The Societal Burden of Psychopathology: Winning Battles But Losing the War?

Mental health treatment is more available than it has ever been before. And more is known now, than ever before, about how to conduct such treatment effectively. Research output is prodigious. Yet, by a number of indicators, the mental health of the population has not improved in recent decades, or has even worsened. Indicators include prevalences of disorders and symptoms, suicide and homicide rates, deaths of despair, rates of school shootings and other mass homicides, and fear of one’s fellow humans when walking alone. Indicators among young people include surveys of college students, responses to psychological tests, teachers’ descriptions of students’ behaviors, and rates of psychiatric hospitalizations. The insufficient public health effect of improved clinical methods motivates a quest for methods that can effectively help a much larger segment of the population than clinical mental health services can reach.