10 reflections on mental health & Covid-19 from @JulesEvans11 and my new @Collective_Psyc for @wellcometrust:

1) As another Covid wave approaches, we need to *resist the temptation to pathologise our suffering, or assume that the only ways to manage it are clinical*.

Some of the most effective coping mechanisms people have found during Covid are community-based, rather than in the formal medical sector. Of course therapy and medication are crucial - but they tend to get a lot more attention than community approaches. It needs to be both/and.

2) *Looking for meaning and purpose as well as happiness*. We're living through a #longcrisis - which means we're going to face a LOT of shocks and stresses. Measuring mental health through happiness metrics (as lots of policy now does) misses a lot of what's important.

Instead, we need to look at meaning and purpose as the things that really make life worth living, even in conditions of adversity like the ones that face us now. Like Nietzsche said: "He who has a why to live can cope with almost any how"

3) *Taking a whole person, whole society approach*. If mental health is about flourishing rather than just avoiding mental ill health, then it's about the *whole* of society, not just healthcare: jobs, arts, transport, food, education, homes, green space, welfare, care. All of it

Which means connecting the dots across these areas really matters. This isn't about redrawing organograms. It's about people in all of them developing a common *story* about where we are, how we got here, where we're trying to go, and above all who we are.

4) *Recognising inner and outer as two sides of the same coin*. Real world Covid impacts - infections, lockdowns, job losses, deaths - have tangible impacts on our states of mind. Conversely, our states of mind impact the world too...

Look for instance at the waves of panic buying (or, more positively, mutual aid groups) that we saw in the spring as people tried to find a sense of agency amid a terifying situation.

Here's the really key point:

(This is what @Collective_Psyc is ALL about, if you don't know our work - sign up for our list here! https://www.collectivepsychology.org/contact/ )

OK, on to reflection no. 5:

5) *Building bridges between faith groups and mental health services*. Western psychology grew out of religion, offering a secular approach to 'care of the soul' - from the therapeutic confessional, to Stoic-inspired CBT or AA's 12 steps.

But psychology doesn't altogether fill the role religion used to play in the west. It doesn't usually offer community, or connection between inner states and outer works. Or a practice for life, with a goal at the end. Or meaning, beauty, value or transcendence.

Conversely, religion has a LOT to learn from psychology too, especially on how the mind can go wrong and be helped to heal. There's scope for such a mutually enriching conversation here - one that's started to happen in some places during Covid-19. Lets build on this!

6) *Deepening links between higher & further education and community groups*. With universities in deep crisis, Covid-19 gives us a chance for a VERY long overdue rethink of what higher & adult education are actually for, and what kind of learning is really needed.

And, on the way, to explore the amazing potential that exists for cool partnerships between academia and voluntary orgs - in the process, building evidence for new ways of doing therapy and helping mental health. (We found some *great* examples of this starting to happen.)

7) *Supporting the cultural safety net*. Community level arts and culture have been SO important in keeping us afloat during Covid. But none of us will be able to rely on that safety net if it fails to survive the pandemic.

We need to stop seeing arts as something the creative industry produces and the rest of us consume, and see it as something we *all* create. And emergency support needs to reach beyond the biggest, highest profile projects and focus way more on the local and participatory.

8) *Building on the appetite to reconnect that Covid has created*. Covid has created what the @JoCoxFoundation loneliness commission called "the permission of snow":

Obviously, Covid hugely exacerbated loneliness for many - especially the elderly in care homes. But it's also focused us like never before on the importance of relationships and belonging, and given us permission to connect to each other. We *must* not waste this.

9) *Making mutual aid the start of something bigger*. The explosion of Covid mutual aid groups in lockdown was astonishing. (True, many went dormant over the summer - but the infrastructure for most of them is still there, ready to be reactivated this autumn & winter.)

These groups aren't just about meeting external needs for food / medicine etc. They're also about agency, belonging, purpose, meaning - and they represent a potentially marked shift of power towards citizens.

There's a lot that outside actors - central & local government, funders, charities - can do to help turn this wave into something that lasts and grows. Crucially, though, they need to start with a big dose of humility, do a lot of listening, and take a first do no harm approach.

10) Last but not least: ***never waste a good crisis!*** Let's dust off that Milton Friedman quote once again (never gets old, this one):

Covid has given us a veritable smorgasbord of willingness to think the unthinkable. Suddenly it's *normal* to wear a mask everywhere, to work from home, to travel much less, to connect with friends and family in radically different ways.

As the crisis continues to evolve, the need - and public appetite - for big ideas is only going to grow, at least if recent months are anything to go by. And mental health will be *huge* in all this.

Example: just look at BLM, and how calls to defund the police or end mass incarceration are often coupled with calls to focus instead on improved mental health care and crisis intervention.

Or look at how the growing economic crisis has prompted calls for a universal basic income – not just to meet our basic material needs, but also for reasons to do with identity, self-respect, meaning, purpose.

It’s always tempting in a crisis – for citizens as well as governments – to focus on firefighting and what’s right in front of us.

We need to resist that natural tendency, and make space to look ahead, think big, and seize the potential that any crisis has to be a transformational moment.

OK, that’s it – thanks for reading :-)

Executive summary here: https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Collective-Resilience-summary.pdf

Full report here: https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Collective-Resilience.pdf

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