Masawa Minute 99

Are we having too much therapy? | The secret to getting better | More! 🍁

This is the Masawa Minute — mental wellness, social impact, and impact investing snippets from what we’ve read and created in the last month + where you can get active.

In this week’s newsletter, we consider the urgent need for holistic solutions for improving global mental health and wellbeing. While “holistic” may have become a buzzword, its significance reaches far beyond that: given the shortcomings of our current systems, it’s clear that the limited, one-size-fits-all approaches just aren’t cutting it. After all, our lives are shaped by our personal experiences, environments, and communities every day, so it’s essential that our mental health solutions reflect and address this diversity.

Masawa Update

Today Joshua and Sabine are in Brussels at the Belgian Impact Day, a conference centering around the Belgian impact finance landscape. Besides exciting keynote talks by Sandrine Dixson-Declève (Co-President of The Club of Rome), Vincent van Peteghem (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance) and Hans Stegeman (Chief Economist at Triodos Bank), they’re in for a day of break out discussions, pitching sessions and, of course, many meaningful connections with other people working to leverage finance for good. Exciting!

This Week’s Story

Have we reached the point of too much therapy?

The mental health treatment landscape in the US has seen a significant uptick in awareness and service utilization, with high-profile individuals openly sharing their struggles, therapy speak firmly rooted in social media platforms, and approximately one in five adults receiving some form of mental health care which marks an increase of nearly 15 million people in treatment over the last 20 years. So why is everyone’s mental health still so bad?

Well, for starters, the system struggles with a flawed diagnostic process, with misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis being common, as well as treatments that don’t always address the root causes of mental health issues. Current metrics for assessing mental health care tend to prioritize process measures over outcomes, such as individuals’ improvement and ability to function in daily life. Furthermore, there’s a glaring lack of acknowledgment of people’s realities — mental ill-health often is a valid and rational response to suffering. The challenges faced by the American mental health care system are not unique. Many problems are also apparent elsewhere around the world. For instance, 72% of psychiatrists and psychologists in Germany are over the age of 50, highlighting the need for innovative solutions and a diverse range of approaches to address the impending strain on the healthcare system.

This should serve as a wake-up call to diversify how we tackle the mental health crisis. To truly improve mental health outcomes, a more holistic approach that extends beyond the doctor’s office into the homes, the schools, the workplaces and the communities of the individuals is needed. Policy solutions are complex and slow-moving, so in the meantime, a focus on expanding access to mental health care, improving the flow of resources to underserved areas, and investing in community-based care can make a significant difference. While online resources have their time and place, prioritizing quality of care, measuring outcomes and building real accountability is what can really help to see improvements in local and global mental health.

America Has Reached Peak Therapy. Why Is Our Mental Health Getting Worse?

What else we’re reading…

🏙️ City leaders around the world are collaborating on innovative solutions to address climate change and health inequities. From appointing Chief Heat Officers to coming together to develop climate action plans, here’s how some cities are leading the path in collaborative climate action.

💃 Mindfulness practices in the corporate world, (fittingly?) dubbed “McMindfulness,” are criticized for focusing on superficial stress relief rather than addressing root causes of stress, like exploitative work practices. For the approach to be effective, it must empower workers by giving them voice and representation as well as provide safety nets that offer real exit options from stressful jobs.

💸 The Mental Wealth metric offers a novel approach to measuring national prosperity beyond GDP by incorporating non-monetized goods and services that contribute to social prosperity and quality of life. This method presents a comprehensive assessment acknowledging the significance of economic and social production as well as brain capital and collective cognitive and emotional wellbeing.

🏖️ Convalescence, an often overlooked concept, refers to giving the body time and space to recover after an illness — a period of recuperation that shouldn’t be cut short or neglected due to life’s pressures. In our fast-paced and demanding world, we’re tempted to think about it as “lost time,” but it’s so much more than that — it’s an essential and transformative process that allows us to heal, regenerate, and ultimately, remember we’re alive.

🦸 All of us can become our own heroes after all, according to science. Research finds that retelling our own personal stories through the “hero’s journey” narrative structures will lead to a more meaningful, resilient, and healthy life experience. The “restorying” intervention doesn’t just help find more meaning in one’s individual circumstances — it also enhances the ability to perceive meaning in general, empowering people to face life’s challenges with a sense of purpose and agency.

Gabija Vilkaitė