“There is an epidemic of suffering!” says New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“A mental health crisis!” says Vice President JD Vance.
Alarmist media agree: “Mental health crisis among U.S. teens,” reports The New York Times.
The Wall Street Journal: “America’s mental health is worsening.”
As usual, when the media and politicians agree, the proposed solution is: Spend more money! Expand government!
Former President Joe Biden called for “more school counselors, more nurses, more mental health services for students and teachers …”
But is there really a new mental health crisis?
Stossel TV fellow psychologist Adam Omary is skeptical.
In our new video, he confronts Erica Komisar, a social worker whose YouTube videos about “the mental health crisis” get millions of views.
“Why is there so much pain in the world?” she asks. “Suicide rates have gone up!”
“Why indeed?” asks Omary, when in “many ways, life is better than it’s ever been. The world is safer. People have more health, wealth and freedom.”
Yes, it’s true that American suicide rates have risen since 2000. But they were even higher throughout the first half of the 20th century, and in other countries, suicide rates are decreasing.
Are Americans different?
“One in five children,” says Komisar, “will not leave childhood without coming down with a serious mental health disorder.”
Omary suggests a big reason for the rising rate of “disorders” is that his profession keeps expanding the definition of mental Illness. The current psychiatric manual is 900 pages longer than the original.
Maybe that explains why the National Institutes of Health now says up to 50% of teens have experienced mental illness.
Fifty percent?
“Some of these ‘illnesses’ are ridiculous!” Omary says to Komisar. “Caffeine withdrawal, grief disorder. We’re labeling everything as ‘illness!'”
“That argument dismisses and undermines the importance of a lot of the diagnoses,” she replies.
Psychologist Roger McFillin says Omary is right to be skeptical: “If 30% to 50% of the population report these symptoms, then it’s normal. Our response to it is abnormal.”
He says therapy itself can be counterproductive.
“The more that you talk about everything wrong in your life, the more miserable you’re going to be.”
Social media encourages that. People post messages about their anxieties, share symptoms and diagnose themselves with disorders like ADHD and autism.
“They need to feel understood,” says Komisar.
But McFillin worries that constant talk about illness teaches people to see themselves as damaged: “You are actually creating the idea that there’s something broken about them. Struggles and challenges are normal to the human experience, not symptoms of an illness to talk about and drug.”
And drugs are where the big money is. More Americans take psychiatric medications than ever before.
The government orders insurers and taxpayers to pay for it.
But there is no objective test for mental illness.
“We are overmedicating … no doubt this is happening,” admits Komisar. “But there also is an uptick in mental illness.”
Because of that uptick, she says, “An army of social workers would be really helpful.”
An army of social workers? Omary points out that over the last 20 years, America already has tripled mental health spending.
“This is not something you throw more money at,” says McFillin.
But that is what America is doing.
“The mental health industrial complex,” says McFillin, has “medicalized” our culture to believe mental health requires “an expert to heal you.” In truth, he says, “Taking care of your mental health means living a life of purpose.”
I don’t know if the mental health crisis is real. I do know that we spend much more money on it, with little good to show for it.
Photo by Total Shape on Unsplash