As others have mentioned, therapy falls short in a lot of cases. I'd wager most aren't cured by it, but because people are afraid to question psychiatrists and psychologists, and placebo effects are reinforced consistently by our culture, it makes it look as if more people are benefitting from it than not.
We hear things like, "Therapy and meds together works in __ amount of cases" yet those measures never acknowledge those who either slipped between the cracks or went on to relapse later in life, or if these people were under pressure to say yes in fear of stigma/sectioning. In my experience, therapy and psychiatry are incredibly unscientific, and it's a whole lot of throwing random things at you and hoping they stick.
People should be allowed to question and criticise this, because critiquing this is the first step towards changing it. Many medications are prescribed inappropriately or unnecessarily. The most appalling example of this that I can think of is suicidal people getting injected with haldol when they are sectioned against their will.
Sectioning of suicidal people against their will in mental institutions needs to go. It is a human rights violation, and far more have been harmed than helped in these pseudo prisons. People should not be afraid to tell someone their suicidal feelings in fear of having their dignity and free will stripped away. Responding with empathy and kindness rather than shackles is what makes us feel understood.
Individuals do not need to be shamed and treated like insane criminals for wanting to peacefully end their own lives. Nor do they need to be gaslit and say its their fault when bunk psychiatric treatments don't work. The reality is that the mental health industry does not understand the complexities of the brain, because even real Neuroscientists don't yet. I study this at university and I can safely say that Neuro is still in its infancy, we do not have enough knowledge to pinpoint what causes actual mental disorders (not situations where someone's circumstances are clearly the trigger for their suicidality)
On the subject of that, mental health services are failing to provide community care, it's all about blaming the individual and their supposed diseased brain. Instead of staring blankly at a therapist for an hour and getting booted out the door when the time you payed for is up, why don't mental health services put lonely people together who need genuine human connections and not artifical bullshit platitudes?
There are many older people out there living alone who would love to have a friend and have someone who they could bond with. Many of us don't have families, and we would love to have someone step in and be the mother, father, brother, sister, etc we never had. Social media is making us even more isolated and no one seems to care about bring people together. There is no service providing this. Group therapy in my experience was also fake and artifical, you weren't even allowed to speak to anyone outside of the group!
Disabled people should also be treated like human beings and not massive burdens on society. People treat us like garbage, ensure we stay lonely and poor forever, then wonder why we don't want to live. Even just permission to access assisted suicide/euthanasia would be a massive weight off my shoulders, and I believe every consenting adult should have this option. Maybe it would stop the platitudes about life being a gift if enough of us demonstrated that yes, our lives are bad enough that we want out, and no, your inspiration porn feel-good stories aren't reality for a lot of people. Will the world at large ever confront this elephant in the room, though?
We need real science and research into treatments that aren't done by psychologists who know nothing about the physical and chemical structure of the brain, much less greater human physiology, we need services to aid people with awful socioeconomic conditions, and we need to have honest conversations about death and mortality that the majority of people are unwilling to partake in. Only then, can things change.
Edit: Also the power play between doctors and the hurting and ill is despicable. People should be given more choices, respect, and not treated like they know nothing. This dichotomy that some austeric authority figure knows how you're feeling better than you do needs to stop, it only invalidates people's struggles and makes us further feel trapped, especially when psychiatrists do it.
