It’s Time to Disrupt Modern Mental Health

January 6, 2025

I’ve been working pretty hard over the holidays to prepare the launch of The Meaning Project Community and to bring Ketamine Assisted Therapy into my office, and, actually, into your home, if desired.

Because of that, I ran out of time to record a podcast this week.

But I wanted to share with you some of the notes – the clips, I guess – of what I have been writing lately.  Part of it is just free-writing to understand my “WHY”, some of it was recommended by my coach so that I could grasp my “STORY”, a derivative of my “why”.

But then, also, I think some of it is reacting to the world today – even during the holidays.  So maybe it’s part “manifesto” as well.

I’m always happy to hear or read your feedback, so feel free to reach out.  – Dan

From my notes that *should have been a podcast:

Happy New Year – a time for reflection.  Realizing, I haven’t been doing that.  I thought I was, but I’ve been so busy working, I really haven’t.  I could say I will try to do better, but I probably won’t – I think, maybe, this year, I focus less on “self-care” and more on taking care of others?  That’s blasphemy in my field, but maybe Frankl has something to say about that – I know it was echoed in The Happiness Hypothesis…

But here is where this podcast starts – NYE – visiting friends, having a wonderful time, good food – games, being with people who really care about each other.

And then we wake up Jan 1 to the events of NYE…  Las Vegas, New Orleans, & college football.  (Trivial)

Which led to a spirited discussion on, “WHY” – and of course, this led to the “mental health crisis”, and, for me, more about how broken our mental health system is.

I thought I had become disgruntled with the modern mental health system.

Then I realized, I’ve been disgruntled with mental health and substance abuse treatment for almost 25 years…

I’m tired of working with the insurance industry only to be misunderstood and disappointed, and to see clients frustrated.  We saw a sad result of the industry that reportedly reaped in excess of two trillions dollars last year… according to an internet meme.  So, I’m not sure that’s true.  But we all know that they make more money than they put out in “benefits”.  I think I have some ideas how to change that – how I work with them.  I don’t think I can change the bohemoth system, but I don’t have to be beholden to them, and neither do the people who want to work with me.

On my “WHY” for the Meaning Project Community

Disrupting modern “mental health” with Meaning, Purpose, Resilience.

I thought I had become disgruntled with the modern mental health system.

Then I realized, I’ve been disgruntled with mental health and substance abuse treatment for almost 25 years…

So I want to change that.  I want to change modern mental health care.  I’ve been working on changing that for quite awhile.

I started my career in “corporate mental health” working for an “innovative and successful” adolescent substance abuse treatment program in 2001.  It had some great outcomes, but it also had its flaws.  Having an adolescent live in a treatment center for 2 years didn’t sit well with me.  Neither did the 12-step model of “once an addict always an addict” – not for a 15 year old.

So I left a lucrative career and the promise “you’ll be CEO one day”, to explore better ways and new opportunities.  

I opened a private practice that grew into a group practice.  I eventually learned that I didn’t like owning a group practice.  It felt like I was taking money from fellow clinicians unnecessarily because, “that’s how we do business.”  I taught them to run their own businesses so that they could take better care of their clients, and we still work together, but we work cooperatively.

Through my work with individuals, couples, families, and groups, I was finding the “classic training” in the American graduate school system wasn’t quite fitting the issues people were presenting with.  My education taught me to “intake, diagnose, administer 8-12 session treatment plan, terminate.  Yes, “terminate”, they use that language in the text books.

But people don’t work that way.  We don’t all fit nicely into the check boxes of the DSM-V (that’s the Big Book of Diagnoses).  More people in my offices are showing up with existential dread and work-life balance stress, or feeling isolated and disconnected even while surrounded by family and friends, and, of course, the addictions that present themselves in a modern consumer-driven society.

They didn’t teach us that in grad school!

So I went and learned other methods.  I still draw on those grad school days, but today I incorporate a doctorate in Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy, the psychology of meaning, with personal growth assessments like the Myers Briggs type indicator, along with Ketamine and other psychedelic assisted psychotherapies.

I’ve put in my 10,000 hours.  Probably two or three times now.  According to Gladwell, that makes me some kind of expert.

But in those hours, I realized we don’t have a “mental health crisis”.  We have a mental health system failure.

I just heard today that a client of mine has to wait two years to get their son assessed for autism.  (That’s not my area of expertise, so, sadly, I can’t help)

Another client was put on an 8-month waiting list for her son to receive the much needed help he should get this month…

Other clients come to me after years with other, “classically trained” therapists, to find that maybe they weren’t getting the help they need.

And, sadly, some clients never even make it to therapist, because their physicians pump them full of meds for a few years before realizing it doesn’t work.

We don’t have a “mental health crisis”.

We have a mental health system failure.

You’re not broken.  But the system you are trying to work with is.

So, maybe you’re not as depressed or as anxious as you think you areOr maybe the meds aren’t quite working as expected. Perhaps you need to discover Meaning, understand Purpose, and develop Resilience.  Maybe you just need some tools to work your way through the times we are living in.

And that was my other frustration.  Even with my time in the classrooms, my hours of experience, and passion to share and to help.  I could only do it a little bit at a time.  Only 1:1 for an hour, and only a few hours each day.  I couldn’t help all those that needed, wanted, or deserved it.

So here I am.  This is how I choose to “help more people in bigger ways”.  (Something I said incessantly in my Logotherapy study days – and something my mentors continue to call me to task on._

I started The Meaning Project Podcast years ago to share this information.

This year, I am building The Meaning Project Community so that we could discuss, interact, grow, evolve and ‘become’.  We are all craving community in this time of disconnect.  That’s why I am here.  I can help.

I think this was something I wrote just a few hours after the above – maybe another prompt from my coach?

I left a big salary in corporate mental health and the promise “you’ll be CEO someday” because I didn’t believe in the way people were being treated.  I thought they deserved better.

I stepped outside the traditional treatments for mental health and substance abuse to find The Psychology of Meaning and psychedelics work really well together, along with the “classical training” of the past several decades.

I disbanded my profitable “group practice” because I didn’t like the idea of profiting off the hard work of other therapists.  Instead, I taught them how to run their own businesses so that they could take better care of themselves, their families, and therefore, their clients.

I’ve been ‘disrupting’ mental health for quite a while.

This is my next step to help “more people in bigger ways”.

This is how I want to bring Meaning, Purpose, and Resilience to you. 

Because…

Maybe you’re not as depressed or anxious as you think you are.  Or maybe the meds aren’t quite working as expected. Perhaps you need to discover Meaning, understand Purpose, and develop Resilience.

I can help you in The Meaning Project Community – even better, we can help each other.  And then we can help our families, and they can help their communities, and… hopefully these ideas grow.