One in a Million

The Missing Middle in Mental Health

In today’s world, mental health and wellness systems are lifelines for countless individuals—and rightly so. From PTSD support to breakthroughs in understanding personality disorders, these systems have saved lives and transformed relationships. I have personally benefited from the clarity and insight of expert therapists, especially when navigating complex emotional trauma. This article is not a critique of their value.

But amid all this advancement, something vital has gone missing: the natural, communal spaces where human emotions were once processed together—in laughter, in ceremony, around the fire, through shared songs and meals. We haven’t just evolved forward. We’ve also left behind something essential.

What we lack now is a middle ground between isolation and professional help—a space of human connection that doesn’t require a crisis or diagnosis. This article is about that missing space.

Reach out and Talk.

Please reach out if you related to anything in these articles or they trigger experiences in your own life.

A Note from Me to You

These articles are personal reflections — shaped by my experiences living in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. They’re not meant to be universal truths, but rather open windows into the cultural patterns I’ve witnessed and the questions they’ve stirred in me. Much of what I write here is about the quiet ways society can make us feel like we are the problem, when really, we’re responding in very human ways to a world that often feels disconnected or misaligned.

If something here resonates with you — if you’ve ever felt frustrated, misplaced, or just tired of trying to “fix” yourself to fit into systems that feel off — I’d love to hear from you. You’re not alone. This space is here to invite honest conversation, shared stories, and connection.

What are you navigating? What systems or beliefs have weighed on you? What are you hoping to shift?

I’d be honored to walk beside you on your path.

“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection.”

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— Johann Hari

What Modern Mental Health Systems have Replaced

We do Need Mental Health Systems

I want to begin with absolute clarity: we need clinical mental health systems. The scientific insights we now have into trauma, bipolar disorder, narcissism, sociopathy, depression, and personality disorders are profound. People are no longer suffering in silence without language for what they experience. Therapists and researchers have given us tools to name, treat, and heal from real conditions that devastate lives.

Professionals in this field are not just helpful—they are heroic. I’m deeply grateful for the breakthroughs in somatic healing, trauma therapy, CBT, and more. I’ve learned truths that changed the course of my life. But this truth exists alongside another:

There’s No Place to Simply Be Human

Even with all the help available, there are times I found myself spiraling, not because I had a mental illness, but because I hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. I once called a suicide hotline not because I wanted to die, but because I needed a voice. Someone to say, “You’re not alon

We’ve created systems that support trauma and pathology, but we’ve failed to maintain systems that support ordinary emotion. And in their absence, we’ve over-pathologized being human. Where does someone go when they just need to feel held?

The Tribal Model — Ancient Wisdom of the Collective

In tribal cultures, healing wasn’t a clinical appointment. It was a fire. It was a circle. It was a funeral rite, a naming ceremony, a night of drumming or singing or weeping in each other’s arms. You didn’t face heartbreak or grief or war trauma in a therapist’s chair—you faced it surrounded.

In Africa, I never once saw someone sit alone and meditate for hours just to feel better. Healing came through participation, through belonging. People bathed together. Cooked together. Danced, cried, celebrated, and buried the dead together.

Even today in developing countries, I’ve lived among people with almost nothing who experience more joy and less loneliness than those in affluent Western neighborhoods. There, people are not isolated by four-bedroom houses and fenced-off lawns. They live together. They make eye contact. They laugh easily. They care.

The Individualization of the Wellness Self Help Industry

What we’re missing is not therapy, but each other.

The modern wellness industry tells us to go inward: meditate alone, journal alone, take a solo retreat, focus on your vibration. While these are helpful tools, they are fundamentally individual. Even group classes are often silent, inward, or hierarchical. And clinical therapy, as valuable as it is, often keeps our healing behind closed doors, one hour at a time.

But who teaches us to cry with others? To share a burden without diagnosis? To laugh and sing and process grief through ritual or firelight?

The Village and the Middle Path

We evolved for over 200,000 years in tribal units, living close to one another, sleeping in circles, eating communally, solving problems collectively. Industrial society is less than 2% of that time.

Let’s do the math: 200 years of modern mental health versus 200,000 years of shared living. That means 99.9% of human history was built on communal emotional processing, not private therapy.

Rebuilding the Middle

We need both. The clinic and the circle. The diagnosis and the drum. The psychologist and the neighbor who holds space.

This article isn’t a call to abandon modern mental health. It’s a call to build around it. To reweave the fabric of natural human contact, to normalize being held outside the clinic, to return to each other.

That’s what I’m trying to do here. With this site. With my work. Not as a therapist. But as a human being who believes that you shouldn’t have to hit rock bottom to be seen, heard, or held.

Let’s rebuild the missing middle.

“Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens in community.”

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–Seng-Tso, Zen proverb

I’d Love to Hear From You

If anything in this article spoke to you, or sparked a thought, I’d love to hear about it. Whether you want to explore these ideas more deeply or simply share what’s going on in your life right now, you’re warmly invited to reach out. You don’t need to have it all figured out — I’m here to listen, reflect, and walk beside you in whatever part of the journey you’re in..

Return to the YOU are not the Problem

RESOURCES

Below is a List of Resources – Read, Watch, Listen and Be Inspired!

Books

“Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging” – Sebastian Junger
Explores why modern people feel so disconnected and how tribal systems historically gave us the belonging we now lack.

“Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions” – Johann Hari
Challenges the chemical imbalance model and explores how lack of connection, community, and purpose fuel depression.

“The Myth of Normal” – Dr. Gabor Maté
Explores how Western society creates illness by ignoring natural needs for connection, community, and emotional safety.

“Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy” – Barbara Ehrenreich
A cultural history of communal celebration, grief rituals, and collective emotion, now often lost in modern society.

“The Body Keeps the Score” – Bessel van der Kolk
While clinical, it supports your point that trauma isn’t just a “mental” issue and that healing can be embodied and social.

“The Healing Wisdom of Africa” – Malidoma Patrice Somé
Written by a Dagara elder, it speaks directly to tribal systems of emotional and spiritual healing through ritual and community.

TED Talks & Videos

“What Makes a Good Life?” – Robert Waldinger (TED)
A Harvard study on adult development: connection and community are the biggest predictors of long-term well-being.
Watch here

“The Power of Vulnerability” – Brené Brown (TED)
Discusses connection, belonging, and why we’re wired to lean on others emotionally.
Watch here

“Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong” – Johann Hari (TED)
Shows how isolation increases suffering, and connection heals.
Watch here

“The Ancient Brain” – Thomas Hübl on Collective Trauma (YouTube)
Discusses trauma not just as individual but as community-held and healed.
Watch here

Documentaries

“Happy” (2011)
Explores what makes people happy globally—many of the happiest communities are tribal or village-based.
Available on YouTube or Amazon.

“Innsaei: The Power of Intuition” (Netflix)
Explores intuition, connection, and how modern life disconnects us from each other and ourselves.

“Gabor Maté: The Wisdom of Trauma”
A documentary exploring trauma, healing, and the failure of modern Western systems to hold emotional pain well.
Watch trailer

Podcasts

On Being – with Krista Tippett
Episodes with Parker Palmer, Bessel van der Kolk, and others explore community, grief, and the sacredness of connection.
Visit site

The Trauma Healing Podcast – NARM Training Institute
Focuses on relational trauma and how healing happens in connection, not isolation.

Unlocking Us – Brené Brown
Includes powerful episodes on community, belonging, shame, and the gaps in our current systems.

Research

“Social Relationships and Health” – Umberson & Montez (2010, Journal of Health and Social Behavior)
A meta-review showing the profound effect of social connection on physical and mental health.
Link

“The Evolutionary Significance of Human Friendship” – Adams & Buunk (2005)
Examines how friendship and connection were essential for survival and emotional stability.

“From We to Me: The Rise of Individualism” – The Economist
A global trend piece showing how Western individualism correlates with loneliness and mental health struggles.

Harvard Study of Adult Development
A nearly 80-year longitudinal study showing that deep relationships are the biggest factor in long-term health and happiness.