A theme of Above the Fields of Play is to examine larger scales and deeper roots of what development and well-being mean over time. For the next few posts, I will focus on important questions unique to our era regarding mental health. This is not to dismiss the “good old days.” Times have changed, and many questions are framed differently right now.
The first question is: Why seek help?
The decades-long rise in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and suicide has begged us to ask what underlies these symptoms. Ups and downs are a part of life, and sometimes things fall apart before major changes. Looking beyond medical concerns and imbalances in neurotransmitters, if most adults have experienced anxiety and depression in their lifetimes, can we consider this to be a developmental pattern? Is this a function of change, transition, and adjustment?
It depends.
People are in different stages of growth, and within each individual, development is asynchronous. The performer, athlete, or student has experienced the physical domain being ahead of the mental. We can do it before we believe we can do it.
The same applies to the reasons for seeking help which fall along a continuum. Some individuals don’t believe in counseling. Within the core belief system is a deep sense of privacy and a belief that you need to work it out, pick yourself up, and dust yourself off. They might seek help when they reach wit’s end.
Maybe.
Others along the expanse will seek help in some form at some time, and this tipping point differs for everyone. As several public figures have modeled, seeking help is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of hope and the belief that working through pain leads to resolution and growth. Challenges have the potential to make us more resilient and capable–and they are inevitable if you are fully engaging life.
Each day we are learning the ever-changing answers to three important questions of self-guidance. When the answers falter or our solutions do not help with the confusion and ache, we may seek help to uncover what we can’t discover ourselves. (I will address these three questions in the next post.)
Finally, a key principle to seeking help is the gift of uniqueness. We are given one life, and it is ours to care for and develop—we make the ultimate choices. And research on the gold standard of mental health treatment, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), offers ideas about “helping” that should give us pause.
- Cognitive change does not occur without affective motivation. Meaning, the individual wants something in their life to change. You can’t force this outside-in, and logic alone is not helpful.
- Effectiveness declines the more rigid the practitioner is with the protocol. Meaning, we don’t fit into templates, and we want to be heard and understood first and foremost. Psychologist, Alan Schore suggests we should reframe “Talk Therapy” to “Communication Therapy” as much of resonance and repair occurs nonverbally within the attunement of the relationship.
- Change occurs within the flow of the relationship. Meaning, who you are taking the difficult journey with matters. Conditions matter. Process matters… and both in the relationship have to care deeply.
People seek help for well-being in different ways—and in far different ways over the last few decades. Some may seek professional help, while others choose self-help or rely on their support system. One size does not fit all. If you are not sure what’s right for you, talk with someone you trust or consult with a professional. Answers start to appear when you ask the right questions.
Speaking of…next time: those three self-guidance questions.
photo credit: Evan Dennis (unsplash.com)