Two years into the pandemic. Concerns about Covid 19 impact on mental
health continue to grow. We spoke with people across the country
about their particular struggles.
And the work being done to help others suffering during the pandemic.
Here is some of what they told us.
My name is Jason Wu. I work in the Bay Area of California and I am
a private practice psychologist. One of my specialties is trauma,
So a lot of trauma work has been done with a lot of my clients over
this period of time.
Um
And it's been kind of a blessing and a curse because we're really
finally focusing on trauma, But then you also don't have the social
support that's really important to healing drama. My name is Shauna,
Curly. I live in Houston, Texas.
I am a stay at home. Mom. I have three Children, all in elementary
school and two of my kiddos have autism. We went on spring break
and we were in San Antonio when they started shutting down cities
and
I had a major item major anxiety, Okay? I'm Andy Hutchinson. I'm
a psychiatrist. I live in Charleston, South Carolina.
I'm supposed to know how to deal with this how to navigate it, How
to do the right things. How to meditate, How to run how to take care
of myself so that I don't experience depression. And yet there are
times even when you know all the things that you may still struggle
with depression as I have
I think what was different was that I felt like after all this happened
like in Atlanta with, you know, the really horrible tragedy happened
there. I just saw an influx of Asian clients in general. I guess
it's like
Made aware of the fact that your mental health is a real thing. It's
okay for Asian Americans to seek that out. It's there's a lot of
cultural stigma with that, too, ended up calling my therapist and
I was like, Hey,
I'm having a hard time like mid March after things had shut down
and like, I really think that this is going to be a problem. She
gave me some meditation strategies and
She said. Now might be the time that we need a psychiatrist before
Covid. I was sort of thriving. I was teaching mindfulness groups
and, um, and that switched online and kind of
Petered out in my motivation to do that kind of went away.
I was exercising. I was gardening a lot. I was voracious reader,
So I ordered more books than I could. I could get through just because
I loved having books and I noticed some of those things started dropping
away and I noticed I was sitting on the couch more.
I was finding myself sort of apathetic about all these things that
I was passionate about.
It didn't and it struck me and I was like, what's going on. Like
if I just lost interest in everything. I've seen a lot of people
who have dealt with depression definitely like isolation, which kind
of breathes a lot of that were meant to be social anxiety. For sure,
I mean,
For a lot of clients that have had that have O C D. This whole pandemic
has been really triggering for them. She gave me
The contact information for a psychiatrist, and I called her and
I met with her virtually and, um
And she was like, Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna take some medicine
for this. And then when this whole pandemic thing guys now, But you
can you know you can. We can wean you off, and I was like, Okay,
that's great, because it should be over soon, right?
And so here we are two years then, in a second prescription for anxiety
meds, I've had to invest in more money sort of taking care of myself.
I've reached out to my own psychiatrist to get the out that I need
to support that I needed created sort of a team.
Of supporters for myself, have reached out to my friends and let
them know I've been struggling at times.
And we want to thank each one of you for sharing your stories with
us and now to focus on what can be done to address and improve mental
health care in America. I spoke recently with Dr Tom Insel.
From 2000 and 2 to 2000 and 15. He served as director of the National
Institute of Mental Health. He's the author of a new book, Healing
Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health.
Dr Tom Insel. Welcome to the news hour. You've been keeping a close
eye on the state of people's mental health during this entire pandemic,
so hearing that people are struggling.
Right now. Doesn't come as a surprise, Does it?
It's hardly a surprise. This has been a tough couple of years for
the nation for the world.
And you see it most in people who might have been struggling even
before the pandemic to have a mental health crisis is not new. It
was there in 2019.
But it's more apparent and I think there's just a lot more despair.
ER going into 2022 now starting the third year of this very difficult
time.
And you wrote this book, in large part because you are openly alarmed
at the fact that this country in your view is so poorly equipped
To deal with depression, anxiety, all forms of mental illness.
Not just as you said not just during the pandemic, but but all the
time right now.
Well, when I started my career, I think we were doing a better job.
I wouldn't say that about very many areas of medicine. But in mental
health 40 years ago, 45 years ago, we had a broad community based
support system. We had a safety net.
We had a lot of services available, particularly for people who had
the most serious forms of mental illness. Schizophrenia, bipolar
illness, Severe depression, We were prepared.
And we were there to serve and the words of President Kennedy. They
need no longer be alien to our affections. We've lost that and we've
lost that over many decades, and we've lost it in a way, Which means
that
Too often. People with serious mental illness end up in the criminal
justice system and not the healthcare system. That's unacceptable,
and it's not as if people haven't been paying attention to this.
And as we point out you yourself
You were leading the country's
institute, the National Institute of Mental Health. For what 13 years
From what 2002 to 2000.
15 you? Surely we're looking at these problems, then?
We were, you know, the National Institute of Mental Health that has
spectacular job of research, and they go after the science of mental
health. The problem here the problem of incarceration of homelessness
of
Of early mortality for people with serious mental illness. That's
actually not so much a scientific problem. And that was the discovery
of my book. You know the book I was trying to figure out why was
so much progress in science?
Have we seen increases in suicide increases in overdose Deaths increases
in morbidity and mortality for people with mental illness, and the
answer is not in the science. It's not even in the care system.
It's in. It's in the lack of a safety net. It's in the ways in which
we do not provide.
For those people who can't provide for themselves, and that's the
big tragedy because we know what to do. We can help people with these
illnesses. We have good treatments. We don't need to research that
part.
But we need to implement the sorts of treatments that and I am a
church and others have developed so that people can recover and they
can if we do this, right, but we're not doing it right.
And what does that mean to implement it? I mean, what exactly are
some of the things that in your view need to happen now?
Well, to some extent, you have to fix a broken health care system.
And that means ending a lot of the fragmentation the way that people
are paid for what I call a crisis driven sick care system, not for
a health care system, so changing the incentives in our care system.
But you know the thing that I think I learned most
In working on this book was if we really care about mental health
It's about more than mental health care.
We have to think beyond health care. We have to think about what
I call the three piece people place and purpose. How we help people
with these disorders to actually build a life.
That's not about which medication you're on or what psychotherapy
are getting. It's about that, of course, that you need the medical
care, but you also need
You need this social supports. You need a safe place.
To recovery you need actually all of those services that give you
something to live for. We aren't doing that. At least we're not doing
that at scale. We're doing that in places. We need to do that far
better as a nation if we want to see people with mental illness truly
recover.
And for people who are watching Tom Insel who say Okay, I'd like
to help in some way. What can individuals
Is there anything individuals can do?
Well, there's a lot you can do. I mean, the part of what we need
to do is to create the kind of community that's been missing and
I will have to say that
This involves all of us. It's not just about those people who have
schizophrenia or bipolar illness. It's about all of us. It's a measure
of who we are. We once did this. We had used to have the kind of
Social fabric and the social services and the safety net that we've
allowed to really get shredded. So part of what I'm talking about
is is political action. And I think we need a social movement for
mental health, which is what I'm trying to start with this book.
Very much the way that Vice President Gore tried to start the movement
for climate with Inconvenient Truth. This is the Inconvenient Truth
for the mental health crisis. Dr Tom Insel, the book as Healing.
Our path from mental illness to mental health. Thank you very much.