Healing A Broken Mental Health System: Eugene Belilovsky of The Progressive Therapist On 5 Things That Can Be Done To Fix Our Broken Mental Health System

The current state of the mental health system is a conversation that echoes in the halls of policy-making, the corners of social advocacy, and within the private struggles of individuals and families. As we continue to witness an unprecedented need for robust mental health support, the shortcomings of the existing system become more glaring. It is within this backdrop that we seek the insight of those who are at the forefront of behavioral health. In this interview series, we are talking to behavioral health leaders, policymakers, mental health practitioners, advocates, and reformers to share their perspectives on healing our broken mental health system. As a part of this interview series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Eugene Belilovsky, PhD, LMHC, BDiv, CHC, MBACP.

Eugene is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and holds several other qualifications as well. He likes to take an integrative approach to counseling, using approaches such as CBT (Including Exposure and Response Prevention), EMDR, Talk Therapy, Mindfulness/Awareness, and Non-Religious Spirituality/Transpersonal, according to the unique needs of his clients. He offers an international multicultural perspective, having lived in Ukraine, the US, and England. In addition, he welcomes and is allied with communities such as LGBTQ, polyamorous, and single by choice, as just some examples. His professional areas of focus and/or interest include Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD),

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) (Including Exposure and Response Prevention), Depression, Depersonalization/Derealization, Trauma/Post-Traumatic Stress Stress Disorder (PTSD), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Concepts from Health Coaching/Holistic Wellness, Talk Therapy, Mindfulness/Awareness, Non-Religious Spirituality/Transpersonal, Alternative Communities, Expats, Digital Nomads, and Creatives.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?

I was born in Ukraine.

As a child, I moved with my family to the United States. Not knowing the language and being very shy, I spent a lot of time on my own and felt like an outcast. I was anxious around interacting with other people and didn’t feel like I belonged.

Even though I felt “different” and struggled to make deeper connections, I made it to middle school.

But then 9/11 happened and I lost my mom in the attacks.

Around the same time, I was battling with things like obsessive-compulsive tendencies, anxiety, and being a middle schooler. My family and I went through a very challenging time.

Around the time of finishing high school/starting college, my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, anxiety, depression, etc. had become worse. I reluctantly started working with a therapist. He shared that he too had struggled with some of the same things. Before that, I remember feeling something like, “I have no idea what is going on with me and I’m probably the only one who has these kinds of problems”.

Through my work with the therapist, I learned more about what was going on with me and I felt more understood and validated.

When I started college, I began to feel a bit lost and put less effort into my studies. I started asking myself things like “What is the point of doing all this?”. Around the same time, I started to develop an interest in marijuana, psychedelics, and altered states of consciousness. At a certain point, I remember big questions coming up for me like, “What is life all about?”, “Why am I here?”, “Is there more to life?”.

Eventually, after reading a book that was very influential for me, I gradually moved away from the idea of using substances to experience higher states of consciousness, and into what I would describe as Eastern spirituality.

Spirituality has given me a very important sense of meaning and purpose in life.

After college, I went on to do a Master’s degree program in International Management in England and I eventually did a series of corporate-type jobs back in the United States.

However, I felt that the whole environment and type of work that I was doing, were not a good fit for me. Overall, I found the work to be monotonous, not very rewarding, and I remember feeling that I was not very good at most of it.

It was time to make a change.

I did some reflection, research, and evaluated my perceived strengths, and decided to go back to school for a Master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.

I currently work as an integrative counselor/therapist, utilizing approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) (Including Exposure and Response Prevention), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), talk therapy, concepts from health coaching, mindfulness/awareness, and non-religious spirituality/transpersonal. I am also allied with alternative communities.

I now feel that I live a much more aligned and fulfilled life.

There are many possibilities and it is my belief that in many cases, clients can also work through and overcome all kinds of challenges, and come out living a happier, healthier, more fulfilled, and more aligned life.

Of course, there were more details to this story, but for the sake of length and privacy, I have omitted some things. However, I would be happy to share more with people, one on one, if we both feel it would be helpful.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I could probably list a few quotes here but one would be:

“The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.”

― Rumi

I really love this quote by Rumi because I feel like so often, people try to find some kind of ultimate happiness by trying to make more money, getting a more prestigious job, trying to find a perfect partner, buying a new car etc. and it never seems to bring that promised “ultimate happiness” that the mind believes it will. For example, after a while, that shiny new car that you bought, that you thought would finally make you happy, is just another car. I have certainly had experiences similar to this in my life. What I take from this quote, is that true happiness in inside of yourself and not in something external, and that you are enough, just by your mere existence. In addition, I take it to be a good reminder regarding the importance of being happy NOW, and not tying it to some theoretical future event where you may achieve or possess something etc. that you think will “finally make you happy”. However, this does not mean that a person can’t have friendships or romantic relationships, or a good career etc.. The problem is when people condition their happiness too much on these things, and view them as some kind of ultimate source of happiness etc..

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. It is often said that “the mental health system in America is broken”. What does that statement mean to you? From your perspective what is “broken” today?

To me, this statement means that the mental health system has some serious flaws and is not working nearly as well as it could be. It is important to preface the following by saying that while this section may contain a large amount of criticism of the overall mental health field/system etc., it is not for the sake of demeaning and only criticizing this field/system. It is for people to step back, reflect, reevaluate etc. and hopefully to work towards moving in a new and improved direction. The more we can improve the overall mental health field, the better off clients and mental health professionals will be, and the better the reputation the mental health field will have in society in the United States and around the world. Even though there has been a large amount of abuse in the overall mental health field/system throughout history, and there are problems still to this day, it is not the only field that has experienced this, and it can serve as a learning tool for people involved in the overall mental health field and others to learn from the mistakes of the past and to do the most good that they can going forward.

Also, to start out, I believe that it’s not just in the US where the mental health system is “broken”, but for the purposes of this article, I will focus mainly on the US. While I feel that the overall mental health field in the US has had a positive influence upon people, there has also been a large variety of abuse and other problems with it, some of which continue to this day. I do believe that the system has become better, but that there is still a lot of room for improvement. It is important to remember that it was relatively not that long ago that homosexuality was still considered to be a “mental illness” by the American Psychiatric Association, and people were practicing lobotomies.

One thing I would like to note is that in terms of today’s world, I still see elements of what I would call societal/cultural bias and automatically seeking out pathology in the mental health field. What I mean by this is that when a client presents as “different”, such as LGBTQ, polyamorous, asexual etc.. or maybe somehow displays “undesirable” behaviors/beliefs by certain people’s moral standards, I believe that some clinicians still automatically pathologize them just for the mere fact that they are “different” etc. and/or maybe go against some conservative religious “moral norms”. I do think that this has changed to a fair degree in recent years, but I do still think this is an ongoing issue. And unfortunately, to my knowledge, conversion therapy is still practiced in the US.

In addition, to my knowledge, “The Troubled Teen industry” still continues to operate. This is appalling to me given the kinds of reports people have given regarding the things that go on at least some of these places. If readers would like to learn more about this, I would recommend checking out Breaking Code Silence at https://www.breakingcodesilence.org/

Another point I would like to make is regarding the whole system of licensure, hour accrual etc.. I am a licensed mental health counselor so I will speak more to that profession, although I think that a lot of these same problems are also present in the fields of Clinical Social Work, Psychology, and probably others. One broken area I see is that when people finish their degree program, in my experience, they often end up being taken advantage of by mental health practices or companies where they are overworked and underpaid. They need to accrue a certain number of hours for full licensure and I feel that some practices/companies just take advantage of and abuse that. What I believe this can often result in is someone who was passionate about wanting to help people when they got into the field, just ending up burnt out and maybe even lacking empathy towards clients. Besides something like this being just plain wrong, I don’t think that most clients would want to work with a burnt out, underpaid, and disgruntled therapist.

Furthermore, I find it ridiculous that in this day and age there is no national level licensure for mental health counselors, and as far as I know for other mental health professionals as well. With remote counseling being popularized during COVID and continuing on after that, I view it as a disservice to clients to limit someone from working with them remotely, just because they don’t happen to be in the same state etc.. If a person is properly trained and it’s a good fit, they should be able to work with anyone anywhere. To put it in more comical terms, does Pennsylvania OCD differ from New York OCD ? I realize that probably a fair number of people use legal workarounds or just ignore these state line restrictions, but why should they have to? This is wrong and needs to change. I would imagine that a large part of it probably has to do with financial greed and each state wanting to make money off of the person going through the whole licensing process etc..

In addition, another large problem area that I see is the insurance industry. I believe there is a reason that a lot of therapists don’t want to work with insurance. I feel that this also often ties back to the idea of financial greed, because in my understanding, a large part of the reason why many therapists don’t want to work with insurance companies is that they are often probably not compensated enough and have to go through many hoops just to get paid. In my experience, insurance companies often tend to try to latch on to the smallest reason in order to deny claims and then people have to spend time fighting with them to actually get paid.

Speaking of financial greed, I feel that this can also be tied back to the “Troubled Teen Industry” and to other aspects of the overall mental health field, as well as to other fields. I think that one of the biggest societal problems in the United States is financial greed and putting profits ahead of the best interests of workers, clients, patients, customers etc.. This is what I feel a lot of it boils down to in the United States, whether in the mental health field, or other fields.

Another important point I would like to make is that overall, I feel that psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health counselors, etc. still have a relatively poor understanding of the brain, mind, and consciousness, but some of them like to think that they fully understand everything. For example, to my knowledge, the phenomenon of psychosis is interpreted and approached in a very different way in some other cultures and with much better results. For readers who are interested, I would recommend checking out a video on Youtube called Psychosis or Spiritual Awakening: Phil Borges at TEDxUMKC at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFtsHf1lVI4&t=739s . I would venture to guess that in many ways, many eastern spiritual teachers probably have a much better understanding of the human mind, brain, and consciousness than psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health counselors etc.. I am not saying that counseling, psychology etc. is useless, but at the same time, it’s important for these professionals to be honest with themselves, cognizant of their limited knowledge, humble, and open to other ideas and new learnings.

In addition, the actual accuracy of diagnosis is also questionable. I don’t believe that all people fit neatly into DSM type boxes. Again, I don’t think that the DSM is useless, but I do think that it’s important to recognize its limitations and understand that maybe in 100 years, people may consider it to be extremely primitive and even laughable. In addition, when it comes to psychiatry, I would argue that a similar argument can be made in that I believe that the field of psychiatry does still not understand very well the intricacies of the human brain, mind etc., how exactly the various psychiatric substances interact with them, and how to know exactly how to match the right problem with the right medication. In addition, in regards to psychiatry, I would venture to guess that there is probably overprescribing of psychiatric medications. Here again, this is not to say that I believe psychiatry or psychiatric medication is useless, but I do feel there is much that the overall field of psychiatry does not know and understand, and I believe that it is important to acknowledge this, remain humble, open minded, and keep in mind the idea that there is much more room for improvement.

In addition, I won’t go into it here for the sake of length of the article but I also have criticisms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)/ 12 Step Programs (as well as positives). If readers are interested, they can go to https://progressivetherapist.com/some-criticisms-and-some-positives-of-aa-12-step-programs/ and read the article that I wrote.

What about any bright spots? Do you think there are any elements that we get right in today’s world that we wouldn’t want to reverse unintentionally?

In terms of bright spots, I do think that there has been some strong progress in the overall mental health field over the years and I feel like it has been going even faster in recent years. I feel like counselors/therapists and other people in general, have become more open minded and more accepting of diverse ways of living, overall, in the United States. This is not to say that there are not still problems, but I feel like there have been large strides in recent years. It’s also encouraging to see the “Troubled Teen Industry” becoming more exposed and coming more under fire through the work of Breaking Code Silence ( https://www.breakingcodesilence.org/ ) and others. In addition, I feel like seeking mental health care in the US has become much less stigmatized. I do feel like there are still remnants there, but overall I feel like it has improved significantly.

In your opinion, what are the 5 most impactful things that could help heal the broken mental health system? These could be on any level including training, workforce, policy, culture, equity etc.

1 . Teaching students in the overall mental health field more about the various abuses that have taken place and teaching them to keep a more open mind and about being careful so as to not automatically “diagnose” someone with a “mental illness” just because they are “different” in some way. I believe that there is a vast range of ways in which one can live their life, and still be mentally healthy or mentally healthy enough. I also believe that this range is much wider than what most of the overall mental health field has historically thought, and probably even thinks to this day. It would be important to remind students that it was not relatively that long ago that homosexuality was considered to be a “mental illness”, and that there are probably other groups of people who are still being discriminated against to this day in subtle or not so subtle ways within the mental health system. In addition, it would be important to have continuing education credits available in this area for people who are already licensed etc.. Providing case studies to students could also be a helpful tool. For example, a professor could provide a case study of a person who is “different” in some way, but is happy and is functioning well in their life and contrast it with a case study of a person who is not functioning well in their life, depressed, and suicidal (as an example). I feel that sometimes counselors/therapists can be kind of cold and very clinical and may lack that more genuine element of human connection. There is a quote that I saw recently by Carl Jung that I really liked that goes: “Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul”.

2 . Bringing an end to/properly regulating the “Troubled Teen Industry” and other similar programs. To my knowledge, these types of centers continue to operate in unregulated or poorly regulated ways, and take advantage of loopholes. I feel this is currently one of the worst and most disgusting abuses in the overall mental health field. There needs to be proper regulation and accountability so that these abuses are eliminated. It would also be important to have strict regulation and oversight of these programs because of the finances at play. To my knowledge, these types of programs can be extremely expensive and unfortunately I don’t think that by and large, the best interests of the patient comes before profit. Perhaps all of these types of programs even need to be shut down and replaced with some kind of alternatives. Again, if readers would like to learn more, I would recommend checking out Breaking Code Silence at https://www.breakingcodesilence.org/

3 . Reform/better regulation of the transition from getting a degree to working in the field, reform of the licensing system, and reform/better regulation of the insurance industry. There should be more oversight and regulation about how practices/companies treat employees/contractors after they graduate. All too often I think that companies and practices take advantage of people coming out of school who need to earn hours towards their full licensure, by paying them poorly and overworking them. I do not view this as leading to anything good. I’m not saying that all companies/practices are like this, but I do think this is a general trend. In addition, there should be at least a national level standardized licensure procedure that would allow counselors/therapists etc. to be able to work remotely with clients across state lines without needing to go through the process of getting licensed in each state one by one etc.. I view the way it is currently set up as a disservice to clients. There should also be more regulation and oversight of the insurance industry and simplification of the process of working with insurance. Again, I believe that many therapists don’t want to work with insurance because the pay is generally lower than private pay and they may deal with claim rejections for small issues and don’t want to spend hours on the phone trying to get paid. I’m not saying that all insurance companies are this way, but I do feel like it is the general reputation in the industry. Overall, if the process of working with insurance companies was simplified, they didn’t latch onto small reasons in order to deny claims, and paid more competitive rates, I think that more therapists would be willing to work with insurance companies.

4 . Being more humble, open minded, and accepting as counselors, psychiatrists, therapists etc.. There is still a lot that the overall mental health field does not know and it is important for mental health professionals to acknowledge this and to not become arrogant. It is important to realize that there is a lot of room for improvement in the field and to work towards this improvement. In addition, it is important for mental health professionals to be open minded when it comes to different ways of living, and not just automatically pathologizing someone for being “different”.

5 . Working to change the cultural problem in the US of financial greed/putting profit ahead of the best interest of the client, patient, customer, etc.. This is what I feel a lot of it boils down to in the United States, whether in the mental health field, or other fields. I believe this happens mainly because of a lack of basic human values/spiritual values and a lack of a sense of belongingness. There needs to be a large societal shift in the mentality and more human values/spiritual values and belongingness in society, in order for this field and other fields to be fixed. I believe that this can be aided through things like teaching basic human values starting early on in childhood and teaching knowledge and concepts from non-religious spirituality. Concepts such as peace, love, kindness, compassion, and belongingness are universal and cut across all of the major world religions. I believe that these kinds of things can greatly help to bring about a change in the culture in the US. I feel like I first really came across these kinds of ideas strongly when I was in college and started studying spirituality, first through reading Be Here Now by Ram Dass and then by doing courses and being involved with the Art of Living Foundation. I believe that if one feels a sense of belongingness or oneness with the whole world, then I don’t think it would be very likely for people to act in ways where they would take advantage of somebody to make a quick profit off of them (as an exmaple). This article is focusing on the US, but of course this can be applied to other parts of the world as well. In addition, I believe that more open mindedness and acceptance of people living their lives in different ways (without automatically pathologizing them), is also necessary to help fix the overall mental health field, as well as improve society.

If all of the items on your list were magically implemented tomorrow what change might we see in the world? What are the signs (big and small) that would show us that the system is being healed?

I believe that we would see a much more positive, peaceful, and better functioning world. As I mentioned before, I think a lot of the types of problems that I mentioned boil down to a culture of financial greed/putting profits ahead of the best interests of the patient, client, customer, etc.. and that this is a result of a lack of basic human values/spiritual values, sense of belongingness etc.. If this were to change, I think that many problems in society and in the world would cease to exist. In regards to the overall mental health field specifically, I believe that all of the problems I mentioned would either be tremendously improved or completely non-existent.

What is a project you or others are working on today that gives you hope? How can our readers learn more about this work?

One example would be the work being done by the Art of Living Foundation and its partner organization, the International Association of Human Values (IAHV). I feel that between these two organizations, there is so much great humanitarian work, spreading of a sense of belongingness, human values, breathing techniques, meditation, and helpful spiritual knowledge that takes place. For readers who are interested, I would recommend checking out https://www.artofliving.org/us-en .

In addition, a while ago I created an online introductory course about working towards overall holistic wellness in one’s life (including mental wellness of course) called The Holistic Wellness Blueprint. However, as of this writing, I am planning to go back and edit it/update it a bit. Hopefully by the time this article is published, it will be ready. For readers who are interested, they can check out https://progressivetherapist.com/courses/progressive-therapist-course/

Also, after the war in Ukraine started, I decided to do some volunteer work with clients affected by the war because I am originally from Ukraine, speak Russian, and work as a counselor/therapist. So I decided that it would be nice to try to make use of those skills. I ended up working virtually with clients in places like Germany, Spain, Donetsk, and Ireland. I am currently working with fewer volunteers than I was in the past, but this work has been very rewarding for me.

How do you see technology shaping the future of mental health care and its accessibility?

I think we have already seen how much the mental health world has changed through the larger adoption of online counseling. I think that this will continue and I think that working remotely even across country lines will become a more common phenomenon. In addition, I think that AI will come to play an overall helpful and larger and larger role in the mental health world and the world in general. I don’t think that AI will come to replace counselors/therapists any time soon, but who knows?. Hopefully with increasing technological capabilities, we will also be able to develop more and more effective treatments for various mental health conditions and be able to offer greater access to mental health services.

In your view, how do social factors like poverty, education, and culture affect mental health care and its effectiveness?

I believe that unfortunately, in the US, poverty does make it much harder to get good quality mental health care. In addition, unfortunately I feel there is still a certain level of stigma about seeking mental health treatment in the US. I think it is much better than it was before, but I feel like there are still remnants there. In terms of education, I think it plays an important role as well because if a person is well educated, I believe they would be more likely to be better informed about mental health in general and more open to seeking help from someone in the mental health field.

In light of the growing mental health crisis among young people, what innovative approaches or interventions have proven most successful for children and adolescents?

I specialize more in working with people approximately 18 and up and don’t usually work with children and adolescents, but I think that an approach that could be very successful is teaching children from the beginning things such as healthy techniques for coping with stress, basic human values/non-religious spiritual values (including a sense of belongingness with the whole world), and acceptance and appreciation of diversity and differences among people in the world.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

I feel that there are a number of people (both living and who have passed away), who have been very inspirational and helpful to me in my life. Instead of opting to have a private breakfast or lunch with one or a number of them, I would like to just say that I am very grateful to have them/have had them in my life in one way or another.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can check out my website at https://progressivetherapist.com/

If they like, they can also connect with me on social media at the following links :

https://www.linkedin.com/in/progressivetherapist/

https://www.facebook.com/progressive.thera

https://www.instagram.com/progressive_therapist/

If they would like to contact me, they can also email me at Eugene@progressivetherapist.com

Thank you for your time and thoughtful answers. I know many people will gain so much from hearing this.

About The Interviewer: Stephanie Greer, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of Akin Mental Health — a company dedicated to guiding families on their journey supporting a loved one with mental health challenges like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression. Stephanie is passionate about this topic from her own personal experience growing up with a mother who struggled with bipolar 1 disorder and found a path forward to overcome the obstacles and live well. Stephanie’s professional experience includes a doctorate in neuroscience as well as design research roles at Hopelab and Apple. Stephanie brings this personal passion together with her world-class science and technology background to support families across the US in their personal journeys supporting loved ones with mental illness. To learn more about Akin Mental Health and join our community, visit us at akinmh.com.