WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SOLVE OTHER PEOPLE'S MENTAL PROBLEMS?

How to help a friend who is feeling down? Don't do anything.

It may sound extreme, but it makes sense. What is this about?

This is the basic idea of ​​a campaign created by FCB New Zealand to reach teenagers whose friends are showing symptoms of mental health problems. The campaign was created for Te Hiringa Hauora, a research organization that follows the goals of the New Zealand government and is responsible for improving health in the country.

The agency used the data showing that young people in New Zealand have the highest suicide rate among countries in the developed world. Campaigns dealing with this issue generally target those people who have a problem and encourage them to reach out for help. Surveys show that young people who surround people who are facing a mental health crisis do not know how to help their friends and provide them with the support they need, and the conclusion that the research points to is that it is enough to be present in that person's life and show that you enjoy spending time with them.

Reactions to the campaign have been mixed ‒ some enthusiastic about the approach, others see it as encouraging apathy and passivity.

For us to agree or disagree, you can watch the campaign here.

And my reaction is clearly defined and I'm sure that, like everyone who was triggered by this content, I projected my own experiences into this.

I like the campaign for the following reasons:

1. People who surround a person who is mentally ill are not medical professionals.

The fact that we accuse people of passivity when they don't "help" someone with a mental health problem points to two things. The first is that we don't think it's a real health problem, which is why anyone can play savior when this problem comes up. This, of course, comes from being encouraged through our entire culture to believe that we are up to the messianic role.

And yet, no conscientious person would try to give someone an IV without having any idea how it's done or whether it's the right solution. A conscientious person would not take someone injured in an accident to their home and pretend to be a doctor. A conscientious person knows that these actions can hurt someone and cause a counter-effect. What do we do in such moments? We will be there with them, we call the doctor if the matter is urgent, and we will encourage the person in crisis to go to the doctor on their own if it is not so urgent. The decision depends on our judgment, which is not always perfect, but it is the only thing we have as a guide. This is not washing our hands of responsibility, but acknowledging the simple, but often overlooked truth that we are not omnipotent.

The second thing we overlook, and it builds on the first, is that if we inadequately dig into someone's psyche, and we don't know what we're doing, we can encourage breakdowns that we won't be able to repair. Professionals should know at what pace they should go in therapy and how to approach a person who is struggling to help them.

As a friend, we should be there, be supportive, and be open if someone wants to talk to us, but not imagine that what is happening to that person is a movie about us where we play the main role and our goal is to free someone from a problem. That is not our role and it is far beyond our capabilities.

This is especially true for teenagers who have less life experience and, ultimately, usually less psychotherapeutic experience than adults.

2. Presence is not a solution, but a (possible) beginning of problem-solving.

Although we want to believe that our decision to help will magically solve someone's problem, this is not true either. The struggle for mental health is long-lasting and exhausting, primarily for the person who is ill, but also for the people around them. However, the people around are still there to support them. The hardest part of the job is on the individual who is suffering.

This campaign deals with and appeals to those people who are there to support them. In the comments, there is a tendency to trivialize the message of the campaign and underline how the conclusion is imposed that the decision to be there and do nothing will magically solve the problem.

It will not. There is no magical solution at all. It may not be an optimistic enough message for a marketing campaign, but it is reality.

3. It's time to learn to do nothing.

The terror of productivity that we are so used to that we accept it as the norm affects us in all areas of our life. We can't stand the fact that we are "wasting time" doing nothing. We feel the need to make excuses for these transgressions, repeat that these phases are due to bad weather or bad mood, and keep quiet that we spent the day playing a game or bingeing a series or staring at the ceiling or out the window.

Passivity is despised as the worst enemy of progress, because if we do nothing then we are not productive. If we are not productive, we should hate ourselves and correct ourselves as soon as possible.

Part of the resistance that appears in the comments on the campaign almost certainly comes from the fact that the situations presented in it are contemporary ‒ the characters show each other memes on the phone, they play video games, watch TV... We are taught that these are elements of never-before-seen alienation between people. When I hear the word alienation or feel that someone implies it, I immediately think of Vera who laments about this phenomenon in the series Love, Habit, Panic while her family members (and what else would they be doing?) are watching TV. In our sitcom, the scene is brought to the point of absurdity and that's why it's striking, but the lament over alienation in the modern age is no less absurd.

If the characters in the campaign were sitting next to each other and reading books or painting aquarelle or playing football together, the resistance would probably be less because we perceive these activities as something that "improves" us either mentally or in terms of skills. These are all ACTIVITIES that produce RESULTS.

It seems that we have to learn to enjoy leisure to even accept the idea that just being there is enough. We need to accept that our condition will be at least a little better when we embrace the possibility of being relaxed and enjoying the moment with someone we love and who chooses to be with us. That moment doesn't have to be spectacular, nothing big has to happen, and it doesn't have to affect our whole life. We should be comfortable in ordinary moments. After all, this is what we often strive for through psychotherapy ‒ to learn how to live everyday life with ourselves and others. And other people's problems? We will not solve them.

Author: Natalija Jovanović, Senior Content Manager