Wlaf1450By MICHAEL YATES
OAK RIDGE, TN (SPECIAL TO WLAF)– The month of May is Mental Health Awareness month and is an opportunity for us to collectively elevate the importance of this national campaign. Psychiatrist and public-health expert Dr. Tom Insel, who served as the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health for 13 years, wrote Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health, and his 2022 book has compelled me to think a lot about his three “P’s”.
For as long as I can remember the topic of hope has been harnessed to help us believe that tomorrow can be better than today. For many, hopelessness, the powerful combatant of hope, is winning the culture wars and, as a result, has anchored many of us to a state of despondency, despair, and depression.
But hope is beginning to reveal its value in scientific studies, as reported by Dr. Adam Stern in a Harvard Health Blog, “Among young adults with chronic illnesses, greater degrees of hope are associated with improved coping, well-being, and engagement in healthy behaviors. It also protects against depression and suicide. Among teens, hope is linked with health, quality of life, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose. It is an essential factor for developing both maturity and resilience.”
So, when Dr. Insel shared he wrote Healing to give hope to people, I thought it was worthy of attention, especially during Mental Health Awareness month. Insel’s conviction is that “hope comes from the recognition that recovery is possible if we reframe mental health care to include not only the acute reduction of symptoms but a longer-term commitment to the three P’s: people, place, and purpose.”
Insel confesses, many good medical treatments and approaches work, yet health outcomes were not always improving. “The answer,” he concluded, “is that the problem is medical – mental illnesses are brain disorders – but the solutions must be much broader – including people (social support), place (housing), and purpose (a mission).”
We know our physical and mental health is a complex, complicated constellation of factors that can promote or diminish optimal health. Positive social support found in friends, family, and co-workers is critical to helping transcend illness, trauma, and hardships. We are, after all, hardwired for attachment and connection to other people. Housing is more than a structure that provides shelter from the elements, it is a home place of safety, predictability, and support. The primacy of having a place from which you are claimed to be home is critical to developing a sense of belonging to place and people. And purpose is having a reason to be – having something that you care about and can motivate you to take on the rigors of the day, driving you forward with meaning, where, at its very best, even work and play become co-travelers, one in the same.
Truly, during national Mental Health Awareness month, being witness to how we promote people, place, and purpose in all aspects of our lives is hopeful, good news and worthy of our shared celebration and commitment that tomorrow can be better than today for each of us. At Ridgeview, complex mental health conditions are met with hope, healing, and recovery – and our commitment is to expand solutions with people, place, and purpose.
If you need to talk with someone about feelings of stress, anxiety, depression or other symptoms related to mental health concerns, Ridgeview offers same-day access walk-in clinics hours each weekday. Visit ridgeview.com to learn more. Ridgeview’s Mobile Crisis Team is available 24 hours a day at 800-870-5481. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED 5/23/2023- 6AM)