Psychology, Politics, and Music

[tcpip]

Today is RU OK Day? and various businesses and organisations host morning tea's across the country supposedly on the topic of mental health. As a Mental Health First Aid person, I find it, whilst usually well-intentioned, is often more than a little cringe-worthy. My own workplace was no exception; almost two hundred people crowded into a space, providing a great opportunity for a super-spreader event, and a couple of more senior managers spoke a few motherhood statements about the importance of mental health, how the past couple of years have been especially difficult, and the recommendation of checking the website. None of it was untrue as such, but it didn't exactly come across with the spirit of availability and supportive empathy, which must come first.

On topic, clinical psychologist Sanah Ahsan has written an excellent piece in The Guardian highlighting how so much of mental health is orientated towards individualised understanding (which is great when it is appropriate) when for many people social inequalities manifest themselves as mental health issues. Universal basic income, for example, reduces depression and anxiety among financially insecure young people. Perhaps on that note, I should mention that I attended Wesa Chau's campaign launch last night, the Labor candidate for Prahan with some 70 people present who made a point of highlighting Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health system and the implementation of the Commission's recommendations.

On the final tangent, there is much to be said for the healing properties of music although the popular claims of "The Mozart Effect" are complete nonsense (the effect is temporary and modest at best and works regardless of genre). Nevertheless, the mood and mental health benefits of music and the neuroscience of music in general; stress relief, cognitive performance, energy levels, etc have more than incidental evidence and one intuitively suspects that the type of music will correlate to the effects; it is, after all, a "sound language". I must also mention that I am still making good use of the University's concerts around the corner from home. The Klara Quartet from two nights ago, in particular, featured a wonderful version of Dvořák's Piano Quartet No.2, and a few days prior to that attended the Mirmir 2 concert with Virginia T., which included the very challenging and dissonant Schnittke Quintet.

Comments

[tcpip]

Excellent article on why RUOK day is not delivering to the askee as it should.

https://overland.org.au/2018/09/no-im-not-ok-the-isolation-of-r-u-ok-day/

[ex_flameandsong751]

I'd heard about R U OK Day and found it somewhat cringe-worthy, as someone who has had mental health issues my entire adult life, so I'm glad to see I'm not alone in this opinion, though I'm obviously American and my country has a problem with mass shootings so we're not exactly great about acknowledging mental health at all over here.

Having said that, yes, my mental health is better on days when I'm listening to a lot of music. And I think universal basic income is a good and necessary thing that I wish more countries, including my own, would adopt.

[tcpip]

It is interesting that the chorus of voices that are saying that the "R U OK?" day is not delivering the goods is getting increasingly loud. This, in a sense, means that the real issues are beginning to be raised.

It is interesting that the strongest variables correlating to homicide, whether by guns or otherwise is economic inequality, and the greatest perpetrators are men.

I wrote about this a few years back:
http://isocracy.org/content/ending-homicide-and-right-arms

[ex_flameandsong751]

Thank you for linking me to that, and I agree very strongly.