Within ten minutes of returning to work, I am immediately struck by the amount of difficulties that surround the people with difficulties. It is always hard to sort out cause and effect when so much is always descending on a person or a family.
I also have been reading and talking to colleagues, and I see that my profession is now touting their new successes, especially with “evidence based therapies” such as CBT and DBT and their spin-offs, as well as the re-discovering of “mindfullness.” And yes, these are good things, but when I look at the actual evidence, I see limited success, although there is often major successes with specific symptoms.
By that I mean, if you are phobic about driving on the highway, or about going to the dentist, a psychologist can help a lot. If you are wondering about the depth of your fiancées love, then a psychologist can help you both sort our your feelings. But if you are like most of my patients then your list of difficulties is a bit more complex. You are in your 50s and lost your job. You feel pain from your joints and your parents are falling down. One of your kids is taking drugs and the other is taking out another $45K to pay for college. These are not different cases; this is always the way it happens in life. Just because you have one problem doesn’t prevent you from having another. No, it actually increases your chances.
I find that the therapy I offer people is very helpful. They seem eager to come and talk to me. We discuss how to deal with one problem while three others get worse. I try and help people see other options, and to prioritize. Still I see that the resources, financial, physical and emotional, that are available to create a solution are very limited, and quickly diminish. And the short-term fixes, which feel so good for the moment, like taking another drink, finding comfort with another person, saying home from work, quickly make everything worse.
Even knowing this I am still struck at how many people out there in this prosperous, energized, entrepreneurial country are just not functioning. Yes, that’s why my patients come to me, but they also go to their extended families and find that their brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles are also stressed and falling apart. So many people are hiding, in houses and apartments, surrounded by piles of stuff, unpaid bills, and broken furniture. The TV is on to either Fox News, the Home Shopping Network or a show about people who weigh 400 pounds. The cat is on top of the TV and the turtle is dead in the corner.
Everyone is on their phone, sending text messages, pictures of naked celebrities, animal videos and conspiracy theories to their friends and family who are all pretty much in the same predicament.
Yes, there are also plenty of people who are “The Makers” of this generation. They are the ones who design the apps that all those people use to send the texts, videos and pictures. These apps help some other “Makers” to sell other stuff, real and virtual, that those people can’t afford, but it keeps them entertained as they try to get through a day and then a week of being broke, depressed and lost.
I am old, and perhaps somewhat cynical, but maybe it was better when it everyone had to go to some boring job that made real things, like shoes, coats, cars, pocketbooks, or cabinets. These were things that everyone made, everyone bought and everyone needed. People felt as if they are part of the world. Now, instead of six hundred people in a factory, there are sixty machines making those things faster and cheaper.
I don’t expect that things will ever return to those conditions. I don’t want to idealize them. I know that in many ways they were boring, unhealthy, exploitive and unsafe. But we have to find a new way forward. We have to find ways to help everyone feel useful, connected and purposeful.
We have to learn to share and care, or this “Winners or Losers” shit will destroy us all.
Really, it’s not that difficult: a little kindness, a little trust, a little understanding make a big difference.
Remember, no matter what we do, or how important we think we are, we are all united by our own insignificance. What saves us is not when someone is impressed, it’s when someone cares. Be the one who cares.
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