Improving our Health: The Mental Health Conundrum – Part One

Since our country’s recent tragedy at Sandy Hook, two policy debates have once again taken center stage:  gun control and mental health. Well-meaning people will likely continue to debate these issues for as long as the United States exists, but we are not going to do it in this blog.

For those of us working in and around healthcare, we are more intrigued by the exploration and improvement of mental health. This exploration is critical when attempting to save lives from sudden, violent acts of aggression against self and others. It is also critical when attempting to reduce human suffering – a key mission for anyone working in healthcare. The suffering caused by poor mental health takes the form of physical pain, illness and a chronic inability to overcome disease, poverty, homelessness, despair and malaise. Mental unrest not only kills people, it maims society in day-to-day activities.

Suffering created by an “uncontrolled mind” is a vast unresolved pandemic. I call this pandemic the “Mental Health Conundrum.”

The Mental Health Conundrum does not have easy answers. It does not permeate the 24-hour news cycle and does not lend itself to policy making in the conventional sense. I have never felt mentally improved when learning of a new law or a program for mental health.  Have you?  At its core, analyzing this Conundrum is a sign of our refusal to accept presently known answers about improving mental health in our society. The steps towards society’s improvement will change so many things about how we live and what we believe is important. We may say these changes are worth making – but do we make them?

Since this is a blog and not a book, I’ll be writing a series of posts about this issue in the coming weeks. I would like to hear back from you about your thoughts on the Conundrum (write to me at kjenkins@dfwhcfoundation.org). For this first blog I ask, “Is a controlled mind excellent?”  And please consider, “What things unsettle my mind every day?”  Next time, I’ll pose stories and ideas concerning chronic mental health suffering, its effect on North Texas and our physical health.