The Mental Health Shift We All Need

[Music]

for the last five years

i’ve been pursuing my doctorate in

counseling psychology

my dissertation was focused on helping

teachers feel less stressed

i designed a group intervention program

where i’d go into teachers schools

and i’d spend time with them running

through different mindfulness practices

we talk about how to cope with stress

how to breathe in

and out and how to prioritize self-care

across the last five years i’ve run

these groups and close to 15 schools

and my hope in doing all of this was to

help teachers better cope with the very

stressful nature of their profession

so there’s one day i mean it’s all my

research that

really stands out to me it was a regular

day but it’s kind of changed the way i

see

everything so i just want to tell you

about it it was

a october afternoon and as some of you

now

know being a graduate student often

means running from one place to the next

and that’s exactly what i was doing that

day

i had just finished up a session with a

client and i was

driving across town to make it to the

school where i was leading that day’s

teacher group

i remember being stuck in so much

traffic i wanted to

bang my head against the steering wheel

but i didn’t i made it i found a parking

spot

i remember just piling on top of me all

the things i needed that day so

name tags pens worksheets packets

and snacks and i remember juggling this

pile of stuff with me

and weaving through a bustling

elementary school hallway where

kids were laughing and screaming

everywhere

and teachers were sitting hunched over

exhausted

holding giant megaphones in their hands

trying to operate that day’s carpooling

procedure

so despite this chaos i finally found

the classroom where i was leading that

days group

it was me and six teachers we were

sitting around in a circle in these

small navy blue plastic chairs

and we were surrounded by all the things

you’d expect to be surrounded by

in an elementary school classroom so

there were star charts on the walls

crayons scattered around and kids

drawings plastered

everywhere so as the group started i

started

handing out the materials and delving

into

my typical spiel about mindfulness about

the

power of focusing in on the present

moment without any sort of judgment at

this point i had given this introduction

to mind one of so many times and

i remember midway through doing it just

kind of

mentally pausing like you know when your

mouth is moving but your mind is

floating somewhere else well that’s what

was happening

in this moment and where my mind floated

to

was towards an acute awareness

of the immense exhaustion just exuding

from these teachers i mean these

teachers sitting across from me were so

clearly tired and burnt out

after a long school day

what was interesting about this group of

teachers is that they weren’t a uniquely

stressed bunch in fact

they really epitomized the plight of

most educators within this country

they were being overworked undervalued

and in my opinion underpaid

they were working inside of an old

school building infested with mold

they were trying to make ends meet just

by missing basic materials for their

students like

pencils and textbooks and they barely

had time for lunch or any sort of break

i mean they would have to eat their

lunch

in motion moving from one room to the

next in the middle of the day

so as i was sitting with these six

educators telling them about how

mindfulness was going to save them from

stress

it hit me these teachers

i could give them all of the tools all

of the mindfulness

tools in the world and they would still

be haunted by stress and its multitude

of health implications

these teachers weren’t stressed because

they weren’t mindful enough or they

weren’t coping well enough

these teachers were stressed because

they were operating inside of an

educational system

that was failing to prioritize them

i remember that day the group closing

out and walking out to the parking lot

and just thinking to myself just asking

myself

as a mental health professional how am i

really helping people if it’s not

necessarily individual people that need

to change

but the systems around them that need to

shift

am i really being helpful if i’m not

changing these systems but

i’m just giving people tools to cope

with and even

succumb to these broken systems that are

failing

so these questions became burned into my

mind i could not stop thinking about

them

not just in the context of teachers but

with my individual therapy clients as

well

because with my therapy clients it

didn’t feel that different

you’d come into my office they’d sit

with me for 50 minutes a week

we talked coping skills strategies

psychological practices

but then they would step back out into

environments where they didn’t feel

supported

into environments where maybe they were

experiencing bullying at school

or persistent racial trauma or maybe

they were being pitted against a

co-worker

in a toxic workspace it was at this

point

in my education in my career

where it became crystal clear to me it’s

not just my clients that need to change

that need to do the work

it’s the systems the environments around

them that need to shift

just like a plant needs nutrient dense

soil to grow

individuals need healthy environments to

flourish

today we have two dominant mental health

models psychotherapy and psychiatry

you’re feeling sad and motivated unable

to get out of bed well then

maybe you want to go see a therapist

someone you can talk to once a week

if you’re experiencing panic attacks

swirling racing thoughts a palpitating

heart

well then maybe you’ll get referred to

see a psychiatrist someone who can

prescribe you medication to help

mitigate

these symptoms these models in so many

ways are amazing and effective i mean

i’ve seen them work time and time again

however i believe that they’re just not

enough

see the thing about these models is that

they’re so focused

on guiding the individual towards change

which is really important

but what these models are less focused

on is transforming

our environments and our systems into

spaces that actively promote and sustain

our collective mental health needs this

is incredibly

important too

i want to take a second and just kind of

zoom out step back

and examine the mental health landscape

all of us are living inside of today and

i want to do this because i want to show

you why i don’t think these models are

enough for us

today mental health rates are

skyrocketing which

is understandable we’re living inside of

a global pandemic

just as an example this time last year

pre-kobit

one in 12 americans were reporting

symptoms of an anxiety disorder

today the number is one in three

the kaiser family foundation put out a

survey last month what they found is

that

53 of americans right now that is over

half of us

are experiencing mental health issues

so the number’s all good right now right

but it makes sense i mean

we’re living inside of a pandemic the

thing is

what’s so mind-blowing to me is that

even before co-ed existed

we were facing a global mental health

crisis the numbers didn’t look good to

begin with

i’ll give you some examples just in the

u.s alone before

covet one in five americans reported

feeling lonely or isolated

from 2008 to 2016 rates of hopelessness

and anxiety shot up 71 percent

among young adults before coveted rates

of suicide were at the highest they had

been since world war ii

before coveted 130 people were dying per

day

of opioid use i could go on and on with

numbers and staff like this but

the point in why i’m saying this is

because something is not right

we’re missing an essential piece of the

puzzle if we are in this bad of a shape

when it comes to our collective mental

health

then it’s pretty undeniable that our

current models are falling short on us

in one way or another and so i’m here to

tell you this

i believe that it is time for us to

develop new

dominant mental health models models

that are innovative models that are

preventing

models that supplement and bolster what

already exists

i believe that these new models need to

center around

one primary purpose the onus of mental

health care

cannot just fall onto individuals it

must fall

just as much if not more so onto our

existing social environments

now at this point in this ted talk i

wish that i could

tell you i’ve invented a shiny new model

of mental health that’s going to save us

all

i haven’t figured that out and to be

honest i don’t think

one person can figure this out i think

this is a collective

multi-disciplinary effort that’s already

started and my hope is that with time it

grows stronger

and more ubiquitous so having said all

this

what i’ve done what i’ve made my life

purpose my mission

has been to talk to as many people as i

can all over the world

about what these new models could look

like what we could be doing better

i’ve had in over the last year some

incredible conversations with some

amazing people and i wish

so much i could stand up here today and

tell you about all of them

but i don’t have that kind of time so

for the sake of time

i want to dial in on two of the

individuals i have the opportunity to

speak with

we’ll start with lorenzo lewis from

little rock arkansas

lorenzo and i had the opportunity to

speak on the phone a few times

before and after the emergence of covet

in the u.s and he was able to tell me

about his grassroots movement the

confess project

the mission of the confess project was

to transform mental health into a more

accessible medium for men of color

lorenzo and his team at the confess

project developed something called the

barber coalition

where they trained barbers in 14 cities

across america in fundamental peer

counseling skills like

empathy validation non-judgment

challenging negative self-talk see

lorenzo did this because he believes

that barbers can serve an essential role

as mental health gatekeepers

he’s even teamed up with researchers at

harvard to prove the significance of

barbers

in the realm of mental health

lorenzo was inspired to create the

barber coalition

after he himself grew up spending time

in his hand salon in little rock

he told me about how he would go in each

day and observe the incredible

interpersonal dynamics emerge in this

community-oriented space

like salons barber shops are familiar

spaces they’re spaces where

formative relationships form where many

men can feel comfortable enough to open

up about their life experiences

lorenzo explained that a lot of men

spend years sometimes

decades sitting in their barber’s chair

and over time they go to trust them not

just to

hold a sharp razor to their heads but to

listen to the

intricate and intimate stories of their

lives

brent and i discussed that because men

of color in this country

experience repeated systematic

oppression

it can be hard to trust the therapists

who may seem representative

of an institution that has historically

discriminated against them

and so that’s why lorenzo wanted to

bring mental health into the barbershop

space

he wanted to bring mental health into a

space that already felt familiar

where individuals already felt safe

already felt seen

and already felt heard

another individual i spoke with was

ayako shimizu from

tokyo japan ayako’s interests lie in the

intersection

between gaming and mental health her and

i also had the opportunity to speak a

couple times before and after covet

and she was able to tell me about how

she became interested in this very

unique niche

when ayaka was attending university she

witnessed one of her closest friends

to send into a depressive episode

it was so hard for her to watch this

because her friend

didn’t have the opportunity to

reach out for help in the community they

also explained that at one point her

friend

reached out to a school counselor but

she was met with

invalidation with rejection

it was so hard to watch just because

ayaka’s friend eventually had to drop

out of school

despite the fact that she was bright and

super hard working

they have explained to me that what she

saw happened to her friend

wasn’t an isolated incident she’d seen

it happen to multiple peers

ayako told me that in japan it still

remains stigmatized

to reach out for mental health services

and so that’s why she wanted to create

video games with

embedded mental health interventions by

doing so she deemed it possible

to transform mental health into

something less stigmatizing

more accessible and entertaining

so ayako has developed a couple games

and most recently

she developed a game where players get

to live and work in a house filled with

characters

that possess diverse identities

experiences struggles and backgrounds

what is so cool about this game is that

it’s not just a regular video game it is

a mechanism for developing

self-awareness and interpersonal skills

essentially ayako has created gamified

and therefore a more accessible version

of social emotional learning and this

is in my opinion incredible

ayako and lorenzo have both done

something spectacular they have

transformed familiar spaces

a barber shop or video game landscape

into spaces that

actively promote mental health they’ve

shown us that mental health does not

need to remain confined within the walls

of a therapist’s office

or a counseling center a residential

treatment facility hospital

mental health can be creatively and

innovatively infused

into the multiple environments we each

interact with

day by day

to end today i just want to ask you a

few questions

what spaces in your life could you see

benefiting from a shift like this

maybe it’s the gym you work out at the

school you attend

your workplace maybe it’s the stories

you read

media you interact with maybe it’s even

your own home

what do you think your community needs

better yet what do you think you can

contribute to this sort of

collective mental health shift what i

know

is that to elicit this sort of shift it

can’t just fall on me and my fellow

mental health providers

this is an effort that requires all of

us we are all in this together

and so i end today with one final

question for you

are you ready to join me in the shift i

hope so

thank you

[Music]

you