Asked in an initial interview if she could pay for her therapy out of pocket and dial down the frequency to say, once a month, Horton said she could do this “in the same way that I could skip lunch, or that I could walk to work instead of drive a car”—the point being this was not a reasonable option.
Disgusting. Leaving aside many, many glaring problems with what the system described herein is trying to do, at its core, therapy is not a one-size-fits-all thing, e.g. once a month for 6 months and you’re solved. If only it were so simple.
Anecdote: many years ago I went to Kaiser Permanente in a very densely populated area. You got individual therapy once every three months or longer. In between, they offered group therapy classes on your particular ailments (bipolar meets Tuesdays at 7pm, obsessive-compulsives Wednesdays at 6, etc.). I was perpetually stuck for 90 minutes hoping the first 6-8 people didn’t suck up all the time again, or just give crap advice. Alternative solutions to monthly/weekly individual therapy are a special hell.
Medicaid cuts start landing on January 1. That means not only are people losing access to shrinks for the reasons outlined here, but up to half a million are also going to lose access to meds.
Some people said the problem with clearly unstable homeless people had gotten a little better over the last year or two. I’m sure that was nice. It’s now about to come to a precipitous end.
Yes, people should get the care they need.
But talk therapy can be grossly ineffective. If we have limited health funds, we should be asking for outcomes. The reality is that very often a diagnosis turns into an identity, and more mental health treatment only facilitates that, and people are happy to continue treatment indefinitely without getting better.
One alternative is to a) recognize that life sucks for a lot of people and being anxious and depressed is a perfectly rational response to the fucked up lives they are leading, not a mental illness b) address those issues through community building, housing options, etc.
We are facing a tidal wave of social problems coming down the pike, guys, and individual talk therapy is not the solution.
It depends. If a person has a chemical imbalance or a brain issue talk therapy won’t do shit. Sometimes people need to be taught how to deal with their feelings as they were not taught as a child. Sometimes people need to be able to express their feelings and don’t have other options.
Yes sometimes people’s lives suck. If you grew up watching your father punch your mother every time he got mad, that’s the only way you know to deal with anger. A therapist may introduce you to alternatives like going for a walk, taking a shower, how to express your feelings with blaming the other person(“you should have dinner ready when I get home” vs “I’m hungry after a long day of work”). In those cases talk therapy may be useful.
If someone has schizophrenia or clinical depression that’s different though. They need other options.
Yes, therapy has it’s place, my concern is that it does not know it.
True, in my opinion atleast half true. Good therapists know it but talk therapy is generally cheapest so insurance companies and health agencies push it to save money. It’s difficult to determine how a mind works or how it is not working correctly. So you try the cheap option, doesn’t work, try the more expensive option(regular medication), doesn’t work, in some cases try expensive option(surgery). I’ll agree the most expensive option (actually improving people’s lives) is hardly ever considered an option.