The United States is facing a profound and persistent mental health crisis—one that touches nearly every aspect of daily life, from home to work to community. Over 90 percent of Americans are aware of the problem, and the statistics bear out their concerns: one in every three people is currently experiencing a mental health issue, whether it’s depression, anxiety, loneliness, burnout, or more complex conditions like addiction. Mental health care utilization has surged, and public health experts continue to sound the alarm about the broader societal consequences of this crisis. 

Despite widespread awareness and the very real causes behind the crisis, how much of it is being fueled by self-fulfilling patterns? Research suggests: quite a lot.  

Recent data highlights a troubling gap between individuals’ beliefs and behaviors. Nearly three-quarters of employees say that discussing mental health in the workplace is important—yet only 58 percent would be willing to do so themselves. Similarly, while two-thirds of employers admit that mental health and related issues are top-of-mind concerns, only half appear to be doing much of anything about them.  

Such inconsistencies exacerbate the crisis. While gaps in care and shortages of treatment options are often cited as root causes, experts point to deeper systemic and cultural dynamics that deter individuals from seeking support, speaking openly, or acting on shared commitments to wellbeing. 

As multiple U.S. Surgeons General have emphasized, medical treatment alone cannot resolve this crisis. According to the social determinants of health framework, clinical care accounts for just 20 percent of health outcomes. “The other 80 percent,” contends former US surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams, “happen in communities.” 

“[They happen] where we live, where we learn, where we work, where we play and pray, [in] everything that we do,” adds Dr. Regina Benjamin, another former general. As such, these “extraordinarily complex, multifaceted, multilayered experiences” require “everyone, everywhere” to do something about them—which is just not happening.

“It’s the human desire that when there’s a big problem, there will be just [this] big solution that takes care of it,” asserts Cat Moore, the director of belonging at the University of Southern California, in response to a new advisory from current US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. “[But] I think we need to really start thinking of people as the generators [of] solutions in their own lives and to trust them that if they’re given the space and support, they [can] learn what to do when they inevitably experience [mental health challenges].”

Ultimately, Fortune writers Clay Routledge and Andrew Abeyta say it best: “Though we often think about mental health as a personal issue, it has broader societal implications. Mental illness reduces social trust and behaviors that promote societal flourishing…if people don’t adopt a hopeful mindset, they won’t fully utilize their ability to better their lives and address the major challenges we face today.”

In other words, the “anti-sociality,” withdrawal, or the “learned helplessness” that mental illness engenders is exactly what keeps us from solving the problem: Without the ambition or ability to act on the very solutions that we’ve conceived (like talking about mental health at work; creating a lived culture of care and wellbeing), they will not ever come to fruition, and the crisis will not be resolved.

“People too often believe that everyone is mean-spirited and selfish and to survive they have to be that way,” Dr. Murthy observes. “[But] people can do a lot to support each other and create an environment that does not add to the mental health crisis.” They can do so by treating others with the same kindness, compassion, empathy, and understanding they themselves long for, by endorsing programs and leaders that reflect their values of generosity and kinship, and by setting an example.

To that end, experts have underscored the need for training to guide employees, their managers, and their leaders on how to lead lives that reflect their commitment to mental wellbeing—at the individual and communal level. While anti-stigma and awareness campaigns are great and are “must-haves” in their own right, awareness alone cannot fix the issue, but can only lead to what we have now: discrepancies between what people think should be done and what they’re doing themselves, and a fatalist perspective on the fate of mental health in the US, if not the world.

Instead, the people who make up one’s organization need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to act on theirs—and their peers’—health and wellbeing needs. Peers, managers, and leaders alike need to learn how to recognize signs of ill-mental health, both in themselves and in those around them. They need to be trained on how to constructively reflect on what they’re noticing, considering what is or isn’t known about the cause of the problem, what risks or safety concerns need to be accounted for before addressing the issue, how they can best confront the problem (or the person facing the problem), and making a plan to do so. And they need to know how to properly and effectively respond, which ultimately requires that them to have the skill of emotional intelligence; for them to be able to listen attentively and without judgment; and for them to be able to take what they’ve learned and what they know—about the nature of the problem, its causes, or its solutions—to collaborate on helpful next steps that the person being helped feels confident and comfortable to pursue.

By partnering with a wellbeing solutions provider, organizations can gain access to professional training support that can help facilitate this transformation of employees, managers, and executives into effective community leaders.

Through such a partnership, employees can have the opportunity to participate in on-site or virtual learning events focused on a number of key health topics, including:

• Calming the anxious mind
• Preventing burnout
• Maintaining work-life balance
• Cultivating a resilient mindset
• And more…

During these learning events, employees may also have the opportunity to engage directly with peers, accelerating the transfer of knowledge, insights, and ideas, and creating a close-knit work culture grounded in compassion, care, kindness, and friendship. As a result of these experiences, employees may walk away feeling more equipped or willing to talk about their own mental health at work, to seek help when facing a mental health challenge, or to take action and support a peer who appears to be struggling.

Likewise, access to unlimited consultations with accredited specialists and training sessions on how to lead, intervene, and build resilience among staff in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, can inform leaders, HR, and all people managers on exactly how and why mental illness or emotional health issues manifest in the workplace, and how they can respond in the most effective and appropriate way. This includes coverage of core competencies like:

• Understanding the role of anxiety caused by uncertainty and ambiguous conditions
• Understanding the signs and symptoms of trauma caused by a VUCA environment or world
• Understanding the impact of global, regional, or organizational change on employee wellbeing and how to best navigate change within teams
• Identifying and addressing psychosocial risks in the workplace
• Identifying and managing interpersonal conflicts
• And more…

Finally, by partnering with a wellbeing solutions provider, employers may also be able to collaborate with consulting teams who can help identify unique challenges or risks facing an organization and develop tailored strategies for resolving them. With years of industry experience specific to the client’s needs and background, these consultants can speak directly to the mental, physical, and practical health challenges disrupting both employees’ professional and personal lives, and on what needs to be done inside the workplace to minimize or altogether alleviate them—creating safer, healthier, and supportive environments for all.

As many in this country know all too well, the problems that have cropped up just in the last few years—namely, the uncertainty and anxiety about the future and the instability and insecurity facing the nation today—certainly aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Treatment gaps are not an overnight fix; neither are medication shortages. If mental health problems—and the people experiencing them—are to be met with relief anytime soon, it has to come from the people around them; the people they live and work amongst, who can extend a helping hand, a listening ear, and a comprehensive show of support.