Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences, Kate. I think there is something key in articulating what the goal of therapy is, because it gives a notion of what “health” looks like. Is it emotional stasis? More resilience? I think a lot of people aren’t even sure what the goal is that they are aiming for in therapy in the first place!
I also see a difference in people who, as you and Sarah Clarkson note, are receiving helpful tools and strategies to move forward, vs those who seem to spend a never-ending amount of time trying to untangle the past. Perhaps that ought to be part of the conversation as well.
I think for women especially, with the added mix of hormone imbalances and HPA-axis issues, it’s sooo difficult to know what “the problem” is. There is no one-sized fits all solution, let alone vocabulary to describe the problem! And no amount of growth in resilience can fix something deeply physical, which affects our moods and mental states… it’s really hard. Something like functional medicine with all its tests and lifestyle change suggestions can help, but only up to the point they don’t drive you bonkers wondering every 5 minutes if what you are eating / thinking / seeing etc is upping your cortisol 😂
Yep, and kind of how hormonal contraception is the go-to "fix" for menstrual cycle issues (never mind more complicated help that would serve the woman more), I've come to see that for many people medication from a psychiatrist is the go-to "fix" for any mental issue - it will absolutely help #1 of the three categories I listed above.... but the other two? Forget about it.
Oh! Also, I have been intrigued by the idea of the interplay of 1) dejection, 2) acedia, and 3) something like depression (or other diagnosable mental/biological issue).
I've seen a lot more books and reading on acedia, for instance, and am realizing things are often even more complicated than just body/mind... the state of the soul can also exacerbate things (or, conversely, be affected). *Disclaimer that this doesn't negate the reality of mental illnesses beyond one's control!
Myles Werntz wrote a couple essays recently on these vices of dejection and acedia (and a while back, loneliness):
When psychology first came on the scene, many Catholic priests were wary of it (with wide variations in wariness!) because they thought people might mislabel legitimate sins as mental health issues, and exchange the confessional for a pyschologist’s couch. As I’ve said in this piece, I don’t think it’s that simple, but I do think it’s worth thinking about in some cases.
Oh goodness, you just described in your own musings my thoughts and frustrations (both generally with the term, and specifically for myself).
What the actual *problem* is and what the end *goal* is are very complicated things entirely smothered in vague language, and I have been helped by none of it.
For background: I have some predispositions to depression, and have for a long time. I was even talking to my mom a couple days ago, and how we never knew what to do with it growing up. She did bring me to the pediatrician at one point and that's when I got my "happy lamp".
But my parents thought it was seasonal affective disorder. I thought in the past year or two it might be related to my cycle and hormonal sensitivities or imbalances. And in the years between, there's been every manner of experience that doesn't quite make it cleanly "diagnosable". There's also plenty of circumstantial factors in our life that would make a normal person say, "Yeah, no wonder you routinely have depressive episodes. That's probably a huge factor."
So is poor mental health code for a 1) biological disposition/severe mental imbalance 2) a sign of physical ill-health/hormonal imbalance 3) lifestyle/relational/circumstantial reactions? Being quite sure I have some combination of all three is incredibly defeating. I've seen a psychiatrist who, in all fairness, referred me to a natural-minded place that does labs, even if she couldn't help me herself. I've briefly seen two different therapists and thought it was a waste of time (sorry to the psychologists). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was so infantilizing in my personal opinion, and there was never a clear goal of what the end game of that was (you're supposed to come up with that yourself in your distress?) It wasn't what I thought therapy was until I realized that's what most people provide. Even people knowing there are other approaches to therapy (that have different goals) should be more widely known. But CBT is the go-to, but it will absolutely not be what many people need, yet for others it might be.
This is becoming a rant, but it's because this topic has been the most difficult thing in my family's life the past couple years and.... we are still workin on it! But goodness, we need some better definitions and goals of what health looks like. Because we are too complex for these useless phrases like "mental health" drive me up a wall. :)
It is so complex and multilayered, especially for women and especially for moms. We have no knowledge of our own hormones, we don't understand the physical ramifications pregnancy has on our entire bodies and how it can become unbalanced, we don't know how to treat underlying conditions, then we live completely stressed out lives that exacerbate our problems, couple that with unrealistic cultural expectations that moms should be working full-time, taking kids to every activity, exercising everyday, etc etc etc and it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is the cause or root of mental health issues. I think we also just need to talk differently about mental health, because I know so many people who don't even think time alone is a necessary human need! I do think therapy can be helpful, but it's not a blanket help just like a medication isn't a blanket help for everyone! Haha, k now I'm ranting.
This is a great point. Sometimes I see people use the idea of “talking to my therapist” as a kind of substitute for what historically would be “talking with a wise friend.” I’m not saying that the two are always synonymous, but I do see it happen where I think: maybe you just need a good friend or two? Freya India wrote a great piece on this a while back, reminding girls that friendship is a normal part of human life and we should aim to have that before making the therapist or online therapy the first point of call every time. Again, of course this is more for regular stuff and not serious conditions!
Yes! This is a great point which is super true and coincides perfectly with another hobby horse I have: women don’t talk to their mothers anymore/mothers don’t pass along wisdom to their daughters anymore! And you’re right, it doesn’t solve all our problems by any means, but we do need more relationships where we can ask for advice, or get a reality check, without it being a paid professional. Facebook would also be out of a job if women actually talked to their friends before posting ridiculous questions into impersonal groups!
It has become a cultural ethos to never give our opinion because we will appear judgey but I think the waves of insecurity that women post on semi-anonymous places like Facebook mom groups is indicative that more women need more real life support and advice and to actually take some! We do such a disservice to others in not giving and imparting wisdom to younger women. End rant.
I completely agree! I tend to avoid FB now but when I was active on it I was genuinely shocked at the level of personal detail shared and advice asked for- things I would never DREAM of saying out loud to anyone short of a very close friend. But when I told my husband how I felt, he said, “a lot of people don’t have friends like that they can turn to.” And certainly in an age of dysfunction, talking to mothers can be disastrous a lot of the time. I know Catholic women whose mothers keep telling them not to have more kids, or to do IVF, or other problematic things. It’s really hard.
I appreciate you adding nuance to this discussion, as I'm also working through my thoughts on this topic. My examples are all anecdotal, but they fall in line with what you've shared:
From my own experience, I found therapy helpful when I went through a multi-year season of depression and attended counseling during six months of it. In my case, it was good because it was limited; it was helpful to have an uninvolved person as a sounding board, and she gave me some helpful tools and strategies that I could take with me after I stopped seeing her. And, I've had roommates and friends who have been in therapy for years, and many of them have found it really helpful in working through traumatic events and complicated diagnoses like OCD.
But I can also see the negative side. With other friends, it seems like their idea of wholeness is to never feel negative emotions or be affected by negative things. It's a view that seems to say there's a static line of perfect human health and happiness, and every negative thing throws you off-balance, and healing means going back to that line. The end goal appears to be no bad things ever again, rather than building the resiliency to face what happens.
And as you say too, some of this is tied to cultural trends and the need to return to healthy human living. It's too nuanced a topic to pronounce a quick judgment on, but I appreciate you opening up the space for discussion.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences, Kate. I think there is something key in articulating what the goal of therapy is, because it gives a notion of what “health” looks like. Is it emotional stasis? More resilience? I think a lot of people aren’t even sure what the goal is that they are aiming for in therapy in the first place!
I also see a difference in people who, as you and Sarah Clarkson note, are receiving helpful tools and strategies to move forward, vs those who seem to spend a never-ending amount of time trying to untangle the past. Perhaps that ought to be part of the conversation as well.
I think for women especially, with the added mix of hormone imbalances and HPA-axis issues, it’s sooo difficult to know what “the problem” is. There is no one-sized fits all solution, let alone vocabulary to describe the problem! And no amount of growth in resilience can fix something deeply physical, which affects our moods and mental states… it’s really hard. Something like functional medicine with all its tests and lifestyle change suggestions can help, but only up to the point they don’t drive you bonkers wondering every 5 minutes if what you are eating / thinking / seeing etc is upping your cortisol 😂
Yep, and kind of how hormonal contraception is the go-to "fix" for menstrual cycle issues (never mind more complicated help that would serve the woman more), I've come to see that for many people medication from a psychiatrist is the go-to "fix" for any mental issue - it will absolutely help #1 of the three categories I listed above.... but the other two? Forget about it.
Exactly!
Oh! Also, I have been intrigued by the idea of the interplay of 1) dejection, 2) acedia, and 3) something like depression (or other diagnosable mental/biological issue).
I've seen a lot more books and reading on acedia, for instance, and am realizing things are often even more complicated than just body/mind... the state of the soul can also exacerbate things (or, conversely, be affected). *Disclaimer that this doesn't negate the reality of mental illnesses beyond one's control!
Myles Werntz wrote a couple essays recently on these vices of dejection and acedia (and a while back, loneliness):
https://myleswerntz.substack.com/p/what-if-sadness-just-is-what-if-the
https://myleswerntz.substack.com/p/working-at-the-speed-of-god
https://comment.org/the-solitude-of-the-saints/
Ooh very interesting! I look forward to perusing.
When psychology first came on the scene, many Catholic priests were wary of it (with wide variations in wariness!) because they thought people might mislabel legitimate sins as mental health issues, and exchange the confessional for a pyschologist’s couch. As I’ve said in this piece, I don’t think it’s that simple, but I do think it’s worth thinking about in some cases.
Oh goodness, you just described in your own musings my thoughts and frustrations (both generally with the term, and specifically for myself).
What the actual *problem* is and what the end *goal* is are very complicated things entirely smothered in vague language, and I have been helped by none of it.
For background: I have some predispositions to depression, and have for a long time. I was even talking to my mom a couple days ago, and how we never knew what to do with it growing up. She did bring me to the pediatrician at one point and that's when I got my "happy lamp".
But my parents thought it was seasonal affective disorder. I thought in the past year or two it might be related to my cycle and hormonal sensitivities or imbalances. And in the years between, there's been every manner of experience that doesn't quite make it cleanly "diagnosable". There's also plenty of circumstantial factors in our life that would make a normal person say, "Yeah, no wonder you routinely have depressive episodes. That's probably a huge factor."
So is poor mental health code for a 1) biological disposition/severe mental imbalance 2) a sign of physical ill-health/hormonal imbalance 3) lifestyle/relational/circumstantial reactions? Being quite sure I have some combination of all three is incredibly defeating. I've seen a psychiatrist who, in all fairness, referred me to a natural-minded place that does labs, even if she couldn't help me herself. I've briefly seen two different therapists and thought it was a waste of time (sorry to the psychologists). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was so infantilizing in my personal opinion, and there was never a clear goal of what the end game of that was (you're supposed to come up with that yourself in your distress?) It wasn't what I thought therapy was until I realized that's what most people provide. Even people knowing there are other approaches to therapy (that have different goals) should be more widely known. But CBT is the go-to, but it will absolutely not be what many people need, yet for others it might be.
This is becoming a rant, but it's because this topic has been the most difficult thing in my family's life the past couple years and.... we are still workin on it! But goodness, we need some better definitions and goals of what health looks like. Because we are too complex for these useless phrases like "mental health" drive me up a wall. :)
It is so complex and multilayered, especially for women and especially for moms. We have no knowledge of our own hormones, we don't understand the physical ramifications pregnancy has on our entire bodies and how it can become unbalanced, we don't know how to treat underlying conditions, then we live completely stressed out lives that exacerbate our problems, couple that with unrealistic cultural expectations that moms should be working full-time, taking kids to every activity, exercising everyday, etc etc etc and it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is the cause or root of mental health issues. I think we also just need to talk differently about mental health, because I know so many people who don't even think time alone is a necessary human need! I do think therapy can be helpful, but it's not a blanket help just like a medication isn't a blanket help for everyone! Haha, k now I'm ranting.
This is a great point. Sometimes I see people use the idea of “talking to my therapist” as a kind of substitute for what historically would be “talking with a wise friend.” I’m not saying that the two are always synonymous, but I do see it happen where I think: maybe you just need a good friend or two? Freya India wrote a great piece on this a while back, reminding girls that friendship is a normal part of human life and we should aim to have that before making the therapist or online therapy the first point of call every time. Again, of course this is more for regular stuff and not serious conditions!
Yes! This is a great point which is super true and coincides perfectly with another hobby horse I have: women don’t talk to their mothers anymore/mothers don’t pass along wisdom to their daughters anymore! And you’re right, it doesn’t solve all our problems by any means, but we do need more relationships where we can ask for advice, or get a reality check, without it being a paid professional. Facebook would also be out of a job if women actually talked to their friends before posting ridiculous questions into impersonal groups!
It has become a cultural ethos to never give our opinion because we will appear judgey but I think the waves of insecurity that women post on semi-anonymous places like Facebook mom groups is indicative that more women need more real life support and advice and to actually take some! We do such a disservice to others in not giving and imparting wisdom to younger women. End rant.
I completely agree! I tend to avoid FB now but when I was active on it I was genuinely shocked at the level of personal detail shared and advice asked for- things I would never DREAM of saying out loud to anyone short of a very close friend. But when I told my husband how I felt, he said, “a lot of people don’t have friends like that they can turn to.” And certainly in an age of dysfunction, talking to mothers can be disastrous a lot of the time. I know Catholic women whose mothers keep telling them not to have more kids, or to do IVF, or other problematic things. It’s really hard.
I appreciate you adding nuance to this discussion, as I'm also working through my thoughts on this topic. My examples are all anecdotal, but they fall in line with what you've shared:
From my own experience, I found therapy helpful when I went through a multi-year season of depression and attended counseling during six months of it. In my case, it was good because it was limited; it was helpful to have an uninvolved person as a sounding board, and she gave me some helpful tools and strategies that I could take with me after I stopped seeing her. And, I've had roommates and friends who have been in therapy for years, and many of them have found it really helpful in working through traumatic events and complicated diagnoses like OCD.
But I can also see the negative side. With other friends, it seems like their idea of wholeness is to never feel negative emotions or be affected by negative things. It's a view that seems to say there's a static line of perfect human health and happiness, and every negative thing throws you off-balance, and healing means going back to that line. The end goal appears to be no bad things ever again, rather than building the resiliency to face what happens.
And as you say too, some of this is tied to cultural trends and the need to return to healthy human living. It's too nuanced a topic to pronounce a quick judgment on, but I appreciate you opening up the space for discussion.