By Samantha Mocle

“Mental health is real. It is not a trend or something that will just go away.”

Laura Newcomb ’18 studied psychology at Lasell and is now a therapist at Walden Behavioral Care and a member of Boston Children’s Hospital’s behavioral response team. Through her work, she sees the impact that mental health care — or lack thereof — can have in transforming patients’ lives for the better. Yet, it has only been in the past few years that she has seen significant change in the number of people willing to seek help or acknowledge vulnerability as an inherent human trait.

The prevalence of “mental health” in daily conversations and the media heightened dramatically at the start of the pandemic — and rightly so, says Newcomb.

“The pandemic has created so much chaos in peoples’ lives, and so we have to talk about it. There is so much strength in reaching out, and people don’t always realize that they possess that strength.” Talking about it publicly, she says, is one way to uncover that power in yourself and others.

The Big Shift

While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a national increase in cases of anxiety, depression, and isolation, it has also resulted in a significant jump in the number of individuals willing to seek help.

“If there was ever a time during which people might feel justified in acknowledging their struggles, this is it. Since everyone is struggling, it makes people feel less alone,” says Sharon Harrington- Hope, director of Lasell’s counseling center.

Zane Zheng, associate professor of psychology and chair of academic research, also notes that the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for self-reflection on long-standing mental health concerns.

“One positive of isolation during the pandemic is that with fewer social interactions, people have had more time to focus on themselves,” he says. “They are finally asking how they can cope with or manage feelings that have been previously ignored.”

Clinicians and researchers alike are optimistic about the upward trend in outreach. Both Zheng and Harrington-Hope agree that while the stigma around mental health is not gone, it has significantly shifted and fostered increased acceptance of vulnerability. It isn’t just the pandemic, however, that has led to the shift in stigma. There is a generational component that has changed public perceptions about mental health among millennials and Gen Z peers.

“The message has always been out there, that help is available, but those generations are really willing to embrace that,” says Harrington-Hope.

Valerie Pierre ’06, a psychology major now working as an assistant program director for outpatient services at Riverside Community Care, has seen a similar pattern emerge with her patients. Pierre, who is also a mobile crisis clinician for the Boston Emergency Services Team and a licensed psychotherapist, is impressed by and hopeful about the way her younger clients talk with their peers about these topics.

“The taboo has lowered significantly,” she says. “This is their normal. They talk about their therapists with their friends and even share their progress. It results in less judgement, which in turn means they are more comfortable recommending their friends to get help, too.” 

Zheng attributes some of that progress to increased use of technology. Social media in particular, he says, offers a window into other peoples’ real-time emotions and struggles — and contributes to the normalization of those feelings.

“Yes, there is an information overload that comes with technology,” he says, “But that also means that we have exponentially more information to digest and read about topics like mental health. So, when it comes to your own situation, the struggle doesn’t feel as new because you’ve seen it, you’ve read about it so many times already, so now you can figure out what you want to do about it.”

Adds Harrington-Hope: “We have become more accustomed to seeing the raw side of people’s experiences — celebrities and peers alike — and that makes us naturally more comfortable in sharing our own.”