For Farmers in Crisis, Could Online Therapy Be the Answer? – Ambrook Research
By Jesse Hirsch
If you’re a struggling producer without local mental health services, remote therapy seems like a promising option. But how do you overcome distrust of the unknown?
We’ve entered a therapy-friendly age: Online mental health companies ran ads during the Super Bowl and the Olympics, while a meme poking fun at people who resist counseling just went viral. It can be easy to forget that this is a relatively recent development, and that for many, therapy — and its attendant admission that all is not well — still carries a heavy stigma. This can be particularly true for older Americans, farmers, and rural residents (three groups with a lot of overlap).
In farming communities, “mental illness is not considered an illness. In many cases, it’s considered a character flaw,” said New York dairy farmer Jeff Winton, founder of the mental health nonprofit Rural Minds. “It’s considered a personality weakness.”