The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

By now, most of us have heard a lot about trauma and strive to be "trauma informed". We do this by keeping in the forefront of our minds that many people in this world have been traumatized and much of their behaviors are the result of this. The concept of trauma has a long and controversial history in the mental health field and is only recently (within the last decades) being objectively explored. The more we explore, the more recognize the massive influence trauma has on the mental and physical well-being of people in our society. 

All of this work is good and needed. But it is also very downstream thinking. And we can do better.

Upstream and downstream

There is an often-repeated story in public health policy about a person who finds another person drowning in a river one day. The person jumps in and saves them. The next day, two people are drowning and the person saves both of them. The next day, three and four etc. At this point, the person is overwhelmed and spends all their time saving other people from the river. What they don't do, is walk upstream and figure out why people are falling into the river in the first place. This is upstream and downstream thinking. Often people and organizations who are working downstream very hard to care for and help people end up not having the energy to walk upstream and work on prevention. 

Our mental health system is positioned entirely downstream. What if we moved it upstream? What if our focus was trauma prevention? What would this paradigm-shift look like?

Weise Counseling Collaborative endeavors to work on these questions by providing trainings, counseling, clinical supervision, and consultation.