The Mental Health Crisis: What's the Solution?

We are in the midst of a mental health crisis unprecedented in modern history.?Suicide rates are off the charts.?More service members are lost to suicide than war related casualties.?One in five children has suicidal thoughts.?The leading cause of death for the young is drug overdose. Depression is rampant. Anxiety and the total inability to cope with life are seen clinically in unprecedented numbers.?Senseless and random acts of violence are fueling a crime wave that is moving from America’s major cities to the suburbs and rural areas.?

The Perfect Storm

COVID-19, and our response to it, has had an impact never experienced before.?It literally distanced people from each other. Six-foot markers lined the few stores that were allowed to remain open.?Masks, formerly worn by bandits and Trick or Treaters, were now mandatory. Children were banned from school and glued to computers.?Education stopped.?Paranoia was institutionalized, broadcasted, and routinized.?At one point people disinfected their delivered groceries before letting them in their house.?The enemy was identified.?This was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

When the chickens came home to roost, we were left with waiting lists of people trying to get appointments with mental health providers many of whom were burnt-out. Provides asked, "How do we address these problems?"

The Research Spoke

New challenges require new remedies.?A different approach.?A world-wide study, with 12,243 participants, conducted in 30 countries, on six continents, studied the depression, anxiety, and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (Eisenbeck, et al., 2021) .?

“Results indicated that meaning-centered coping was strongly associated with diminished symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression.?Moreover, it moderated various relationships between vulnerability factors and markers of psychological distress, especially in the case of depression. These findings call for attention to meaning-centered coping approaches in the context of hardship, such as the current COVID-19 health crisis.” (p.1)

Meaning-Centered Therapy

Meaning-centered psychotherapy is a treatment strategy based on Viktor Frankl’s (1905-1997) work which he called “Logotherapy” or “meaning” therapy. It focuses on the clinical problems of individuals and places a special emphasis on difficulties associated with meaninglessness. Its ultimate goal is helping an individual to discover the meaning of their life.

Frankl, an Austrian Jew, experienced much suffering in his life.?After his training as a medical doctor, he went into practice as a psychiatrist.?He married in 1942; shortly after this, his entire family was sent to concentration camps, where his father, mother, and wife died.?Upon liberation from a concentration camp, he dictated his world famous book, Man's Search For Meaning, in eight days. He retired from clinical work in 1970 but continued lecturing at various universities, as well as publishing.

Frankl developed logotherapy, which aimed to help people find meaning in life.?It helped people understand that, even though they may have experienced suffering and hardship, they must still search for life’s purpose.?Essentially, it focuses on the future not the present or past.?Frankl also believed that the search for meaning in life is not linked to religiosity, but rather, what one does or the tasks one fulfills.

Frankl is a key figure in existential therapy as he ?believed that physical and psychological illness are disguised as “existential angst”.?In other words, people have the money and ability to live, but they often have no meaning in their lives.?He advocated for people to find their purpose in life and, thus, overall meaning though having suffered, worked, and loved.

During the last two decades meaning-centered therapy has developed a strong framework of knowledge capable of meeting the needs of today’s mental health crisis.?The research has shown its efficacy in treating a host of disorders including depression, substance use disorders, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, PTSD, narcissistic personality disorders, borderline personality disorders, avoidant personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, dependent personality disorders, and histrionic personality disorders.?

Furthermore, logotherapy treatments have been shown to enhance psychological adjustment associated with terminal illnesses, disabilities, grief, and caregiving in rehabilitation.?It is a promising intervention alleviating suffering and helping clients to find meaning.

But how are mental health providers, most of whom were trained in other therapies, going to provide this effective treatment?

The Therapy Training Institute

With over forty years of clinical practice as a backdrop, I knew, from the beginning that COVID-19 was going to be the challenge of my professional life.?In March of 2020, when the extent and severity of COVID-19 was first announced, I was standing in Sao Paulo airport in Brazil, headed back to New York. You could see the fear on the masked faces.?Brazil, later to become one of the most devastated countries, was braced.?Back in New York confusion resulted in chaos. Freezer trucks lined Queens streets filled with body bags.?It was time to put my experience to work in a positive way.

I joined the efforts of the Therapy Training Institute.?At first, we were dedicated to transitioning clinical services to telehealth as offices and agencies were closing.?As the research became available, we began producing training material to help clinicians provide meaning-centered, or logotherapy, services.?Frankl never intended logotherapy to be a stand-alone therapy, but rather, as a supplement to be added to whatever therapy a clinician was using.?Our challenge was to use the available technology to get as many tools in the hands of as many clinicians as possible.

Training & Certification

Logotherapy training is now available to providers in a free video course This course provides high production value videos that are both informative and interesting. ?Unlike some training that provides slideshows, these videos are professionally produced and the feedback from users has been very positive.

Additionally, a certificate course, “Counseling in The Post COVID-19 Era,” is also available.?The Therapy Training Institute is creating other transformational courses that will be available soon. Direct consultation is available, at no cost, to clinicians. Consultation time can be scheduled on the website .