We Can’t "Self-Care" Our Way Out of Our Mental-Health Crisis

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May is over. We’ve been lambasted with Mental Health Awareness Month hashtags, green-heart emojis, ‘It’s okay not to be okay’ memes, and crisis text numbers.

Zealous mental health advocates spread messages of hope and solidarity, assuring us that healing is within reach. That we’re not alone. That we can ‘self-care’ our way out of this global mental health crisis if we just drink our smoothies and say our mantras.

These gestures aren’t futile: Such awareness can spark hope, and spur vital action. I know this well. I am a psychotherapist, a professor of behavioral science, and a mental health advocate. I believe in the power of these campaigns. Skills that help us build positive emotions are important. Conscientiousness helps.

But for the millions suffering with severe mental health issues, feel-good messages can only take them so far. There’s carnage everywhere we turn: Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among young adults. The pandemic has escalated mild and moderate mental health issues to an agonizing level, leaving far too many individuals and their families reeling.

Mental health support is a tale of two cities. On one hand, we’ve come a long way. Stigma is lessening, communities are consciously forming to increase safety and access, and cutting-edge evidence-based treatment options are demonstrating promise. Social-emotional learning curricula have made their way into many schools. Companies are starting to pay closer attention to employee well-being. Parents are being prodded to teach their children resilience skills. There is greater candor and collective will. There’s a wealth of available information and new waves of access created by online treatment and communities.

Also, treatment works. Many who had found themselves in complete despair have found tremendous relief through therapeutic interventions including psychoeducation, psychotherapy, group therapy, peer support, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle medicine, mindfulness practices, CBT, DBT, EMDR, TMS, ketamine, and psilocybin. Clinical trials for MDMA-assisted therapy are in late stages.

And yet the service delivery system still suffers from a 1950s hangover. Prevention strategies lag sorely behind. Wait times for licensed therapists are horrendous. Critical shortages of practitioners were well-documented by the Global Lancet Mental Health Report and World Health Organization long before the pandemic. Systemic racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and ageism wreak havoc.

Social determinants of health play a major role in levels of acuity, and who gets proper care or doesn’t. Communities of color and those living below the poverty line face disproportionate risk factors and barriers to treatment. BIPOC and LGBTQ therapists are harder to find. Many therapists have foregone taking insurance, and finding high-quality care during a global mental health crisis has been a scavenger hunt. Community mental health providers have been slammed, facing major staffing shortages, burnout, and dire issues around the clock.

Mental health awareness isn’t enough. Social change must accompany it. Mental health is a public health issue that begs our collective will. Without more just and humane systems, we will continue to experience great suffering and demise.

Here’s how to take awareness to action:

1. Don’t let mental health awareness vanish after May. We must take a 365, 24-7 approach to well-being in our homes, schools, workplaces, communities, and across society. Prevention, integration, and access are vital; there are no good reasons for a chasing-tail, bracing-for-crisis, suffering-aftermath approach to mental health.

2. Stop treating mental health as an individual or family problem. It isn’t. The longer we allow it to be diverted as such, the more unnecessary suffering will occur.

3. Bake mental health support into work cultures. This doesn’t mean throwing a mindfulness seminar at workers and expecting them to be okay. Create better work conditions. Provide paid time off, offer flexibility, and treat people like actual human beings. Work cultures that strive to avoid punitive and hierarchical ways, and instead work to build psychological safety and trust can breed the conditions that help mitigate burnout.

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4. Don’t turn a blind eye on schools. It is a great tragedy that educators are experiencing one of the highest rates of burnout. School leaders and professionals need support just as much as students, at every stage of education. And students need the consistent message that mental health is more important than so-called success, more important than grades, likes on their feeds, or getting into a top-tier college. Everyone involved in education deserves safe and optimal conditions to build healthy relationships, to belong, and to learn and practice skills of resilience.

5. Demand more than bread crumbs. Accept nothing less from leaders and policymakers than properly prioritizing and funding mental health. We cannot expect social change if mental health gets bread crumbs. Mental health service delivery and educational systems funding have paled in comparison to military budgets. Social policies and funding allocations must be directed to prevention and early intervention, not crisis when someone’s condition has escalated to a dire state. Funding can also address the critical shortage of mental health professionals, prioritizing increasing BIPOC and LBGTQ practitioners to ensure representation and access for underrepresented communities.

Our attention to mental health issues cannot vanish after May. Slogans and strategies aren’t enough. Action is needed to drive reform and provide conditions that facilitate access to healing.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.