{"id":234022,"date":"2024-07-15T07:46:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T07:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/crisi-salute-mentale\/"},"modified":"2024-07-15T09:49:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T09:49:38","slug":"mental-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/mental-health-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health crisis: Societal cohesion vs. economic progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"entry-title\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Mental health crisis: Societal cohesion vs. economic progress<\/span><\/h1>\n<h3><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>The prevalence of mental health issues in an era of material progress begs the question: Is society to blame?<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"toc-only\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"font-377884\" style=\"color: #ff0000;\">In a nutshell<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"font-377884\">Adverse mental health outcomes are on the rise in developed countries<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"font-377884\">Drivers are a quest for profits, digital alienation, broken homes, aborted lives<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"font-377884\">Pharmacology and euthanasia are cynically touted as \u201ccures\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_233995\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233995\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-1024x819.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-233995\" src=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-1024x819.jpg\" alt=\"Sad girl Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay\" width=\"840\" height=\"672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-1024x819.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-1536x1228.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay-350x280.jpg 350w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Sad-girl-Image-by-Anemone123-from-Pixabay.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-233995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Sad girl Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Is the growing mental health crisis a \u201cluxury problem\u201d for the West on which the prosperous can focus after having met all their basic needs? Or is it the result of some more profound loss of social cohesion? And what could be the societal effects and solutions?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">\u2018Black dog\u2019<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Throughout his life, Winston Churchill (1874-1965), the wartime leader of the United Kingdom, suffered from what he called his \u201cblack dog.\u201d Today, we would call it depression or mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 1911, while serving as home secretary, in a letter to his wife, Clementine, Churchill noted that he had heard a friend\u2019s wife had received some help for depression from a German doctor. He wrote, \u201cI think this man might be useful to me \u2013 if my black dog returns. He seems quite away from me now \u2013 it is such a relief. All the colours come back into the picture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Churchill was not the first or last leading public figure to suffer bouts of depression and mental health challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Another was Harold Macmillan (1894-1986), who, in 1957, as British prime minister, told the people that \u201cyou\u2019ve never had it so good.\u201d Macmillan told voters in Bedfordshire: \u201cYou will see a state of prosperity such as we have [n]ever had in my lifetime \u2013 nor indeed in the history of this country.\u201d What he called \u201cthe 64,000-dollar question\u201d was how to maintain growth and employment while curbing inflation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Reminding his audience not to forget wartime \u201crationing, shortages, inflation and one crisis after another in our international trade,\u201d his speech struck home with a postwar public who shared his optimism and a general sense of contentment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">That contentment wasn\u2019t just about money. A social sciences study by the University of Warwick and Social Market Foundation suggested that 1957 was the happiest year in Great Britain of the 230 years surveyed. The study ranked positive words, such as \u201cpeaceful,\u201d \u201cenjoyable\u201d and \u201chappiness,\u201d against negative words, such as \u201cunhappy\u201d and \u201cstress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Yet by contemporary 2024 standards, 1957 was a less affluent and prosperous time. It was a year in which few British men lived beyond the age of 70 (the average life expectancy was 66 years for men and 71 for women), and when many homes were in designated \u201cslum clearance\u201d areas and still had outside privies (outhouses). Things that we take for granted now, from central heating to family cars, were still beyond the reach of most people. Yet it was a time of happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Coming to 2024, Macmillan\u2019s \u201c64,000-dollar question\u201d of how to maintain growth while controlling costs is still relevant. Why, with so much material progress, are we so much less happy, more stressed and experiencing such poor mental health compared to people who seem to have had far less than we do? What are the factors leading to this crisis? How are we responding to it? And is our response making a bad situation worse?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Factors influencing mental health<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Each year, the Global Mind Project publishes a map of mental well-being in 71 countries. In its fourth and latest assessment, it ranks the UK as one of the countries with the highest proportion of people in mental distress and at the very bottom of its league table.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Mental illnesses are complex conditions. The widely accepted biopsychosocial model of mental illnesses helps us understand how our biology (genetics, neurochemistry), social circumstances (relationships, societal norms) and psychology (coping mechanisms, perspective, adaptation) all interact and can give rise to illness. Protective and triggering factors in each domain compete to cause or reduce mental challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">What has emerged is that our contemporary, fatalistic acceptance of societal factors (such as the breakdown of families) and the loss of culturally arising psychological factors (such as the wartime \u201cDunkirk Spirit\u201d \u2013 the willingness of a group of people who are in a bad situation to all help each other, with the shared perspective granted by the tragedies of the 1940s) are undermining our ability to cure and prevent mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The Global Mind Project says mental health, especially among the young, plummeted during Covid-19 and has failed to get back to pre-pandemic levels:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>The expectation may have been that once the lockdowns lifted and the threat of Covid-19 subsided, that our collective mental health would begin a recovery toward its pre-pandemic levels. However, the data across 71 countries argues otherwise \u2013 that the effects of diminished global mental well-being have become a new normal.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Stress in days gone by<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Covid undoubtedly left its mark on us, but the people to whom Macmillan was speaking in 1957 had something far worse to measure their lives against realistically. They had lived through Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz of their cities and homes, the horrific Battles of the Atlantic, El Alamein, Monte Cassino \u2013 and the rest. Some, including Macmillan himself, had also experienced the horrors of World War I and had seen many friends getting killed in the trenches, while he was severely injured.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Macmillan\u2019s personal life was not easy either. He suffered a troubled childhood, the traumas of trench warfare and a sham marriage. At the time, this was well known in political circles, but in a pre-social media world, personal issues were not the subject of endless public speculation or ridicule.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In a world where religious belief was still potent, and despite his wife\u2019s adultery, Macmillan \u2013 father of four and a devout Anglican \u2013 steadfastly refused a divorce. Unsurprisingly, even though he was spared public defenestration, he experienced chronic stress and ultimately, a nervous breakdown in 1931.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The acute anxiety and pressure of his personal life were mirrored in his political life. After losing and then regaining his north-of-England constituency \u2013 which had suffered grievously in the Great Depression \u2013 he denounced his party\u2019s harsh economic policies. Some believed that his personal experiences had attuned him to the pain of those he represented \u2013 turning his mental condition into a strength.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Macmillan was left doubly isolated in his political life by his outspoken support for the then-isolated Winston Churchill and by their shared opposition to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler\u2019s Nazi regime. Churchill\u2019s encouragement of Macmillan and their personal and political affinity, however, were extraordinarily productive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">What I draw from this is that all these experiences, personal and political, did not destroy or emasculate Macmillan. Even his breakdown of mental health shaped and readied him for the next chapters of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">What helped Macmillan to cope and overcome was support from others and his entirely realistic appreciation of just how bad things <em>could<\/em> get. Perhaps in 2024, the ravages of a new war in Europe and the plight of 114 million people displaced worldwide might give today\u2019s generation a similar realistic perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">However, he was also helped by the prevailing attitudes and shape of the society in which he lived. He knew that as important as material attainment was, it was only one part of what makes for a good and healthy society with healthy people and minds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">He was a \u201cone nation\u201d conservative who believed that letting people fall through the cracks into the clutches of unforgiving neoliberal market forces (free market capitalism) was not an acceptable economic or political option. As Churchill\u2019s housing minister, he built an unprecedented 300,000 new homes each year, demanding of civil servants \u201cAction This Day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In Macmillan\u2019s Britain, there was a stronger sense of common purpose and the common good, community cohesion and mutual dependence, both in the family and the wider context.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>We lost something important when \u2018me\u2019 replaced \u2018we.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 1957, now as prime minister and leader of his party, Macmillan\u2019s \u201clived experience\u201d enabled him to calibrate happiness and contentment against grievous suffering and hurt. His constituents believed him when he told them they had \u201cnever had it so good.\u201d The backdrop for a child growing up in the 1950s was viewing \u201cWatch with Mother\u201d and \u201cMr. Pastry\u201d on black-and-white television sets, listening to carefully curated BBC radio offerings on the Light Programme, conforming to regimented social norms or standing for the national anthem at the cinema.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">This was also the inevitable prelude to an overdue loosening up in the decade that would follow. We baby boomers \u2013 born in the years after World War II \u2013 understand it is absurd to suggest that Macmillan\u2019s 1950s was a perfect world, a mythical golden age full of people like those portrayed each weekday afternoon in the BBC\u2019s Light Service radio drama, Mrs. Dale\u2019s Diary. But it is equally absurd to suggest that we, in 2024, have created an idyllic halcyon age.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Enter the modern era<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The 1960s heralded a more open society, a meritocracy in which class, ethnic, religious and racial origins began to challenge entitlement and prejudiced discrimination. Some of the reforms, including ending the death penalty and decriminalizing gay relationships, were long overdue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">But in the surge toward greater individual autonomy, we lost something, too. It is not just nostalgia that tells me that small acts like collectively singing a hymn and saying a prayer at the start of each school day created cohesion, meaning and structure. The abandonment of respect for something greater than ourselves and today\u2019s drive for self-realization rather than the common good too often exacerbate the breakdown of families, communities, society and mental health. We lost something important when \u201cme\u201d replaced \u201cwe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_234003\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234003\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-234003\" src=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Indifference Image by zadus from Pixabay\" width=\"840\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Indifference-Image-by-zadus-from-Pixabay.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-234003\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Indifference Image by zadus from Pixabay<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Community spirit falls by the wayside<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">I saw some of the telltale signs first hand. Elected in 1972 to the Liverpool City Council while a student and a practitioner of what was dubbed \u201ccommunity politics,\u201d I represented a neighborhood where half the homes had no inside sanitation. Some areas were designated slums, some streets were still lit by gas lamps. No one was wealthy, many were dirt poor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Every week, I held advice sessions at which long queues of people with real problems would come seeking help. What was noticeable in the terraced streets where they lived was that front doors were rarely locked but often left open so that family or friends could walk in. There was little crime and less anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">These were neighborhoods where people looked out for one another, where children without a father would be raised within the extended family, where grandparents, aunts and uncles were the social workers, where good neighborliness was a given and where shared rules and stable relationships glued families together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">But over the years that followed, as a city or county councilor and then as member of parliament, I saw that glue coming unstuck and the shocking consequences. Some of it was attributable to rapid deindustrialization and chronic unemployment. Yet there were many other new factors at work which continue today.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Elusive happiness<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Notwithstanding the economic material gains, society has been blighted by shifts that are making people less happy, less content and more prone to mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Consider the following: our servile state and the role of market economics and neoliberalism; material advancement conditional on getting rid of unwelcome encumbrances; post-pandemic demographics; indebtedness that disadvantages the young; toxic loneliness, especially of the elderly; the curse of poor housing and planning policies; an epidemic of drug dependence, both prescribed and illegal; the growth of social media which is anything but sociable; and the implications of living in a post-Christian society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The role of neoliberalism in leading the UK into collective mental breakdown is the central theme of a 2024 book by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, titled \u201cThe Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (and How It Came to Control Your Life).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Too far right<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The authors have in their sights what has been called the unholy trinity: capitalism the father, consumerism the son and neoliberalism the holy ghost. They take aim at the belief that neoliberal economics and free market capitalism are the best mechanisms for making decisions in our modern, complex societies. They lay at its door the wave of mental health challenges we face today, including pressures to meet the expectations of consumerism, the danger of indebtedness and fear of redundancy in fragile companies and a fickle economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>One day we will earn the economic security we crave; one day we will have more leisure time. Will this magic day ever arrive? Of course not.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The anxiety this generates leads to a drowning in the \u201cinsidious\u201d and \u201csinister\u201d ideology of neoliberalism. The authors argue that we have been deceived into believing that \u201cone day we will earn the economic security we crave; one day we will have more leisure time. Will this magic day ever arrive? Of course not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">They maintain that the hopes of progress in the UK are \u201cspiraling backwards\u201d and, perhaps with the Macmillan era in mind, they say: \u201cThere was a time when almost everyone in the UK believed that a rising economic tide would lift all boats; that everyone would have a good home; that drudge work would diminish and jobs would become more interesting.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In a scathing rebuke to our political masters, the authors contend that the robust public services and economic security that most of us want the politicians to deliver were never part of the neoliberal plan \u2013 and that this has plunged us into collective depression. It is an interesting take on an old argument.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Too far left<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Karl Marx believed that what he called the \u201cimmiseration of the working class\u201d would always be the objective of the capitalist classes and that the workers would be held captive in misery. Forty years after Marx published \u201cDas Kapital,\u201d Franco-English writer Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), a Liberal member of parliament, published \u201cThe Servile State\u201d (1912).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Belloc linked personal fulfillment with the wider distribution of property: \u201cIf we do not restore the Institution of Property, we cannot escape restoring the Institution of Slavery; there is no third course.\u201d He famously insisted that \u201cthe control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Belloc critiques both capitalism and socialism. Although he hankers after a romanticized utopia of peasant farmers, content with their acre of land, he is certainly correct that most of the population are without the ability to own and control the means of production and are therefore compelled to work for those who do. Immiseration of the workers follows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The question remains, is such a model always destined to grind us down and to turn us into little more than automatons obeying orders, making money for other people, and condemned to unfulfilled and anxious lives? Is this the critical issue contributing to the growing prevalence of mental health disorders?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Economics and life (dis)satisfaction<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The linkage of a just economy and personal freedom to the enhancement of human dignity and, therefore, to human happiness was a theme that the Austrian School economist Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) took up in \u201cThe Road to Serfdom\u201d (1944). It was also addressed by the economist E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977) in \u201cSmall is Beautiful\u201d (1973), which has a lesser-known subtitle \u201cEconomics as if People Mattered,\u201d providing a clue to understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In a chapter titled \u201cEconomic Control and Totalitarianism,\u201d Hayek quotes Belloc approvingly. He insists that \u201cthe most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In contrast to Mr. Monbiot\u2019s belief that all our ills can be laid at the door of neoliberalism, Hayek\u2019s \u201cRoad to Serfdom\u201d \u2013 a defense of classical liberalism \u2013 highlights the overwhelming impact that excessive government control can have on our behavior, on our attitudes and our state of mind. He warns that the supplanting of the market by central planning \u2013 and, in the worst cases, by the totalitarianism he loathed \u2013 diminishes individual autonomy, endangers society, compromises innovation and ingenuity and impedes economic growth. None of this is a recipe for human happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>Our frame of mind would be enhanced by \u2018resisting the temptation of letting our luxuries become needs.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">However, Mr. Monbiot would be one with Schumacher\u2019s thought-provoking and prophetic challenge (made half a century ago) to unlimited economic growth and his belief that human happiness and contentment were linked to human-scale technology and ecological balance. All of this is jeopardized by \u201csoul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work: an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Schumacher held that our frame of mind would be enhanced by \u201cresisting the temptation of letting our luxuries become needs; and perhaps by even scrutinizing our needs to see if they cannot be simplified and reduced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Human contentment cannot be generated by an insatiable desire for bigger, faster, better and more, driven by greed, envy and sometimes fear. These are indeed antidotes to human happiness and a serene state of mind. So, as far as it goes, a nation\u2019s economic priorities and model certainly contribute to its well-being and neoliberalist ideas combined with the obsessions of the current age are deeply connected with the epidemic of mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Mr. Monbiot quotes the findings of the Global Mind Project to support his case that we are all going to hell in a handcart, perhaps with a stop on the way at the notorious Bedlam madhouse or lunatic asylum (founded in 1247 as the Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem) where treatments for the mentally ill included bloodletting from leeches, dunking in ice baths, strait jackets and the appalling rotational therapy.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Truths left unsaid<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Tempting as it may be to view contemporary mental illness entirely through an economic prism, and notwithstanding my own belief in fairer distribution, economic justice and social market economics, there are other factors that deserve at least equal attention. These include a range of social challenges that are only in part driven by economic considerations. But, too often, those factors are overlooked or knowingly left unsaid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The unrestrained neoliberal economics of some on the right have converged with the extreme liberal societal theories of some on the left. Such convergence is a dangerous mix, endangering the fragile balance and cohesion of civil society and hitting the most disadvantaged twice over. It is also an affront to academic freedom, free speech and intellectual curiosity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Other taboo subjects that also require greater scrutiny and interact with mental health issues include the breakdown of functioning families and the impact of the absence of male parents on their children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Ever since Macmillan\u2019s days, the family has been under sustained attack. That is reflected in demographics, with falling birth rates in materially prosperous countries and a disinclination by some to bring children into the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 1997, the psychiatrist and author Oliver James in \u201cBritain on The Couch\u201d argued that all of us seek harmonious and intimate relationships in our personal lives, \u201cyet they can become the greatest single cause of despair.\u201d He noted that clinical depression was 10 times higher in people born after 1945 than those born before 1914 and pointed to the paradox that, although young women had never been in a better position to succeed in life, those under the age of 35 had become the most vulnerable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Unspoken repercussions<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Beyond Mr. Monbiot\u2019s concerns with the effects of neoliberalism, what might be contributing to the increasing vulnerability of women\u2019s mental health? At the risk of being canceled or de-platformed, dare I at least ask whether there might be a link between declining mental well-being and the 10 million abortions that have taken place in Britain since 1967 (one every two and a half minutes)?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Note, too, that 95 percent of these abortions were claimed to have been performed on the grounds that abortion was to safeguard the mental health of women with unplanned pregnancies. But does it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 2006, 15 specialists in psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology called upon both the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to revise their guidance on the link between abortion and mental health. Vested and ideological interests ensured it has never happened even though the specialists cited strong evidence, reviewed in the journal Triple Helix, that women who choose abortion suffer from higher rates of depression, self-harm and psychiatric hospitalization than those who carry their babies to term.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">From a purely scientific point of view, these studies are hard to conduct rigorously. You cannot easily compare and quantify the mental health of these two groups of women. So, is the cause of that increase in mental illness the abortion itself or the life circumstances (the personal crises, the lack of stability)? Whether abortion is directly responsible or whether this reflects chaotic relationships, a lack of social support, and the pressure that feckless men often apply (which often causes women to see no other choice than abortion) is disputable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In the UK, studies which could answer these questions more fully are neither funded nor encouraged. However, a robust study in New Zealand demonstrated that women who had abortions experienced twice the level of mental health problems and three times the risk of major depressive illness as those who had either given birth or never been pregnant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The same silencing of legitimate questions recently led to political parties in the UK refusing to support the creation of a scientific committee to examine the level of sentience and pain that an unborn child can experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">If one doubts the consequences of even exploring whether the decision to end the life of one\u2019s child might carry negative mental health issues, consider the row that erupted in 2011 when the Royal College of Psychiatry permitted the publication of conclusions of the U.S. psychologist, Professor Priscilla Coleman. She said women who have had an abortion ran an 81 percent increased risk of developing mental health problems. Those conclusions are still making waves today.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Broken homes, broken spirits<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">There are other equally controversial yet unaddressed questions to ask when you put 2024 Britain on the couch. What about the potential link between the breakdown of families and marriages and the mental health of those affected?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">It is estimated that approximately 2 million children in the UK have no meaningful contact with their fathers. The admirable Centre for Social Justice says that a child finishing secondary school today is more likely to own a smartphone than to be living at home with their father.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The situation of children in the most economically disadvantaged households is even worse: 65 percent of children aged 12-16 in the low-income group do not live with both parents. Increasingly, they live in \u201cmen desert\u201d wildernesses without male role models to mentor, foster, encourage or love them.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>School-aged children who enjoy good relationships with their fathers are less likely to experience depression or exhibit disruptive behavior.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Unsurprisingly, young people who have an absent father are five times as likely to be held in custody by law enforcement agencies. Studies have also shown that \u201cdad deprivation\u201d is linked to lower levels of achievement at school and to issues around self-esteem. In contrast, school-aged children who enjoy good relationships with their fathers are less likely to experience depression or exhibit disruptive behavior in school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The American experience bears this out. The U.S. social activist David Blankenhorn, in \u201cFatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem\u201d (1996), warned that \u201cfatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well-being in our society. It is also the engine driving our most urgent social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Fifteen years later, following the 2011 riots in London, the prime minister of the day, David (now Lord) Cameron said, \u201cI don\u2019t doubt that many of the rioters have no father at home \u2026 where it\u2019s normal for young men to grow up without a male role model, looking to the streets for their father figures, filled up with rage and anger.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Studies link fatherless children to an increased risk of suicide and self-harm, with one study suggesting that young people from fatherless homes are four times as likely to commit suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of death in young people under the age of 35 in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Recent data shows that 1,796 young people under the age of 35 took their own lives in the UK in 2022, and suicide rates for 15- to 19-year-olds have reached their highest in 30 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Sadly, the UK is also seeing the highest-ever number of referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. The number of under-18s needing National Health Service (NHS) treatment was 23 percent higher in 2022 than in 2021. No less than 241,791 young people were referred to the NHS in just three months. In the U.S., the prevalence of mental health issues among young adults is also on the rise, according to the American Psychological Association.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>Simply dishing out hundreds of millions more pills on repeat prescriptions without addressing the root causes is a dismal response to a cry for help.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">This begs the question of whether the absence of a father in the lives of children is linked to the mental well-being and development of a child. Given the evidence, it is a question which deserves an answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_233999\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233999\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-233999\" src=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Medications Image by Pexels from Pixabay\" width=\"840\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Medications-Image-by-Pexels-from-Pixabay.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-233999\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Medications Image by Pexels from Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Pharmacology substituting for families<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">And then consider the standard state-sanctioned response to depression when someone in our contemporary society \u2013 male or female, young or old \u2013 asks for help. Should the first-line response to depression be to fill the bodies of those who feel neglected, rejected and unloved with endless amounts of prescribed (or illegal) drugs?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">I recently asked UK health ministers about the number of pills prescribed for depression by the National Health Service \u2013 and at what cost to the public purse. The answers were staggering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 2023, some 730 million pills were given to depressed British citizens at a phenomenal cost of around GBP 2.5 billion. My questions led to correspondence from young people who told me that their lives had \u201cbeen ruined\u201d by some of the side effects, including sexual dysfunction. Prescribed drugs have a place in treatment, but simply dishing out hundreds of millions more pills on repeat prescriptions without addressing the root causes is a dismal response to a cry for help. The corresponding decrease in the number of psychiatric care beds in the UK over the last 20 years confirms that care is being usurped by pharmacology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In faceless and drab blocks of public housing, I have met residents whose frame of mind reflects the soulless accommodation in which they have been dumped. There is no sense of community when you live in concrete isolation from your neighbors. Endless supplies of Valium or its equivalents are no substitute for human interaction and access to a garden or a park.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In response, we have hamstrung our medical services\u2019 and doctors\u2019 ability to advocate for their patients, instead replacing this key societal pillar with pill-pushing learned helplessness. Holistic solutions, which consider not only the biological, but the social and psychological, are urgently needed. Man cannot live on bread (or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Who is the pusher?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Meanwhile, on the street, other drugs proliferate. Heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl (50 times more potent than heroin) are fueling a new opium war \u2013 with licit and illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and exporting laboratory-made drugs into Western countries. Inadvertently ironic or deliberate?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 2022, more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses. A U.S. congressional committee says the Chinese Communist Party provides subsidies to \u201cwholly state-owned\u201d companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs. It was a subject recently raised by Secretary of State Antony Blinken when meeting China\u2019s Wang Yi, whose government denies all knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In the UK, the National Crime Agency says drug dealers are mixing synthetic opioids with drugs such as heroin. Over the past nine months, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes, synthetic opioids that the BBC has tracked to Chinese manufacturers, couriers and dealers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The UK already has one of the highest rates of drug-induced deaths in Europe \u2013 around 4,500 deaths annually \u2013 and there is no doubt that people who are already vulnerable or susceptible can quickly become fatally addicted. Isolation and disconnection and the dependency, addiction and mental illnesses to which they can lead are no respecters of age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Depression among the elderly is often the precursor of a decline in physical health and well-being. The charity Age UK says that more than 2 million people in England over the age of 75 now live alone \u2013 with more than a million saying they go over a month without speaking to a friend, neighbor or family member.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Fatal pharmacology<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Believing themselves to have become worthless or a burden, they hear from commentators and lawmakers that they need a \u201ccompassionate\u201d way out \u2013 which can be the lethal injection of euthanasia. Canadians are debating whether to expand their law to include those with mental illness. The Netherlands has been doing it since 2010, when two people were euthanized on grounds of mental illness. In 2023 there were 138 such cases, which represented 1.5 percent of the total 9,068 euthanasia deaths that year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">On May 22 of this year, a Dutch woman, Zoraya ter Beek, aged 29, who had chronic depression, anxiety, trauma and an unspecified personality disorder, was euthanized. Illness needs care, not the gallows. It is a terrible indictment when death becomes a \u201ccure\u201d for mental illness. Instead, we should be mending and strengthening broken safety nets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Euthanasia and pharmacology allow society \u2013 whether in the UK, Europe, North America or elsewhere \u2013 to shirk its responsibilities to the ill. Worse still, they allow those who believe that disabled or ill people are a drain on society to justify their lethal injections or endless pharmaceutical prescriptions by pointing to the economic advantages. That is cold-blooded neoliberalism at its worst.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_227423\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-227423\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-1024x659.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-227423\" src=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-1024x659.jpg\" alt=\"Young guys plays with their smartphones Image by natureaddict from Pixabay\" width=\"840\" height=\"541\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-1024x659.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-1536x988.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay-350x225.jpg 350w, https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Young-guys-plays-with-their-smartphones-Image-by-natureaddict-from-Pixabay.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-227423\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Young guys plays with their smartphones Image by natureaddict from Pixabay<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">Online and under pressure<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The ending of vulnerable lives is now also driven by a frenzy of social media messaging, which brings me to yet another factor in the disruption of mental health and well-being: social media.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">As a new kid on the block, social media plays a significant role in driving anxiety and exacerbating mental illness. One research study of teenagers aged 12-15 in the U.S. found that those who are using social media for over three hours daily experience twice the risk of a negative mental health outcome. This included symptoms of anxiety and depression, which then too often lead to chronic use and abuse of antidepressants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Of course, social media can also be beneficial, but during an important phase of brain development, too much time spent on digital platforms (some of which specialize in disinformation, manipulative content and data-harvesting) or in interactions that substitute for sleep or physical exercise, has malign effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Young people struggling with identity issues, body-image anxiety or behavioral challenges, such as eating disorders, can have their anxieties amplified by cyberbullying and social media algorithms \u2013 which can lead young people to sites about suicide. There have been reports of deaths linked to suicide and self-harm \u2013 including cutting, partial asphyxiation, intimate image exchanging and risk-taking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 2022, Pew found that up to 95 percent of teenagers surveyed (aged 13-17) reported using social media, and more than a third of them used it \u201calmost constantly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In 2017, the UK was shocked by the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell. The coroner said Molly died from an act of self-harm while suffering depression and negative effects of online content. The inquest found that social media content contributed \u201cmore than minimally\u201d to her death. He said the images of self-harm and suicide which she had viewed \u201cshouldn\u2019t have been available for a child to see.\u201d Molly\u2019s father, Ian Russell, said the \u201ctoxic corporate culture at the heart of the world\u2019s biggest social media platform [Meta]\u201d needs to change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Instagram and Pinterest use algorithms that lead to \u201cbinge periods\u201d in the viewing of their content, some of which was selected and provided for Molly without her having requested it. The coroner said, \u201cIn some cases, the content was particularly graphic, tending to portray self-harm and suicide as an inevitable consequence of a condition that could not be recovered from. The sites normalized her condition, focusing on a limited and irrational view without any counterbalance of normality.\u201d A smartphone in the hands of a vulnerable child can create anxiety and doubt and become a lethal fast lane. Suicide is the ultimate tragic expression of mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">In some instances, these risks have led to parents providing their children instead with a \u201cdumbphone,\u201d a mobile phone for voice and text that doesn\u2019t have email, applications, internet access and other features found on smartphones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">The founder of the Global Mind Project, Dr. Tara Thiagarajan, is emphatic that \u201cthe younger the age of first smartphone, and more frequent use, the more likely students are to have mental health problems as young adults \u2013 particularly problems with the \u2018social self\u2019 (the dimension of mental well-being concerning how one relates to others) and specifically with suicidal thoughts and feeling detached from reality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"font-377884\">What to do?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Such considerations will need to be extended as we start to think about further fast-moving new technologies \u2013 such as artificial intelligence \u2013 and what it might mean for personal well-being if robots and machines displace people from their occupations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Displacement, isolation and intensive febrile messaging have taken the place of shared values \u2013 particularly the shared religious beliefs which once held our society together and played a significant part in personal and communal healing. The deleterious fragmentation of society is mirrored in the fragmentation of our anxious and stressed minds.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"font-377884\"><em>We must do better and be more honest in weighing up what we have lost, abandoned and need to reclaim.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Doubtless, Macmillan could once again convincingly say that we have never been more materially affluent. But modern living seems less and less able to meet our expectations and to realize our hopes and aspirations. That is destabilizing for individuals and for society at large. Too many people feel like losers even though, in material terms, so many may look like winners.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Note, too, that millions of others in \u201cpoorer\u201d countries, in Africa and Latin America, are listed by the Global Mind Project as among the countries least affected by mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">We must do better in admitting why that is and be more honest in weighing up what we have lost, abandoned and need to reclaim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Mental health must become a much higher priority. If we are to banish Churchill\u2019s black dog and return color into lives darkened by depression or mental illness, we must give urgent thought to the many complex factors and root causes involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Autore: <strong>Lord David Alton of Liverpool<\/strong> &#8211; Former Member of the House of Commons (MP) in the United Kingdom for 18 years, is now an Independent Crossbench Life Peer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"font-377884\">Fonte:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"yvIQiwAZz4\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gisreportsonline.com\/r\/mental-health\/\">Mental health crisis: Societal cohesion vs. economic progress<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Mental health crisis: Societal cohesion vs. economic progress&#8221; &#8212; GIS Reports\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gisreportsonline.com\/r\/mental-health\/embed\/#?secret=sh7uwwzhDk#?secret=yvIQiwAZz4\" data-secret=\"yvIQiwAZz4\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The prevalence of mental health issues in an era of material progress begs the question: Is society to blame?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":234008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271,988,260,210,1030],"tags":[405,1297,520,2477,2478,654],"class_list":["post-234022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-geopolitics","category-highlights","category-magazine","category-usa-en","tag-europe","tag-gis","tag-health","tag-medicines","tag-society","tag-usa-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234026,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234022\/revisions\/234026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swissfederalism.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}