Psychologist lends insight as to how we ought to view mental health - Striking a Chord…

Psychologist lends insight as to how we ought to view mental health

Has society’s intense focus on the self and analyzing one’s own thoughts and feelings actually contributed to a decline in mental health? How does the victim mentality shape mental health discourse?

Dr. Roger McFillin, clinical psychologist and co-host of the “Radically Genuine” podcast, recently answered these questions and more in an episode of Allie Beth Stuckey’s “Relatable” podcast. I found it interesting, so thought I’d share some tidbits. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Stuckey, she is an author, speaker and commentator who analyzes culture, news, theology and politics from a Christian, conservative perspective. She recently hosted McFillin for a conversation entitled “The FDA is Experimenting on Postpartum Women.” While they did discuss some of the potential dangers of using SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) to treat postpartum depression, that was only a small part of the conversation.

McFillinsaidpartofthereasonweexperience so many troubles with mental health today is placing unrealistic expectations on ourselves — expectations that make the therapy industry a lot of money.

“I think it (the mental health industry) has been a social experiment over the past 30 or 40 years that’s created indelible harm. And if we continue to kind of view our human experience under the umbrella of that industry, you’re going to see what we’ve actually been witnessing, which is declining mental health and worsening mental health. In fact, we have generations right now who are actually in this adversarial relationship with their own emotional states. It’s almost like the expectation is that we’re supposed to feel good all the time, and if you don’t, there’s something wrong or defective…. And I’ve seen the harm that that’s done in my clinical practice. And it’s worsening. It’s worsened over the past five years dramatically.”

Americans do have an “obsession with happiness,” as no few writers have observed. In her book “America the Anxious,” British journalist Ruth Whippman contends that worry, anxiety and nervousness have taken over American society because happiness must be sought after above all else. In other words, making happiness the prime goal puts undue pressure on ourselves and doesn’t leave room for negative emotions that are a normal part of life. In researching for this column, I came across accounts from three different individuals — from Great Britain, Pakistan and Guatemala — who all found it odd how “obsessed” Americans were with being happy. Statistics also bear out the idea that despite our desperate chase for happiness, Americans are not that happy: America’s self-help industry is worth more than $11 billion and yet, the World Health Organization says the United States is the third most anxious country in the world. To McFillin’s point about tending to think there’s something wrong with us if we don’t feel happy all the time, as I referenced in a past column, with the rise of the internet there has been more of a tendency to overpathologize ourselves or others. This is partly because of the popularity of video “shorts” that can’t capture the complexities of a mental disorder in only 30 seconds. These types of videos also tend to take just one “symptom” and extrapolate that a person with that symptom must have a mental disorder. We as human beings like to put labels on everything. But a label too flippantly and frequently applied can do more harm than good, said McFillin.

For example, McFillin said he has seen children at his practice who were being bullied in school or had a best friend move away and their parents were quick to label it as “trauma” and something needing medical intervention. He felt that approach was not helpful, as while it is appropriate to empathize with the child’s pain, it’s also important to show them how to be resilient and that they have the ability to effectively deal with hard things in life, because life will get a whole lot harder.

“I think of some of the things that my father or grandparents would say to me that would almost be viewed as abusive today, such as ‘Suck it up’ or my grandmother would always say, ‘Well, we all have a cross to bear.’ And it was just her viewpoint of yes, there’s going to be pain. Now what are you going to do about it? This was always my dad’s message too… And there’s actually inherent wisdom because now you’re no longer thinking about what just happened to you. It doesn’t necessarily even matter. How you respond to it matters.”

McFillin also talked about the value of seeing suffering through the lens of personal growth and maturation, rather than becoming bitter and remaining trapped in the past. He referenced a woman who had come to his practice that had experienced profound physical torture and was sex trafficked, but, with God’s help, was actually able to forgive her captors and see their humanity despite the awful things they did.

“She said that what she went through provides her eternal love and wisdom. The pain of her experience was quite short… She had this profound wisdom that what she received from the experience was going to be something part of her soul’s journey for all of eternity.

“Here are two lessons that I think are absolutely protective against misery: One is, everything is happening for you, not to you… If (the people I’ve worked with) believe that whatever happened to them, as horrible and traumatic as it was, can serve their growth and they’re not going to let it define them, why should I create that mindset for anyone else?

“The other thing that’s really important and my client shared it with me is, ‘See God in everybody.’ And that’s changed my life.”

Another topic that was part of the conversation was how practitioners of modern Western medicine do their patients a disservice when they view psychiatric drugs as the go-to answer to “solve” people’s mental health problems, instead of taking a holistic approach and considering the many factors that play into mental health, including diet, exercise, sleep, time spent outdoors, and having the proper emotional support.

If any of that piqued your interest, consider taking a listen on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.