Mental health is now on the national agenda - let's cut to the chase

Talk therapists need to be regulated and we should avoid over-medicalising mental health.

- Chirag Agarwal

Almost five years back, Covid-19 put mental health on everyone's radar as isolation, anxiety, grief and burnout spared no one. Youth mental health, in particular, came into focus.

The Singapore Government responded quickly with a Covid-19 Mental Wellness Taskforce which became the Interagency Taskforce on Mental Health and Well-being.

In 2024, the Government announced the creation of a more permanent body - the National Mental Health Office.

It also started implementing the National Mental Health and Well-being Strategy which, among other things, will introduce mental health services to all polyclinics, increase the number of public sector psychiatrists and psychologists, and deploy more teacher-counsellors in schools.

So where to from here?

I offer three suggestions that will keep us on track as we make progress in improving the mental health and well-being of our society.

REGULATE TALK THERAPY

As we ramp up the number of mental health professionals who provide talk therapy or counselling (counsellors, clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists, etc) to meet the growing demand for support, it is crucial that the quality of care provided is not compromised.

This is especially important given that people seeking support are often emotionally vulnerable, lonely, or in distress.

Talk therapy invariably requires clients to open up about their struggles and in the process share deeply personal information with their therapist. As a result, they are required to quickly trust their therapist without any prior knowledge about them or an opportunity to assess them.