The best solutions always solve two or more problems at once. Usually for the idea to not have materialized yet it requires for one of the problems to not being properly defined – this way the win-win connection remains hidden, almost impossible to spot.
In ImpactMindset we believe to have found the largest such win-win solution in modern times – one that will transform self-improvement, therapy, entrepreneurship and even politics for the entire world.
Problem 1: There are not enough therapists, coaches and councilors anywhere in the world, especially in developing countries.
Problem 2 There are 1+ billion people in the world with great intentions who don’t give society even close to their full potential. The “SuperMoral” people.
Problem 1 is well identified but its scale makes it seemingly difficult to solve. Becoming a licensed therapist requires:
- A stable mentality (so we don’t involve the patients in our own coping mechanisms) – ability;
- The right mindset of serving others – intention;
- Years of training to learn the methods of therapy – skill;
These years are a significant bottleneck as only financially stable students can afford to study for so long, rather than work, reducing the pool dramatically – even more so in developing countries.
From the three conditions two are more or less binary – ability and intention. Those we cannot be allowed to fuck up.
However, we believe that we should consider a well planned and executed compromise on skill.
Unskilled therapists on purpose!? WTF?
Well, consider what a nurse is – a less skilled doctor. This does not make nurses less valuable, right? We need doctors and we need nurses, each for their relevant skill areas.
Actually in almost any occupation you have different levels of skillsets built into the job structure. Tech support has level one support that is trained in months or even weeks and can solve the 15 most common problems that consist 80% of the workload. In the other 20% of cases they escalate to level two support that are experienced sysadmins. It would be pointless for a qualified sysadmin to deal with forgotten passwords or accounts suspended for non-payment.
It’s actually worse than that. The high demand for “therapy” of any quality results in people using family and friends in such a way, regardless of their emotional capacity and psychological skills. There is also a huge disparity when accessing help:
- A wealthy person can always access therapy from a qualified licensed professional with years of training and practice by just paying privately.
- Meanwhile someone contemplating ending their life on a bridge calls a suicide prevention hotline, staffed by a volunteer with an average 50 hours of training.
Moreover there is no mandatory training required whatsoever to become a parent, even though a lack of skills can greatly harm the child.
So as a society we either:
1) hate children, poor, depressed, stressed and addicted people
or
2) consider therapy to be a thing for the grown up elites first and foremost
or
3) just don’t have an idea how to increase the supply of therapy to match demand.
We really hope it’s mostly the latter.
In ImpactMindset we have a concept about how to increase the supply of therapy without significantly compromising the quality.