message me on 9892507784 for enquiries.

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In this new series of posts, I discuss the necessity of routine health care, dispel some common myths about the nature of mental health and suggest a few measures, easily incorporated into everyday life for this end.

In this first post of the series, I discuss why a preventive approach towards mental health care is an absolute must.

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The nature of depression and its treatment have become topics of popular concern since depression is today taken to be one of the leading causes of death. A lot of suggestions have emerged from mental health experts on how depression, in its initial phases, can be tackled by measures such as sharing problems with friends, adopting problem-solving strategies, taking professional consultation and counseling, etc., all of which are very sound, research-based strategies. What is missing in these suggestions, however, is the critical advise of the necessity of preventing psychological disorders like depression from taking roots in our lives the first place. Attention towards mental health concerns has been largely curative in orientation, enforcing wrongly held beliefs such as, mental health is a concern of only a few individuals who end up suffering from issues like depression or that one's mental health is perfectly sound unless a mental disorder is diagnosed. It is important to consider how this curative approach to mental health will never bring down mental health concerns in the world, as is evidenced by the alarmingly rising proportions of mental disorders across the globe in the past few years. This rise was not a surprise, it was well anticipated several years back by leading health organizations in the world. Yet, despite such projections, leading psychological bodies have failed in controlling mental disorders, given that control and prevention have never been on their agenda.

How a preventive approach trumps a curative one can be easily understood by drawing an analogy between physical and mental health. Is it advisable to catch a flu from viruses in the air, let the flu develop in intensity and then rush to a doctor for medication, or is it more desirable to stop the flu from intensifying and even better, to avoid catching it in the first place? We all know the answer to this question. What is worth considering is, why this is the case. Why is there always so much emphasis on building a strong physical immunity? To understand this, we need to know that while medicines can subside issues like the flu, there are multiple issues with their consumption. For one, they produce side effects - as for the given example, flu medicines typically produce drowsiness. For another, they take time to have an effect and until they do, the individual continues to suffer his ailment, which is a very disconcerting experience. For yet another, they can be addictive, patients can develop dependency on them to even carry out everyday tasks. Finally, their efficacy decreases with time - it takes a stronger dosage of medicine to deal with the same ailment as the body develops tolerance for a given medicine. Is this the case with psychological treatment as well?

One thing worth considering here is that psychological treatment is not always in the form of medication. For those treatments which are based on medication, such as psychiatric care, there is a direct application of the aforementioned issues. There are, however, several other forms of psychological therapies available for mental issues such as talk therapies and activity-oriented therapies. Let's consider which issues apply to them. Though these forms of therapy are not addictive in nature and may not always cause side-effects, they typically take long periods of time - ranging from weeks to years in bringing about effects and their effects also sometimes show lowered effectiveness from the time that these therapies are completed onwards. Owing to these issues, they can never outperform prevention, which is devoid of all such concerns.

Isn't it much better to never have to suffer a moment of depression than to suffer it for a week or so and then undergo the process of recovery? While some might argue that such untoward experiences lead to stronger mental health by way of the enlightenment that comes from their therapy, I beg to differ by proposing that those enlightening experiences can easily be achieved by means of routine mental health care, minus the suffering. Furthermore, a sound mind is in a much better position to absorb and implement lessons for its health than a weak, disturbed mind. The crux of the matter is that while overcoming life's challenges is a good exercise for the mind to strengthen itself, undergoing full-fledged disorders is not. This brings us to another point needing clarification.

People often fail to distinguish depression from the experiences of sorrow that are part and parcel of life. Having depression is akin to having a full-blown physical disorder such as paralysis - what paralysis does to the body, depression does to the mind - it depletes the mind of all its powers, its abilities to think, perceive and take decisions. Yes, depression is that severe - do not be deceived by its recent depiction in popular media. While people do benefit by overcoming a few viruses and a few occasional injuries that help build their immunity, do they benefit from undergoing paralysis or heart disease? It is important to keep in mind that mental disorders like depression are severe traumas to the mind.

I have used the example of depression up to this point for it has emerged as the current exemplar of mental disorders. It is not an adequate one though. Mental disorders are very diverse because they belong to the highly complex human mind. Besides depression, which is highly prevalent in today's times, anxiety-related disorders are at the peak of their prevalence too. I have had the misfortune of interacting with a host of youngsters coming from all socio-economic and academic backgrounds, taking drugs to combat stress and anxiety since at least their entry into college. Some of them take drugs prescribed by their psychiatrists while others abuse over-the-counter medicines. They do this since they are unable to tolerate the stress of having to appear for their class tests, vivas and semester examinations - events that simply cannot be considered to be great challenges of life, no matter whose perspective is taken to look at them, no matter the uproar created by parents. To add to the list, addictions have become very common, too. Drug addiction - for illicit drugs or legal ones being consumed in illicit limits, tops this list. Internet and social media addiction are not far behind. All these problems and many others are serving to diminish the cognitive abilities of individuals as well as to drain their capacity of experiencing positive emotions. If this is not the time to create an awareness for preventive mental health, then the time for it will never come. Experiences of depression, anxiety, stress and addictions are certainly a far cry away from adding value to anyone's life.

How can we prevent ourselves from undergoing mental disorders? What exactly is preventive mental health? Which are the practices that will help us create a sound mental health for daily living? I address all these questions in the upcoming posts in this series. As of now, I hope the present post will compel you towards contemplation on the present state of affairs with regard to mental health and set you towards considering whether the approach being taken towards the same currently, is serving the right purpose.

Let's quickly review the points for consideration made in this post:

• Mental disorders do not affect only a few individuals - they are widely prevalent today and anyone working actively towards preventing them is vulnerable to them;

• Mental disorders are severe conditions affecting the mind and not routine disturbances:

• There is no benefit in suffering through mental disorders, they only cause damage to the mind;

• Treatments for mental disorders, while highly desirable, cannot replace thor prevention due to issues like side-effect, addiction, tolerance and slowness of pace associated with them;

• The current curative approach to mental health has failed in lowering the long-anticipated rise in mental disorders, the world over.

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