Psychologists/Psychiatrists opportunistically exploiting Covid-19 to generate more patients?

[PsychoLogical]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/09/mental-health-online-coronavirus-177499

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/unemployment-isolation-covid-19s-mental-health-impact/story?id=69939700

These are just two random articles I stumbled upon yesterday. There are a bevy of such articles I've been seeing the past month or so from psychologists and psychiatrists eagerly doling out diagnoses, essentially labeling all Americans as suffering some form of mental disorder, and claiming that we're all going to have some type of trauma or PTSD from the pandemic. How convenient for them, as most of their businesses were shuttered and they're unable to see their clients in person. Enter tele-medicine, where now they can just Skype or video chat with clients via a laptop or cell phone. With so many people isolating at home, this creates an easy avenue for them to market to and write articles informing people of their supposed diagnoses, turning everyone into prospective clients (along with current ones). I may add that this isn't necessarily much different than the way they operated before, but now they're easily able to reach many more people because most of us are online in our technologically over-connected world while self-isolating at home, and since many people may be online a good proportion of the time, they're now exposed to their propaganda.

This pandemic is causing distress to so many people, and I'd assume most people are feeling some form of anxiety/depression/fear/uncertainty, etc. But to blanket the entire country or world as having depression or anxiety or PTSD disorders seems to me egregiously crass and dangerous. In situations like this it's NORMAL to feel those emotions, and to have thoughts of fear and uncertainty and concern. Trying to turn it into an abnormality, or to try and use this pandemic as some kind of leverage to diagnose and then purport to treat everyone is outrageous.

Over the past year or so I've also been seeing many articles popping up warning about and discussing a "loneliness epidemic". Now, in our atomized, isolated world pre-pandemic, this was probably a large enough issue affecting many people, but during the pandemic it's affecting most everyone. What about the people who were essentially quarantined before the pandemic? The senior citizens in nursing homes. The elderly living alone at home. People with disabilities or illnesses on their own. People with mental illnesses on their own. Homeless people on their own. I count myself among them, because I've ultimately lived a quarantined life for the past 16 years. People like us are the ones who are the cast-offs, the undesirables, the forgotten, the ones who are left abandoned or ignored to fend for ourselves. To me it just exposes the venality of these therapists or psychologists who are coming out in droves and ramping up their services in full force,  but not to this extent when there was already a supposed loneliness epidemic occurring before our current pandemic. Although, I know that so many of them already see most people as potential clients in need of their help, but using the pandemic to turn everyone into a target and then exploit them is really sick. We don't need manufactured caring and concern. We don't need purchased empathy or friends that come with a price tag. Maybe feeling depression and anxiety are symptoms of the loneliness, of seeing how easy it is for the world to step over you and leave you there to rot. But the thing is, maybe we don't have mental disorders (or most of us don't) maybe we don't need more therapists offering up their "services" to help us "cope" with life in our current society. Maybe the affliction IS our society and the way our world operates. Maybe the glaring inequality, systemic socioeconomic asymmetry, the discrimination, the corruption, the suffering, the isolation from one another and a sense of supportive community and caring for each other are the causes. We don't need more psychologists giving us "therapy" in order to better manage our anxiety/depression/uncertainty/fears/worries/concern/anger over all of these atrocities that we're constantly facing. Maybe what we need is to live in a world that doesn't cater to the few individuals with almost 99% of the entire world's wealth, while the rest of the 7.9 billion people starve and suffer and struggle every day to get by. If you aren't anxious/depressed/enraged/helpless/hopeless I'd venture to say you aren't paying attention and/or are one of the few with most of the power and money. It seems to me that therapists are helping people to put band-aids on wounds (if even that), akin to helping a slave accustom themselves to being shackled and behind steel bars more comfortably. It's asinine and insulting. We wouldn't need so many psychologists claiming to be able to help heal our problems and listen to us if we had more people who cared about one another and listened and were supportive to one another. That's basically what therapists claim to do, except they're paid for it. To me that's one of the saddest parts about it, that not only do we have to pay someone to pretend to care for us and help us, but that there are people who turn doing it into a career. I just thought that part of being a civilized, compassionate, caring human being meant treating other people with decency and empathy, not buying it or charging to provide it. Is a therapist going to be there to celebrate my birthday? Or when I'm home alone and feeling helpless and without support? Or to go for a walk? Or will they help all the people who lost their jobs or businesses or homes or are in severe debt or are immunocompromised and are at great risk of dying from Covid? Oh, sure, they'll be there, during a scheduled "hour" (45 minutes) in which they charge upwards of 200$ to listen to you and feign concern. Once you leave, you're back where you've always been, in the same world, with the same problems that have always been there. Except now you can just think positively about everything and breeze through life, thanks to the handy therapist's "treatments".

[PsychoLogical]

I stumbled upon a therapist offering their services:

"Health Care Provider Debrief:
In this thirty minute appointment, first responders, and care providers overwhelmed with COVID-19 can narrate or story tell their problematic, or concerning experience. Through this discussion resources and next steps may be identified, however the primary purpose of this resource is to get concerning experiences, "off your chest", so that you can feel more at ease or 'free' to resume your important work while managing difficult experiences. Thursdays, 9-5, 30 mins, $50.00."

It was rather gratifying to see people in the comments saying that it should be less or even for free.

[PsychoLogical]

I stumbled upon a therapist offering their services:

"Health Care Provider Debrief:
In this thirty minute appointment, first responders, and care providers overwhelmed with COVID-19 can narrate or story tell their problematic, or concerning experience. Through this discussion resources and next steps may be identified, however the primary purpose of this resource is to get concerning experiences, "off your chest", so that you can feel more at ease or 'free' to resume your important work while managing difficult experiences. Thursdays, 9-5, 30 mins, $50.00."

It was rather gratifying to see people in the comments saying that it should be less or even for free. This was the therapist's response as to why their services weren't inexpensive or free:

"I am earnestly trying to do something to help out. As an independantly owned and operated business, it is difficult to do what you are requesting. Most healthcare professionals have benefits, and the government has asked people to offer and design services to help out."

Paying a complete stranger 50$ to discuss your personal experiences seems like a raw deal. But notice how the therapist has framed it as a beneficial service they're offering to people, as if a client is being allowed the privilege to pay them just to talk.

[zygomaticus]

This therapist will, most likely, have been able to keep a lot of clients by moving appointments to the phone/VOIP, instead. Sure, some will cancel, it is a luxury expense (that therapists try to convince clients is a necessity, nonetheless), particularly those that have lost their jobs. Therapists, though, have so much more flexibility than most workers out there in the current situation.

If this person is truly earnest about helping, it's simple: volunteer. Outside of normal appointment hours they can allocate time to provide their 'skills' for free. Instead, they try to make a buck. Also I note the wording 'Through this discussion resources and next steps may be identified.' That sure sounds like a consultation to me, as opposed to the claim it is mainly to offload. The advertised premise makes it sound like it isn't therapy, but there's already a charge for something - listening to someone's need to externalise - that a friend or loved one can do without any training and for free. The next steps, no doubt, would be full sessions with the therapist. Call my a cynic, but this reads like a therapist using a ruse of a support-like conversation as a way to market, perhaps also to those not looking for therapy but still needing to offload. Perhaps, once the relief of getting what they needed to off their chests, they'll begin to believe regular session might be in order and will be convinced, in private, of just that.

[zygomaticus]

On 4/24/2020 at 7:51 PM, PsychoLogical said:

Maybe the affliction IS our society and the way our world operates. Maybe the glaring inequality, systemic socioeconomic asymmetry, the discrimination, the corruption, the suffering, the isolation from one another and a sense of supportive community and caring for each other are the causes. We don't need more psychologists giving us "therapy" in order to better manage our anxiety/depression/uncertainty/fears/worries/concern/anger over all of these atrocities that we're constantly facing. Maybe what we need is to live in a world that doesn't cater to the few individuals with almost 99% of the entire world's wealth, while the rest of the 7.9 billion people starve and suffer and struggle every day to get by. If you aren't anxious/depressed/enraged/helpless/hopeless I'd venture to say you aren't paying attention and/or are one of the few with most of the power and money.

I couldn't agree more. There is a woeful culture of minimising or excluding social factors from therapy, instead, it's largely about placing all the responsibility on the client's shoulders to adapt to and accept society as it is. Perhaps, though, it is well-adjusted to be anxious and depressed and bereft of purpose, but instead of having these responses acknowledged and respected, clients are told to not only suck it up but to be positive about the very society that damaged them personally and that is chronically sick itself in a very moral and systemic manner. Those that were truly concerned with the psychological fall-out of society should campaign for a better world, not profit from it and compound it in a way, because, if successfully brainwashed into the cult of positivity, there are less potential voices of dissent. But just as therapists will seek to profit from a global pandemic, the systemic ills of society also provide them with ongoing market niches to exploit. Far from wanting to build a better world, if others did so effectively, therapists would largely be out of a job. They're no more interested in cures than the pharmaceutical industry are: they're simply not profitable.

[PsychoLogical]

On 4/28/2020 at 1:00 PM, zygomaticus said:

I couldn't agree more. There is a woeful culture of minimising or excluding social factors from therapy, instead, it's largely about placing all the responsibility on the client's shoulders to adapt to and accept society as it is. Perhaps, though, it is well-adjusted to be anxious and depressed and bereft of purpose, but instead of having these responses acknowledged and respected, clients are told to not only suck it up but to be positive about the very society that damaged them personally and that is chronically sick itself in a very moral and systemic manner. Those that were truly concerned with the psychological fall-out of society should campaign for a better world, not profit from it and compound it in a way, because, if successfully brainwashed into the cult of positivity, there are less potential voices of dissent. But just as therapists will seek to profit from a global pandemic, the systemic ills of society also provide them with ongoing market niches to exploit. Far from wanting to build a better world, if others did so effectively, therapists would largely be out of a job. They're no more interested in cures than the pharmaceutical industry are: they're simply not profitable.

Absolutely. It makes me think of the whole corporate culture of "improving productivity", where they send their employees off to psychotherapy seminars or workshops, or pay for individual sessions. Of course, the bigwigs of the corporations or huge companies don't care about their employee's well-being per se, but only insofar as their employees are functioning at the top of their A-game all the time. If by sending them away to get therapy and to learn therapeutic techniques that purportedly help them to "function" more optimally in perpetuity, then they'll foot the bill for that, and require their employees to undergo therapy. It's nothing to do with making sure people are healthy in all areas of life in a generally altruistic sense, it's that they want employees putting out as much energy and effort to further advance the objectives of the corporate tycoons. Same with society. When I read statistics on how many people are afflicted with depression and "the economic cost" of it being in the billions of dollars, and how there's so much "lost productivity" and job-related expenses lost to mental illnesses, it makes sense that they would ship people off to therapists or psychiatrists, oftentimes in conjunction, because both of those fields claim to be able to effectively treat mental afflictions. They want to get people back to work as quickly as possible. Once again, not because they genuinely care about improving people's lives, but because of the profit motive. Problem is, what if part, or even all of the cause of so much mental anguish and suffering is due to our very society itself? Well, since most people in power would rather die than willingly give up their money and their control, they would never want to fix the problems in society. Better to "fix" the millions of people who are depressed because of society's corruption. Of course, it's never a fix, but more like acclimating a slave to his cell and making him comfortable there and teaching him how to accept his lowly conditions and never hope for anything better, so that after a while he will believe that's the best life will ever get, and eventually he'll forget to even imagine breaking free and changing things, so that the masters can leave the cage door open and he will never think of leaving it, or if he does leave it, he'll be too scared to go far, or to run away at all. So what we have are so many suffering individuals, who are rightly hurting, who are not truly being helped by anyone, and the entire system continues chugging along, seemingly improving people's lives, while not transforming anything for the better. Why is it that now more than ever, we have access to a multitude of different therapists, and therapeutic techniques and methods, yet rates of depression and other mental illnesses are skyrocketing, not declining? If all the medications and therapists out there were really helping people as they claim, wouldn't we be seeing rates going down? I'd suppose therapists would advocate for more access to therapy, and for more people to become therapists. But then wouldn't that cut into their business, if they had more people competing in the market for their potential clients? It's like some sort of sick irony, in that therapists are like lions stalking their prey, except instead of seeking to inflict some harm upon them, they're searching for damaged people who have already been harmed, in order to "heal" them.

[Mary S]

2 hours ago, PsychoLogical said:

... When I read statistics on how many people are afflicted with depression and "the economic cost" of it being in the billions of dollars, and how there's so much "lost productivity" and job-related expenses lost to mental illnesses, it makes sense that they would ship people off to therapists or psychiatrists, oftentimes in conjunction, because both of those fields claim to be able to effectively treat mental afflictions. They want to get people back to work as quickly as possible. Once again, not because they genuinely care about improving people's lives, but because of the profit motive. Problem is, what if part, or even all of the cause of so much mental anguish and suffering is due to our very society itself? Well, since most people in power would rather die than willingly give up their money and their control, they would never want to fix the problems in society. Better to "fix" the millions of people who are depressed because of society's corruption. Of course, it's never a fix, but more like acclimating a slave to his cell and making him comfortable there and teaching him how to accept his lowly conditions and never hope for anything better, so that after a while he will believe that's the best life will ever get, and eventually he'll forget to even imagine breaking free and changing things, so that the masters can leave the cage door open and he will never think of leaving it, or if he does leave it, he'll be too scared to go far, or to run away at all. So what we have are so many suffering individuals, who are rightly hurting, who are not truly being helped by anyone, and the entire system continues chugging along, seemingly improving people's lives, while not transforming anything for the better. Why is it that now more than ever, we have access to a multitude of different therapists, and therapeutic techniques and methods, yet rates of depression and other mental illnesses are skyrocketing, not declining? If all the medications and therapists out there were really helping people as they claim, wouldn't we be seeing rates going down?...

The combination of craving power and using "metrics" (such as monetary gain) just fosters a dominant/submissive relationship, whether boss/employee or therapist/client. Economists and therapists are both off in fairy tale worlds.

[PsychoLogical]

12 hours ago, Mary S said:

The combination of craving power and using "metrics" (such as monetary gain) just fosters a dominant/submissive relationship, whether boss/employee or therapist/client. Economists and therapists are both off in fairy tale worlds.

Precisely. And sadly, vulnerable, suffering people are the ones who are being exploited for their gains. And being on the bottom of these imbalanced, unequal relationships, the victims rarely ever have any kind of recourse to bring them to justice.

[Mary S]

See also https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/business-climate-strike-1.5293916

[Eve B]

On 5/4/2020 at 8:11 PM, PsychoLogical said:

Why is it that now more than ever, we have access to a multitude of different therapists, and therapeutic techniques and methods, yet rates of depression and other mental illnesses are skyrocketing, not declining? 

Probably because the failures can be blamed on non-compliant clients? I think most therapists will admit that therapy won't work for everyone for various reasons.

[PsychoLogical]

That's a likely cause. It also raises the point of how exactly therapists are able to make the claims that therapy IS effective enough to be used to treat any patient, especially if it doesn't work for many, or is actively harmful for others.

[Eve B]

I think therapists don't really know how therapy works if/when it does, and because there are so many different approaches, they can say that therapy does work if the particular method or therapist style is compatible with the patient's issues. Their claims of success or failure basically comes down to good or bad fit between client and therapist, not any kind of clear cut evidence. Two different therapists can apply the same technique, and both can have different outcomes.

[Mary S]

22 hours ago, Eve B said:

I think therapists don't really know how therapy works if/when it does, and because there are so many different approaches, they can say that therapy does work if the particular method or therapist style is compatible with the patient's issues. Their claims of success or failure basically comes down to good or bad fit between client and therapist, not any kind of clear cut evidence. Two different therapists can apply the same technique, and both can have different outcomes.

I see it as very much like religion -- religion can make life better for many people, but even people who find religion helpful may need to try different religions before finding one that helps them. (And, like therapy: religion can be harmful sometimes, even though it can be helpful sometimes.)

[Eve B]

17 hours ago, Mary S said:

 even people who find religion helpful may need to try different religions before finding one that helps them. 

So it's the responsibility of the client to find the right therapist?

[Mary S]

3 hours ago, Eve B said:

So it's the responsibility of the client to find the right therapist?

You are asking a simple question -- but the reality is not simple, so I can't give a simple answer. In the current system, it is de facto the client's responsibility to find a suitable/good enough therapist. And de facto, there may not be  (often is not) a good enough therapist for every person seeking therapy -- some prospective clients may easily find a therapist suitable for them, but for others, there may not be any suitable therapist (let alone one in area the prospective client lives in.)   Put more bluntly, the current system is dysfunctional. (I won't say broken, because that assumes that it was at some time functional.) So perhaps another way of saying it is, "Buyer (client) beware." Therapy is not really a "service" industry; it purports to perform services, but (perhaps more often than not) does not provide those services, but just "attempts" at those services. 

[Eve B]

I agree with the "buyer beware" caution for anyone willing to give therapy a chance. If nothing else, therapists do try to be helpful, but if things don't work out well, that's when clients will see the truth of their therapist. There is at least more acknowledgment of the real harm that can be caused by bad therapy nowadays, so maybe there's still some hope that the system can and must change if there's enough public outcry against the status quo? What if, some day, there are mass protests against therapist abuse?