Good mental health to you!
I’m psychologist Dr. Ali Mattu and I’m going to explain why it’s so hard to get
good mental healthcare and what we can do to change that.
A friend of mine asked me for help finding a therapist.
Let’s call him Bob.
Bob has anxiety.
He’s been anxious for a long time.
He’s never been in treatment before but his anxiety got a lot worse after his son
was born and now he wants professional help.
Bob knows I’m a New York City anxiety expert and that I know a bunch of other New York
City anxiety experts.
Bob thought it would be easy for me to connect him with a good therapist.
Bob was wrong.
Everyone I know was either full, didn’t take his insurance, or wasn’t available
at a time that worked for Bob.
It’s been a few weeks and I’m still trying to find a therapist for Bob.
I’m going to confess something to you - this happens all the time.
Not only do I have a hard time finding a therapist for my friends, but as a therapist myself
I’m always turning people away.
The problem is how traditional psychotherapy works.
A patient and therapist work one on one for an hour every week.
For simple problems, therapy might last a few weeks.
For complex problems, treatment can last months or even years.
This means to do my job well I can only see a small group of people.
That's also the only way I can keep myself from burning out.
I went back into my records and counted up all the different people I worked with in
2017.
Any guess how many people I saw?
67.
SIXTY SEVEN!
More people are going to watch this video in the first hour of its release than I will
see in a year as a therapist.
I love being a therapist but I hate the limitations of my job.
I got into clinical psychology because I wanted to help A LOT of people, not a select few
who know how to navigate the system, can afford to pay out of pocket, and escape school and
work at random hours of the day.
I hate turning people like Bob away.
It makes me feel like crap because I know they might get lost trying to navigate the
mess of mental healthcare.
You might be thinking, “okay, so we need more therapists.”
More therapists will never solve the problem.
We’ve got about 700,000 mental health professionals in the United States.
But the number of people who have a diagnosable mental health disorder in the United States
is 75 million.
We’ll never have a supply of professionals that will meet the demand for mental health
services.
Let’s just pretend we magically get millions and millions of more therapists.
Which would be the reverse ending of Avengers: Infinity War?
Anyways...There’s still going to be an access problem.
Most therapists live in big cities, so small towns and rural areas get neglected.
Unlike a physician you see a few times a year, psychotherapy is designed for weekly treatment
and that’s just not practical for a lot of people.
Many therapists don’t take insurance and if they do insurance might limit how long
you can work with the therapist.
And with CBT, DBT, ACT, psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and so many more treatments available, it’s
confusing and overwhelming to know what type of therapist is the right fit for you.
What’s the solution?
Reboot the whole system.
At least that’s the premise of my all time favorite psychotherapy academic article.
Psychologists Alan Kazdin and Stacey Blase discuss how we have to expand the idea of
what psychotherapy is.
They talk about getting beyond the one on one model.
Use apps to scale up treatments to populations, create self-help resources that people can
work through whenever they want, and use media to create entertaining educational mental
health content.
The article came out in 2011, which is before YouTube was the thing it is now.
But reading through it, it so obvious to me that YouTube can do so much amazing stuff
for mental health.
You can immediate answers to symptoms you’re experiencing right now, help navigating the
mental health system, and support from a community that celebrates mental health.
But YouTube, for the most part, doesn’t do that.
Besides Kati Morton, there aren’t many mental health professionals creating mental health
content.
So that means when you search for information on anxiety, maybe you’ll get a video you
trust, like one of Kati’s, or maybe you’ll get something that’s SUPER SKETCHY and gives
you harmful advice.
This is why I’ve decided to reboot The Psych Show.
For almost 4 years I’ve made videos about a variety of topics in psychology.
But from here on out, I’m going to focus on mental health.
I think this is where I can make the biggest difference on YouTube.
I want to share everything I know about dealing with your emotions, coping with your thoughts,
and facing your fears.
I want to tell you my mental health journey and help you understand what it’s really
like to be a therapist.
I want to reveal every secret I know about navigating the mental health system.
I want you to have access to resources that will help you thrive.
I want us to build a community that will lift each other up and celebrate mental health
together.
Let’s get started.
What topic do you want me to tackle next?
A beginner's guide to mental health?
How to find a therapist?
What to do if your friend needs help?
Let me know in the comments below.
And now for no reason at all I will thank my patrons to the tune of Mario Bros.
Elizabeth S., Tyler D., Anna H., Arnt J., Collin P., Evan A., Imran M., Sam D., Ryan
L., Sophie Y., Ahmed Y, Israel P., Neuro Transmissions, Eric E., Eve P.
If you want to become a patron go to Patreon.com/ThePsychShow.