I don't think Mental Health, Inc. helps all that much. Think about it. More people than ever take psych drugs, are in some kind of ongoing "treatment," and...the suicide rates are higher now than they were before the latest epidemic of psychiatry.
The real issues I think are more social and spiritual, not psychological. Suicide is more common in states of anomie, or normless-ness+social disintegration. Actually, deviant behavior of all sorts goes up when family structures disintegrate, community bonds are weak, and people lose meaning in their lives.
Spiritually...Jesus saves, absolutely. Any other belief system is a false religion. Some false religions can help take the edge off and provide direction+meaning (I've seen that w/ some New Age stuff here, with acquaintances' parents involved in groups following an Indian guru...not going to save anyone, but they do have nifty drum circles...), others lead into destructin in the here and now, too.
If I remember correctly...when sociologists look at suicide rates, they've often found that one gets more suicide (and more anomie/social disintegration) at the extreme ends of social status. So, the poor and the rich are both existing more in normless states, and their suicide rates (and drug abuse rates...and crime rates, too, if I remember correctly...) reflect this. Funny thing there is...
Scripture somewhere advises us to pray for neither poverty nor riches. Inequality is far worse in the US than in much of Western Europe. The US has somehow managed to destroy much of the middle-middle class, leaving us with billionaires, millionaires, an increasingly powerful upper middle class (w/ advanced degrees and sufficient incomes, they've become something of a "taste maker" class....), and then...
working class lifespans are down (on average...), largely because of suicide and the "drug epidemic". Its never been awesome to be poor in America, but its gotten worse...there's now increasing pockets of "Deep Poverty," which sometimes goes on for generations....
ugh. sorry to ramble. "Wise as serpents, innocent as doves." "in the world but not of it" Without Jesus, one is left to the mercy of: sin, satan, self, death, and the world. Social programs, safety net, upward mobility...don't correct human nature, but they did help steer people in a more constructive direction. Oh, and...not to sound too 70s or anything, but: "the personal is political." Take it from a "mental patient" (but not really....): a lot of the "psych issues" are just personal reactions to socially and economically rooted problems. when does poverty become a "mental illness" ? When one reacts to lack of resources, oppression, exploitation with "symptoms." When does "affluenza" become a "mental illness" ? When one reacts to excess with "symptoms." Its the difference between "paranoid Schizophrenia" and "Bipolar (I, II...I think there might be a III, now...)," basically. True story.
Jesus saves. Revival would be a huge blessing. David Wilkerson wrote about a remnant emerging during The Last Days, as the established churches crumbled and turned apostate. The things he envisioned 40 years ago...are part of day to day life, right now. Anyway....
praying.
