A few minutes back I got a call from an attorney getting back to me about a client matter. After we talked about the client stuff, we turned to the situation with her family. As usual, there's a lot going on, including a tween who is having mental health challenges. "This country has huge mental health challenges," she said, a refrain we hear from more and more corners about an ever broader range of phenomena.
The NRA-infused right blames the firearm-enabled epidemic of mass murders we see on our mental health woes. Lots of others bemoan the absence of adequate mental health professionals for lots of things we see: heightened youth suicidality, an inability to get out in front of the opioid crisis, etc.
Never mind that we have a pretty beefy cohort of mental health professionals, probably as many if not more than in any society ever (that's just a guess, people, it's a blog and inherently speculative). Moreover, all the mental health folx I know are earnest, dedicated professionals. Certainly one issue is that there's only enough mental health capacity in aggregare for people with money, that's a clear refrain I hear from all sides.
There's a lot going on here. I started to speculate on it below and quickly started sinking into a wormhole. Then Mary came upstairs and told me she was going to vacuum soon because David is coming for the weekend, meaning that I really should go into the office instead of working from home.
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