OPINION:
Many people concerned by the evident decline of our nation’s mental health over the past four years breathed a sigh of relief with the election of Donald Trump on November 5. The incoming administration’s promise to “Make America Healthy Again” is a welcome and necessary goal. Although the debate over so-called gender-affirming care has helped bring the issue of declining mental health to the forefront, to truly make mental health great again, many aspects of the profession need to be reformed.
President-elect Trump has expressed a willingness to challenge any bureaucratic system, policy, or practice, no matter how untouchable an entity it may seem. This determination is needed to address issues in the mental health industry, which has a major influence on the American people.
In 2023, 59.2 million Americans received mental health services. Approximately 23% of the American population is taking a psychiatric drug. Government and nonprofit organizations alike have spent billions of dollars annually in research, education, and other programs pertaining to mental health-related issues. Despite these efforts, suicide was a leading cause of death in the United States in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Given the amount of money and attention devoted to improving health and inclusivity in our society, we should ask, “Why does our mental health seem to be declining and even reaching crisis proportions?”
There is likely to be little self-reflection from the mental health profession, which lacks true diversity of thought. For example, Verdant Labs found that 91% of psychologists, 98% of mental health therapists, and 100% of research psychologists contributed financially to Democratic candidates. It has even been reported that some therapists canceled appointments with clients due to feeling distressed by the results of this most recent election.
These responses are not isolated and help explain why my like-minded colleagues and I are so often asked, “Do you know a good therapist who isn’t crazy and doesn’t believe all that gender stuff?”
This is indicative of the state of the field. The profession needs to change.
To create meaningful change in our nation’s mental health, we must take a comprehensive look at the entire system. If we don’t address the whole system and instead continue to fund the same researchers and practitioners who gave us gender-affirming care and who—instead of looking for real causes of and solutions for mental distress—tell us that it is simply the result of social oppression.
If we want to see a change in the mental health of our nation, we need to take a hard look at the mental health professionals, research, education, and practices that have contributed to this crisis point.
Here are five ways the incoming Trump administration could immediately improve mental health care in our country:
Address academic and credentialing bodies that create barriers to the field. Religious minorities shouldn’t be barred from practicing simply because they don’t believe a type of care—such as gender-affirming care—is based in good science or ethics or because it doesn’t align with their religious practice.
Remove Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that demand the scientific data be interpreted by ideology. These initiatives require some groups to relinquish their sincerely held beliefs and replace them with the dogma of DEI, which inherently leads to interpreting data with a bias instead of without one.
Address the federal grant funding process and limit requests for research proposals (RFPs) to issues that have consensus from academics with varied political, religious, and clinical modalities. Currently, our grant funding is ideologically driven, leaving mental health areas that desperately need attention unresearched.
Break up the grantee monopolies dominating academic and research institutions. Currently, grant money is often awarded based on past funding. Instead, research grants and support should be offered to organizations that can demonstrate innovative practices and good preliminary outcomes for their services or research.
Make academic literature accessible to the public. Electronic library portals are extremely restrictive, and only those within the academic system have wide access to the literature, which includes mental health research. Purchasing multiple studies can be expensive and lead to a limited understanding of a subject. These costs exclude the public from engaging in scientific and mental health discourses.
It is time to broaden the discourse around mental health and create a context in which professionals in this field are comfortable speaking and innovating again. The decline of the mental health profession has exacerbated the decline of mental health in America. For the Trump administration to succeed in making America healthy again, it must revamp the system that is currently preventing mental health from being great again.
- Dr. Jennifer Bauwens is Director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council.
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