Why We Should Prioritize Preventive Approaches to Mental Health

Contributors to mental illness like poverty and inequality need to be addressed.

• If psychosurgery and lobotomy was psychiatry’s “last resort” 75 years ago, social psychiatry and prevention should be the first resort.
• Social psychiatrists showed that poverty, inequality, and community disintegration were linked to mental illness.
• Universal Basic Income could be a key strategy in a new preventive mental health policy for the 21st century.

About 20 years ago, I was introduced to the history of psychiatry. This introduction came in the form of a book, The Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Psychosurgery (1998) by the late Jack D. Pressman. Pressman’s topic...