Everyone needs therapy. It should be free.
America Has a mental health problem, the solution is therapy, not banning social media, or censorship.
There’s a little known program in NYC known as NYC Teenspace. It is a collaboration with online therapy company Talkspace to provide free therapy via text or phone call to nyc teens. The initial funding for this program runs out this fall. While a collaboration with Talkspace is far from a perfect solution, this initiative does create answers to a massive problem facing americas youth. Talkspace as a company gives me many concerns, including privacy concerns and the allegations that they have fewer therapists then they claim they have, but I digress. American teens are in an increasingly messed up world, increasingly stressed out and increasingly not ok. While many reactionaries are quick to blame this on cell phones and social media, much of the issues are more structural and in the fucked up world given to us by the generations before us. A world of ongoing genocides, of school shootings, of ICE raids. A world where we arent safe in our schools.We live in a broken world and we have to fix it- that burden creates stress. We have a completely messed up school system that focuses entirely on grades and standardized tests, with little to no focus on the actual action of learning. Everything about the teenage experience is harder than it was 10 years ago. and schools simply cant meet the need teens have for therpy, counseling, and other support. Schools are already understaffed, teachers underpaid. There is a simple solution.
Free therapy, for all
I firmly believe that everyone can benifit from therapy and should go to therapy, but that is unreasonable given the insanely high cost of therapy. Without insurance, many sessions cost at least $100. https://www.simplepractice.com/blog/average-therapy-session-rate-by-state/
If someone needs therapy weekly, 100 a week is a large expense, especially when the federal minimum wage is below $10/hr.
But free therapy would fix this. It would help the mental health crisis that americans- especially young americans- are facing, and it is doable, NYC did it under Eric Adams, a man who isnt big on expanding social safety nets.
Instead of passing bills like KOSA which would do more to harm kids than to protect them–– Pass free therapy, helping kids deal with the issues of social media without creating an enhanced surveillance state and censorship oppurtunities
I hope to begin organizing to make this a major policy, both locally and nationally incredibly soon, and am looking forward to sharing more.
see you next time,
Aarav
