Soteria is a concept where psychiatric patients take care of other patients in a dedicated place where all of them live together. This definitely echoes Stranger Things, doesn’t it, and I guess this is why the little device was called Soteria.
The rules in a soteria are that there is little or no medication and it’s the patient who chooses to take it or not. Soteria is more focused on self-development and ensuring that the patients can handle their problems on their own rather than heavily relying on a therapist.
It’s been long known that community is what makes us feel better. It’s the sense of community that defines the blue zones where people live longer. But why do we benefit so much from being part of a community and how does it impact our mental health?
Depression and lack of community
I really like what Johann Hari has to say about depression and anxiety reasons. According to him, being lonely, “disbanding our tribes” is one of the main reasons for the problems we have:
Meeting other people with similar problems (check 11:20 of the above video) and forming a group of people who work together, who have a common purpose, and who know what’s going on with each other is what helps us. It’s not complaining to others that helps. It’s about being yourself with other people.
Community and trauma
What research and practice show is that it’s not the professional help that is crucial in the most difficult moments. What is important is being close to someone who understands us and can simply offer the normal human-to-human goodwill gestures, like a hug, or feeding us, or letting us cry.
We went so far away from our human tribal way of living that we need research to ask the question of “How Can We Ensure That Interventions Do Not Disrupt Community Connections in Native Communities?” and we need articles and books to let therapists know that:
“The focus needs to be on teaching people how to help themselves and bringing people together to support each other, not for them to be dependent on professionals like me,” Gordon says. “Enhancing people’s sense of community and personal agency needs to be the overriding principle for any work we do.”
https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/blog/details/767/the-power-of-community-in-healing-trauma
This is unfortunate.
Community and schizophrenia
Here is where the soteria comes in. Initially, soteria was an experiment, but the results were astounding (although diminished by media).
There are still some soterias out there in different countries but it’s not the most popular way of treating people with schizophrenia and it takes a bit of searching to actually find any of those places.
I’m not fond of conspiracy theories saying that it’s the pharma companies that run our lives. What I know though is that prescribing a medication is easier – also for the therapist – than building a community. It’s also easier than teaching people how to cope with problems.
Among many other issues, the relevant one here is that therapists are not taught to be teachers. They are taught to cope with our problems but not to share their knowledge with us, while this is what sotieras do, and it’s part of why they win the race with medication.
Community as preventing measure
Another way of looking at a community is finding a group of people we share our hobbies with. Here is a very short video, in case you still have some capacity to watch more, that explains how that works:
Although it focuses mostly on a hobby-related group, it is still relevant to the overall purpose – keeping ourselves in good mental health before we get into trouble.
The previous sections were about the power of community in the actual healing process, but there is still a lot that a community can do when it comes to stopping illnesses, and here’s why.
Why community is important
By now, it probably goes without saying that a sense of community feels our mental need for belonging. And just like we can’t make it without the right nutrients in our food, we can’t make it without the right stimuli for our brain.
What community gives us is the feeling of being part of a bigger group and not being the odd one out because of our experiences. Loneliness comes from not being understood as we want to be. It’s not always a result of being physically alone. Having around us others who know how we feel gives us a sense of connection.
Community gives us the support we need and the feeling that we are not alone with our problems. This is the biggest impact of a community, in my opinion – that together we are able to do much more than on our own. We are able to deal with problems that an individual is not able to fix.
Last but not least, what we gain in a community is appreciation. We can be heard, we are valued, and we are part of something bigger. All those together simply keep us on the right mental track and make everyday problems much easier to bear.
I’m far from stating that the way we live now – isolated, not knowing who our neighbours are, and not meeting friends and family often enough – is the reason why we as a society are depressed, anxious and in general not well. I don’t feel like I have enough data for such a conclusion.
But the conclusion I want to draw here and the one I want you to leave with is this:
there is a huge connection between our well-being and the sense of community, so if you want to do one good thing for yourself today, go out there and meet the people you care about.
Take care of the community you have, find one, or build one if you need. Your mental health will thank you for it after some time.