CHECKING IN ON AMERICA™
Emotional support delivered proactively by actual, caring, skilled human beings
America has fundamentally misdiagnosed and mismanaged the mental health crisis.
Mental health problems are not just acute disorders impacting a small population of unlucky Americans—they are symptoms caused by deficiencies of emotional support, no different than symptoms of malnourishment caused by inadequate nutrition.
When we accurately characterize anxiety, depression, unemployment, drug use, violent crime, and suicide as symptoms of poor mental health, it becomes clear we must change our approach.
We can transform American society and help those at risk of mental health problems due to a lack of support by
scaling the delivery of emotional support.
Mental health is America’s biggest failure.
There is no sector of our economy where America spends more to get less—and faces crippling social consequences as a result.
Despite spending tens of billions of dollars annually, America’s mental health crisis continues to get worse. Anxiety, loneliness, depression, divorce, social discord, unemployment, drug use, child abuse, violent crime and suicide are all on the rise.
We know how to solve the mental health crisis.
The solution would positively transform American society.
Americans—as parents, workers, children, soldiers, veterans, retirees—would be happier, stronger, more productive and more resilient.
Violent crime, incarceration, drug use, unemployment, child abuse and suicide would decline dramatically.
We can reallocate the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on legal and illegal drugs to establish a nationwide network of mental health and emotional support providers—creating a new health care discipline with millions of new well-paying jobs that could be performed anywhere in the country.
HOW WE GOT HERE
We’ve known for a long time that America’s mental health system is broken—but we still spend billions of dollars annually on the same failed solutions that broke the system:
Wasteful mental health treatments and research targeting niche phenomena and conditions
The millions of prescribed pills that
Americans consume daily
“Evidence-based” treatment protocols for clinical services that only a tiny percentage of Americans can access
Tens of thousands of wellness-related mobile apps that rely on misguided
AI and machine-based solutions to an inherently human problem
The overwhelming evidence demonstrates
that these solutions didn’t work before
and don’t work now.
The symptoms of inadequate mental health in younger Americans—anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-injury and suicide—continue to rise precipitously.
Acute mental health disorders in older Americans contribute directly to rising crime, high incarceration, and America’s insatiable demand for illegal drugs.
The collateral damage from untreated mental health problems is staggering—and felt every day in broken families, struggling schools, shuttered homes and stores, and broken communities.