Effective Treatment for Mental Illness

Apparently, in Once-Great Britain, the famed National Health Service will make you wait up to a year to get an appointment with a mental health professional. Keep this in mind the next time you start dreaming about Medicare for all.

Anyway, the Daily Mail has found the perfect way to correct this grave injustice. It has provided a list of activities that will help you to overcome your emotional distress, your depression and your anxiety. Some mental health conditions, dare I say, require real medical treatment. Many do not.

The story emphasizes what works as treatment. It does not quite say it, but most psycho therapy does not produce any real benefit. As for Freudian psychoanalysis, let us recall that famed analyst Jacques Lacan said that clinical practice was a scam and that famed Oxford biologist and Nobel laureate Peter Medawar wrote that Freudian analysis was a confidence trick.

The story emphasizes a point that I have been at pains to point out on this blog: that activities involving exercise do many good things for both your mental and your physical health. Of course, that's not all... but it's a start.

Naturally, playing competitive sports, especially soccer, will improve your mood. Exercise works. As does competition... if not soccer, try bridge. Considering that today’s public schools, ever solicitous about stoking every child’s flagging self-esteem, prefers to eliminate all activities that involve competition, you can feel reasonably assured that competition is good for your mental health.

And then there are the clear benefits provided by activities that get you out of your mind, like knitting and gardening. Add to that walks in the woods and baking. These all undoubtedly count as forms of meditation. Some also count as achievements. Considering that today’s therapists want you to get into your mind, you can feel reasonably assured that getting out of your mind is good for your mental health.

Finally, the paper recommends that you get a pet and listen to some music. Surely, these are all good recommendations.

As Lizzie Crocker once opined: What would we do without the Daily Mail?