The old adage about not discussing politics or religion with strangers is good advice.
As social creatures, we protect ourselves and recognize that hot topics can lead to conflict with others. I’ve come to avoid even talking to my own family about my political choices and who I voted for. Some people do. Much has been written about how these conflicts create barriers.
Many of us remember the fight between George W. Bush and Al Gore. After the election, there was some debate. “Pregnant Chad” And decide who voters intend to vote for. It was disturbing that it took weeks to announce who actually won the presidential election. No. The country is deeply divided, and domestic and international scholars speculate that civil war is inevitable.
To survive in the world, you always need a support group you can trust. When a child is growing up, this base primarily refers to their parents. There is a term called communion that describes how children can explore their world with confidence because their parents are nearby. As long as parenting is consistent, mind development can eventually move forward and individualize as individual individuals. One of the reasons divorce is so traumatic for her is the sudden disappearance of the most important relationship in her adult life. The supporting bedrock turns into a seismic fault line. This explains how depression, anxiety and even suicide can tragically occur during or after divorce.
About 25 years ago, a patient hospitalized for depression told his treatment team that if his wife chose to divorce him, she would commit suicide. At the time, he was not suicidal and just wanted his marriage to work out. When he became emotionally stable and no longer met the criteria for his admission, he was discharged. He was given a treatment appointment and we were all hoping his life would stabilize. Later I found out that he actually committed suicide.
How could this have been prevented? An unfortunate reality in healthcare is that patients are discharged within days of being hospitalized, largely because insurance companies have found excuses to avoid paying for treatment.
In the 1980s, some mental hospitals could hold patients for months. The Institute of Living Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, where I completed his fellowship in 1987, maintained pools and tennis courts to provide physical activity for emotionally recovering patients. Years ago, the hospital even had luxury vehicles to take patients on relaxing rides in the community.
In 2023, the mental health support system has moved from a humane and nurturing environment to an incredibly high barrier, rendering some patients unable to meet treatment and hospitalization standards. Empathy and compassion are increasingly seen as clinician weaknesses, leading to administrative criticism of providers who want to spend more time with their patients beyond the 15-minute medical check. .
Psychiatrists are really punished for providing excellent patient care when their sole requirement is to remain as a cog in the wheel of the business of healthcare. It has turned into a big business focused only on getting out of the hospital quickly. When our nation focused on helping others rather than exploiting them, human decency was the primary tool for helping troubled individuals. From hypersensitivity about needs to an almost hyper-rational and insensitive environment. Patients are forced to lie about their suicidal thoughts in order to be hospitalized.If someone is at risk of suicide but has not yet made a physical attempt, insurance companies may deny admission to them. The medications they prescribe for these patients may be considered too expensive and rejected by managed care reviews. “failure” Treatment with other inexpensive drugs before following a psychiatrist’s orders. Some say the process is tantamount to an unlicensed medical insurance company.
Through this painstaking process, doctors are effectively ignored and life-or-death decisions are often based on insurance coverage. They are forced to change their treatment and become subordinate to the demands of managed care.
Mental health is, in theory, the foundation of the ability to believe that each individual has a voice and is heard. Sadly, this is just a myth and the doctor who spent 15 years in school to become a professional clinician is often despised. No wonder one of her doctors a day dies by her own hand.
There is a concept known as parallel processes. In this concept, different fields are affected at specific time periods and mirror each other. For example, turmoil in the medical field is similar to turmoil in other areas such as politics. This affects family cohesion and family health, as well as participation in the political process. Political instability can make people with mental health problems more marginalized. This cohort will be unable to understand and relate to the political environment and where it is leading our country.
Moreover, there are several forces at work today that raise the perception of partisanship that seems to define it. Mental health issues create a stark divide between the ability and interest to vote and the barriers that keep suffering people from reaching the polls and better understanding their rights.
Given the overheated culture that has overwhelmed our country, assessing the impact of psychological stress on voters and voting behavior is critical. It is also very important to assess the role of politics, party choice, and the political zeitgeist on the mental health of voting citizens.
The pandemic has given scientists the opportunity to study the impact of a highly divided country on individual health indicators. A key differentiator in the impact of politics on mental health is the degree to which citizens view the polarization of our country.
If a given individual sees current polarization as much greater than past polarization, they are more likely to report more severe mental health problems than they did before the 2020 election. The reason is that perception can turn into subjective reality, so that those suffering from emotional instability come to feel that there is not even a modicum of support underneath. Furthermore, anxiety, grief, economic instability, and pandemic-related mortality all contribute to marginalizing emotionally unstable subsets of the population and downplaying political engagement.Maslow’s hierarchy of needs According to the theory, people suffering from mental distress must be healed before being elevated to higher levels of independence and participation in important lifelong activities such as voting and engaging in civic rights. not.
Mental health can affect the voting process in much the same way that the voting process can create silos among those who support the party’s vision.
Individuals may believe they are objective in their political observations, but the reality is that social psychology, and the influence of groups on individuals, is more about individual perceptions and actions than individual free will. The same dynamics can occur between focus groups where each individual speaking tries, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid disagreement with the group. We have seen this process among politicians who claim autonomy for their beliefs, but fear being ousted will lead them to vote publicly on their group’s platform.
Voters with mental health issues tend to favor more liberal or left-wing self-expression, but overall, voting patterns in this cohort do not differ much from voting statistics in the general voting community. However, it has long been recognized that mental illness can lead to social exclusion and reduced access to mental health care. increases, thus further isolating and marginalizing this population. This is a triple catalysis that combines the stigma of mental illness, reduced access to mental health care for the powerless, and a vicious cycle of increased morbidity and dysfunction.
But it’s not just people with a history of emotional illness who feel overwhelmed and restless. People who have never experienced mental illness in the past are now facing overwhelming depression and anxiety related to the pandemic, possibly alienated from their peers and less motivated to participate in the democratic process. There is a nature.
Treatment is more difficult for the uninsured and those with limited coverage. I don’t want to sugarcoat this. Our Republic is going through a very difficult and uncertain time, and the majority of voters think they are afraid and uncertain where we are going. Some believe, others fear the future.I have a friend who has moved from our country to a more supportive and kind country.
As a psychiatrist of over 30 years, I am also uncertain about the future. No country on earth has achieved immortality. The more mentally unstable people become estranged, the less likely they are to participate in the American experiment. But Warren Buffett said in a television interview that the US experiment is working and the country is doing what it should.
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