Interivew: Archbridge Institute’s Head Out

This article was republished from the Center for Teen Flourishing musings.

Clay Routledge is an existential psychologist. He is Executive Vice President and COO at Archbridge Institute, where he also directs the Human Flourishing Lab. A mutual friend (thanks Spencer) introduced us.

And wow!

Mike: I love your website Head Out. So – do I have this right? Your message is:

Hey Struggling Teen, before you jump into therapy, you should Head Out. Do any of the following things…

So I agree with your premise.

My question, Clay, is about your mechanism. Is it

A. “Hey Teen, you yourself should get going on fitness, or you yourself should find a part-time job?”

or

B. “Hey Teen, if you want to do Clay’s Five Things – but you’re stuck – here is an Adult Non-Therapist (a coach of some type) who is going to spend 10, 20 hours or whatever to get teen going on that Head Out activity?

Clay: I see the first mechanism as personal empowerment (agency), the idea that people have the ability to self-manage many mild to moderate symptoms (not all of course) and part of this is also preventative, doing Head Out isn’t just a good response to symptoms, it is a good way to avoid them in the first place.

But many people, especially younger people, aren’t getting this message or perhaps don’t believe it so a big part of Head Out is to change the cultural messaging so that more people have the knowledge and confidence.

I think a non-therapist coach or mentor could also be useful and would be a more personalized way of inspiring that agency. So you could think of it as macro (broad cultural messages) and micro (more local level messaging/coaching) ways of doing promoting personal agency and changing unhealthy schemas about mental health.

Mike: Let me say it in my own words and you tell me if I have it right.

My question: What do we do with a 15 year old who seems to show mild or moderate anxiety or depression?

You can try to solve it yourself. Rather than do it yourself therapy, you might do all these other things are correlated with better mental health – join a sport, learn an instrument, get a job, meet up with friends.

Head Out is a list of those good things.

However, if teen has tried to Head Out with no success, or won’t try to Head Out, then what?

The only plausible EXISTING parent option is typically – therapist.

But what if there were a world where all the Head Out options ALSO had an adult coach?

So the choice would no longer be – therapist or no therapist. It would become:

Hey teen. which problem (if any) – do you want to solve. Get more sleep. Make a friend. Start fitness. Address anxiety.

And so by choosing the problem to work on, it then informs which adult provider is paired with that teen. If he wants to get fit, the answer isn’t – get fit solo, just as it’s not do CBT by reading a book. If we wants to find a place to make art, there can be a navigator to help him “launch” at that place. It’s an adult to help you get going. And if that choice is to address mild to moderate anxiety or depression with a therapist, great.

That’s the world we’d at CTF would love to see. We describe it here. Something like this:

Otherwise the system massively over-prescribes therapy because it’s the only category where there’s a professional available if you try-and-fail to solve alone.

Clay: Yes, I totally agree with that. You have it right, and very nicely stated.