Mental illness is hard. Because of mental illness we cry, we lose loved ones, we die. Scientists have spent decades finding ways to treat mental illness, and we have taken enormous strides. Instead of cutting out people’s frontal lobes, we can now combat mental illness through evidence-based talk therapy and medications. We are even entering an era that resembles sci-fi more than normal reality: some people with treatment-resistant depression and suicidality now have electrodes implanted in their brain which literally changes the activity of their brain cells, and ultimately relieves their feelings of despair. These leaps are enormous and absolutely worthy of celebration. Thankfully, newspapers and pop-science books have done a fantastic job at bringing this knowledge to the people. 

But what about preventing mental illness before it even takes place? It is generally known that to maintain your own and other’s mental wellbeing, you should treat each other kindly, refrain from physical and physiological abuse, and live a healthy lifestyle. While these are legitimate and useful strategies they have not prevented the sour increase in mental illness that affects every living human being in all socioeconomic and demographic areas. We need something different and we need it now. So what are actual implementable and scalable ways of creating preventative programs for mental illness? 

Before answering that we have to ask another question: what are evidence-based ways of preventing mental illness? I have been steeped in psychology and neuroscience research for over a decade and, honestly, the research on this seemingly obvious question is scarce. But there is one thing we know works. It actually works so well that psychiatrists and therapists consistently use it as a part of evidence-based treatment approaches and it is used in the military to prevent PTSD. What is this holy grail of mental illness prevention? It’s mental health education (also known as psychoeducation and mental health literacy). You can read more about mental health education here, but what I want you to consider right now is that mental health education is one of the few evidence-based approaches to prevent mental illness. On top of that, it also reduces existing mental illness symptoms.  It’s a win-win. Sadly, this method is not generally available to people, at least not to all people.

Mental health education can be given to groups of people (and not just one at a time as most therapy sessions), it does not require a prescription, it is cheap, and it can be provided anywhere regardless of technical amenities. Mental health education is such a simple solution it almost seems too good to be true. So why is mental health education not implemented in schools, companies, and any organization that seriously wants to prevent mental illness among their target group? 

 This was a question I grappled with for years, and in 2022 an idea slowly started forming. In 2023, that idea became reality in the shape of MindBlossom. I have assembled an incredible team of people with diverse backgrounds and personal stories, and we are passionate about bringing mental health education to the people. I hope you will join us in these efforts.

Pernille Yilmam

Pernille Yilmam, PhD