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"Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in Isolation."
-bell hooks3
In this postpandemic world, the widespread burden of ongoing psychological distress and mental health disorders are on the minds of many, whether generated from personal experiences from the pandemic or the myriad societal conflicts that have impacted everyday lives. In 2019,16% of US adults reported having received prescription medication, counseling or therapy for a mental health concern in the previous year.2 By April 2022, approximately 27% of US adults reported having done so within the past month 3 In both cases, only 10% to 11 % of US adults reported receiving any counseling or therapy as a part of their care. This medicalized approach to addressing mental health needs emphasizes providing clinical services, often pharmaceutically based, to individuals. But public mental health has a much broader mandate than this, including promotion of mental well-being at a population level, prevention of mental health morbidity, and addressing the consequences of it should it occur.4
THE ANTIDOTE TO PAIN
In this regard, bell hooks urges us to be disturbed by relying on a medicalized approach to "conquering" our grief, particularly good advice as we come out of this pandemic. For her, the antidote to the pain of loss lies in connecting with others and utilizing the power of our many communities to bring about healing. Danielle Carr, an anthropologist, argues elsewhere that "A crisis that affects mental health is not the same thing as a crisis o/mental health."5 She underscores that failure of social policies and political decisions crafted to protect mental health are more likely when mental health problems are located within individuals.
To illustrate the issue, she uses the example of medicalizing "social media addiction" in children and adolescents rather than viewing technology exposures as the focus of intervention such as by requiring innovative policies and regulation targeted to reduce the potential harmful impact of our emerging technologies. As she notes, "Medicalization shifts the terms in which we try to figure out what caused a problem, and what can be done to fix it. Often, it puts the focus on the individual as a biological body, at the expense of factoring in systemic and infrastructural conditions."5
CHRONIC UNDERINVESTMENT IN PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH
While there...