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Sydnee Watters

Professor Engelbrecht

English 001

20 July 2017

Solutions to Our Broken Minds: Alternative Therapies for Mental Illness

The minds of many are riddled or tempted by illness. Everyday people you walk past on

the street are dealing with invisible illnesses they are fighting with. As the National Center for

Complementary and Integrative Health reports:

Mental health problems are common and burdensome. In the United States, they affect

about one-fourth of adults in any given year and nearly half of adults at some time during

their lives. According to the World Health Organization, mental illnesses account for

more disability in developed countries than any other group of illnesses. (1)

If mental illness is so common, then we must have solutions. We have programs people can go

through and we have medications to help balance out what is causing our mental health to

decline. These seem to be out only options ― talking to a therapist and medicating ― but they

aren’t. So what are the other options for treatment and why haven’t we seen a rise in their use?

Our typical solution to mental illness is to either ignore the issue, or use medication to fix

the problem. While, these things do work and are helpful, medications can cause long-term

effects. With stronger medications, people may become addicted or experience negative results

from their strength. Another situation is that patients become accustomed to the medication and

their dosages will continually need to be increased or they will have to swap medications every

time it stops working as well. In some cases, people may experience thoughts of suicide on the
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medication or they may conflict with previous medications they are on. As time passes, these

medications have become much safer. The website of Harvard Health states:

Since the late 1980s, America and the world have been enjoying the benefits of the

selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These antidepressants…are among the

world's most widely prescribed medications. They are remarkably safe and effective. The

range of their uses has expanded from depression to anxiety, obsessive-compulsive

disorder, eating disorders, and many other psychiatric conditions. (1)

The improvements made upon these medications has been beneficial beyond belief to those who

need it, but sometimes people are hesitant to lean towards medication to assist their mental

illnesses. That’s where alternative methods come into play. The methods listed can be used with

or without medications, depending on the patient.

When most people think of alternative therapies, they think of holistic methods such as

yoga or herbal treatments. Those things do help people recover and deal with mental illness, but

studies are inconclusive as to whether or not they help. One alternative therapy to mention are

service and support animals. These animals are typically dogs, as they are easily trained and

loved. In a journal article, a man talks about meeting a psychiatric service animal in an airport.

When he asked the owner of the dog why she had him on the plane she told him that the dog was

a service dog for PTSD. He remarks:

...people are less familiar with what psychiatric service dogs do. Some are trained to

specific tasks, such as reminding a patient to take medication at the appropriate time or

interrupting repetitive compulsive behavior. Other assistance is more subtle, such as providing an
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immediate, tangible reality check for a patient prone to disassociate, or a stabilizing support for

an anxious person with agoraphobia who struggles to go out in the world. (Fritz 1)

Fritz himself was unfamiliar with the use of service dogs for psychiatry, as most think of them

being used for other disabilities, for example: blindness, seizures, diabetes, etc. When Fritz

thought to his dog and the emotions he evoked in him, he wondered if he could be considered a

service dog. Service dogs go under training to learn special tasks for those using them, so his dog

would be considered more of an emotional support dog. These animals have less specific training

to complete their duties and are typically not certified or allowed into buildings that prohibit

them. Laws are inconsistent across the United States regarding service and support animals,

however.

A different method to try is music therapy. These creative based therapies appeal more to

those who are inclined to the arts, but even to those who are not drawn to them. In a case study

by Georgia Hudson Smith, a young woman named Jean struggled with mental illness after her

abusive childhood. As an adult, she turned to religion to escape and converted to the Catholic

church, causing her father to continue his abuse to her. Jean developed severe depression in her

twenties, as well as anxiety. She was hospitalised for suicidal thoughts and actions while she was

schooling to be a nun, which caused her to think about her life and her choices very often. In

Jean’s first hospital visit, music therapy was suggested to her as a way to deal with her emotions.

She participated passively, but did take audio tapes to listen to the music to assist her sleeping.

Jean was admitted again for trying to commit suicide, but this time she requested music therapy

during her stay. Under the treatment, Jean flourished. She wrote songs, expressed her emotions,

and revealed repressed memories that she dealt with through music. Jean was admitted once
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again after this visit for having a relapse during a visit to her parents. In her everyday life, Jean

used music therapy to help with her feelings in an outpatient program. She used music to

visualise her emotions and anxiety, and to sort through depressive thoughts. While Jean did lose

contact with her therapists, she responded well to her music therapy treatment (Smith 2012, p.

103-116). This is only an example of what music therapy can do for someone. Miss Jean was in a

severe depression and also had BPD, causing her to live a struggling life at such a young age.

Music therapy may sound as if people are just listening to music, but it goes to such a deeper

level. Patients develop skills to help with their problems through the music and even create their

own music to cope. It is an incredible idea that a small joy such as music could evoke such

profound results in the brain.

A sister of music therapy is art therapy. In a similar fashion to music therapy, art therapy

uses art to help others express their emotions. A magazine article by Rebekah Tailor talks of a

young lady who participated in art therapy. Hannah had PTSD and depression from losing a

partner, and then engaging in another relationship with someone who abused her. Hannah felt

she could not accept or appreciate herself because of her past experiences. When Hannah began

art therapy, she emptied out paint bottles and compared herself to them. Her therapist kept a

bottle and place it in the work room where they engaged in the creative portion of the therapy.

Hannah responded very well to the treatment and found sentimental value in the bottle. She

eventually took the bottle home to keep as she became more confident in herself (Tailor 2012, p.

1). The article also talks of how these artistic therapies should be brought into the spotlight more,

as there is still training and qualifications required to do these jobs to help others. Art therapy is

just another way for patients to experience help with their mental illnesses and allows them to
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create bonds with their therapist(s) and others. In the same article, a lady named Jyoti who was

schizophrenic. She engaged in art therapy as well as dramatherapy to understand her problems.

Instead of paint, Jyoti’s medium was sand and in this sand she drew out her problems. In

dramatherapy she could act out her situations and find resolutions. Artistic therapies are massive

help to those who engage in them. Our minds think differently, and creative therapies help us

think outside of the box. For people like Jyoti, the visualisations of her issues helped her

overcome internal and external struggles, while different visualisations for Hannah helped regain

what was lost. Creative therapies allow a wide, personalised range of help for people, allowing a

more intimate and comforting type of setting.

Others may argue that these alternative therapies aren’t successful or are placebo-like. As

with regular therapy, creative therapies take time and consistency. People aren’t cured in a day,

and once someone shows results, it doesn’t mean they are one-hundred percent cured. In Wales,

a community service offered drama workshops for ten weeks as a result of a grant. Participants

engaged in multiple, open workshops that were to facilitate healthy social interactions. The

participants reported that their goals were met and that they had an increase in mood (Dolling &

Day 2013, p. 1-3). These people were willing participants from the public who weren’t told to

attend therapy, nor were they attending to help a mental illness. These people received results in

their moods and in their social confidence by participating in a free workshop put on by

volunteering therapists. With an experience like this, it shows that anyone can benefit from a

creative therapy. You don’t have to be mentally ill to engage in the activities, just as it is

beneficial to talk with a person about your problems. If those people felt relief from those small
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sessions, imagine how those feel who do suffer from more severe mental illnesses. Alternative or

creative therapies truly do help those in need and it is time they become recognised.

Mental illness is something that affects a large amount of the populus, so it is important

that we are educated on ways to help with them. We are all different ― in experience and in

genetics ― so we will not respond to treatments in the same way as each other. As individuals, it

is important that we feel we have options personalised for us, which you can feel more with

creative therapies. “There is increasing interest in the promotion of creative therapies and artistic

endeavours as a part of recovery from illness…” (1). The average therapy used is still just as

helpful and result-producing as these, it just depends on what each person prefers. People are

expressive, artistic people and it is quite exceptional that we are developing and using new

therapies to help each other. I do hope that these methods will pick up momentum in the

community, as they have given us monumental assistance already. Mental illness are fiends that

feast upon us, and it is time we fight back. As of now, it seems we are winning. Now I ask you,

what do you think comes next?

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Works Cited

Dolling, Sian, and Jan Day. “How Working with a Community Arts Project Helps Benefit

Service Users.” ​Mental Health Practice​, vol. 16, no. 8, May 2013, pp. 36–38. ​Academic

Search Complete [EBSCO]​, dramatherapy.

Fritz, Gregory K. “Editor's Commentary. The Special Talents of Psychiatric Service Dogs.”

Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter​, vol. 27-Oct2011, 24 Oct. 2011.

Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]​, service animals.

“Mental Health.” ​National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health​, U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services, 14 Apr. 2017, nccih.nih.gov/health/mental.

Publications, Harvard Health. “What Are the Real Risks of Antidepressants?” ​Harvard Health​,

Mar. 2014,

www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/what-are-the-real-risks-of-antidepressants.

Smith, Georgia Hudson. “CASE NINE The Song-Writing Process: A Woman's Struggle Against

Depression and Suicide.” ​Case Examples of Music Therapy for Mood Disorders​,

Barcelona Publishers, Gilsum, NH, 2012, pp. 103–116. ​Academic Search Complete

[EBSCO]​, Music Therapy.

Tailor, Rebekah. “The ART of the Matter.” ​Mental Health Today​, no. May/Jun2015, 23 June

2015. ​Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]​, art therapy.