With May, the month of Mental Health Awareness, coming to a close, it may be time to rethink whether “emotional awareness,” the superficial approach to U.S. mental health policy over the past decade, is actually effective. “It’s okay to not be okay” and acknowledge it, says the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, the federal agency on mental illness. But this public-health style attempt to prevent mental illness by promoting “wellness” for all isn't working. What warrants attention is the desperate need for treatment and services targeted at serious mental illness and serious emotional distress in youth.
Universal mental health initiatives like awareness, often targeted to kids, encourage regular attention to emotions, talking about them when bad, and learning the names and symptoms of mental disorders, all to more frequently identify possible problems so mental health intervention can be sought. Taxpayer-funded, commercially packaged programs are doled out through public schools and workplace mandates. Examples include universal screenings, pseudo-therapeutic social emotional learning, Mental Health First Aid, Mental Health Awareness training, and most programs peddling “prevention.”
In SAMHSA’s 2025 budget proposal, funding requests for four awareness and prevention initiatives alone ballooned to nearly $1 billion, from $207 million in 2021.
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Carolyn Gorman is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute.
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