Imagine you have a bad cold and a fever. What do you normally do? You go to the doctor and get treatment. If someone asks how you are, you say: "Not great, I’ve caught a cold." Perfectly normal, isn’t it? But what would you do if you had trouble communicating, outbursts of anger or a low emotional state? Would you look for help the way you do with your body? Almost certainly not.
And yet our psyche needs our attention, our care and our treatment just as much as our body does.
5 reasons why mental health matters
Body and mind are one whole
Where conventional medicine used to treat the psyche separately from the body, more and more holistic approaches are appearing. It means a growing awareness that a healthy mind goes hand in hand with a healthy body, and the other way round. It is crucial to take mental troubles as seriously as physical ones. You have surely heard of psychosomatics. Every Sunday I host meetings on psychosomatics over Skype at our club. I only cover topics our residents ask for.
What psychosomatics is, in plain words: history, causes, examples - Articles - Freud’s Legacy. A club of psychology and personal development
Plenty of people live healthily, eat well, do sport and are emotionally stable, and still cannot call themselves healthy. Which raises the questions: why? how come? I have seen many cases where every test, every possible ex
https://freud.online/articles/chto-takoe-psikhosomatika-prostymi-slovami
Mental health and the modern world
The German psychologist Hans-Ulrich Wittchen calls mental health "Europe’s greatest problem of the 21st century". Partly because mental illness is on the rise and psychological strain is growing markedly. And partly because society has yet to grasp that looking after your mental health is just as normal as looking after your body — on this we lag far behind America. You must never show that you are in a bad way psychologically, let alone ask for help. Prejudice still has to be fought and misunderstanding is a common thing.
Our club Freud’s Legacy offers something that has no equivalent anywhere in the world: it is not group therapy, not individual therapy, not "straight" teaching, but an entirely new approach. Working with us every day keeps you in a stable psychological and emotional state. When life throws up a problem, our residents request the topic that concerns them, and we build around that request an online webinar. That way a person always gets the support they need.
Psychological support events ☑ the club’s calendar of meetings - Freud’s Legacy centre
A plan for psychological support ☑ 30 meetings a month ✈ every day ➔ online ► a range of specialists ☯ every area of life ✔ Join us!
Mental troubles are on the rise
As physical health in society improves, the number of people with mental troubles goes up. According to current WHO figures, 117 million people in the EU now carry a clinical diagnosis. Many factors lead to this: stress at work, excessive demands, juggling work and family, countless choices, bullying, trolling, mobbing, an endless stream of bad news and so on. According to current figures from the Chamber of Labour, one person in three knows of a case of burnout inside their own company. The number of sick days taken for this reason is rising too.
These figures are nothing other than the count of people who were too embarrassed to seek professional help in time and let their state slide so far that it is no longer a counsellor who deals with them but a psychiatrist. Their income drops sharply as well, because they can no longer work.
All the attention goes to the body
Going to the gym and posing proudly afterwards is "cool". Dieting, regular massages, spa breaks, vitamins and the rest — all cool and healthy! Social media are packed with offers from trainers, nutritionists, masseurs, yoga teachers and so on, and it never occurs to us for a second that we might feel ashamed or awkward about asking these specialists for help.
And how many professional offers can you name that you could turn to if you wanted to do something for your mental health? Professional ones, mind you!
Many people would sooner go to an astrologer than to a counsellor. Because society has no notion yet that having your own counsellor is cool, and that working on your psychological health is super cool!
In the USA, not having your own counsellor is taken as a sign of poverty and of neglecting your mental health. Almost every firm keeps one on staff, because they understand that paying for sick leave costs them far more — and that a psychologically stable person is far more productive.
Requirements for a counsellor in Austria
Who is allowed to practise psychological counselling in the homeland of psychology, in Austria? Are there requirements for a counsellor? Do you need a licence?
https://freud.online/articles/trebovaniya-k-psikhologu-v-avstrii
Where mental health is heading
Mental health problems, according to the statistics, grow every year. And we are not talking about clinical diagnoses — we are talking about emotional instability, breakdowns, apathy and anxiety in perfectly ordinary citizens.
Even so, mental health tends to be treated as something minor rather than as a basic way of living, one that underpins a healthy body as a whole.
The growing number of mental illnesses, borderline states and plain disorders shows clearly that our society needs to rethink the way it regards a person’s psycho-emotional state.
Mental health problems are "normal" in exactly the same sense as physical health problems. A human being is made of body and mind, so it is obvious that both parts can fall ill and both deserve treatment. So: take a look at yourself, let yourself be helped, accept that the psyche is every bit as valuable as the shell we live in, our body.
