Monday Morning Reset : 2nd June 2025
The world of mental health misinformation. Tips to spot it.
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela
The self-esteem hub is all about learning how to get unstuck from unhelpful thoughts, overthinking and those loops of unhelpful behaviours we use to try and make ourselves feel emotionally safe. We know they make us feel worse and feed low self-esteem. Let’s tool up to understand and turn the volume down on anxiety.
Hello everyone.
A bit later today, forgot to put the timer on! oops!
You know how we get these feeds on our phone? I saw one this week from the Guardian about the most common mental health misinformation that has been found on TikTok. If you are interested you can read it here. Unfortunately whilst the paper is citing a study and “experts!”, it does not cite which study or which experts and so I can’t give my opinion on how legitimate it is.
This got me to thinking about why do we get sucked into this, often very misleading information.
And this is the topic of this article. How do we work out what is valid and what is not valid?
The way we operate as humans is complex. When you see a headline that scares you, “proves” a theory you have or is something that is currently of interest to you, it is going to lead you to read it. That is why, here on Substack, we spend a lot of time trying to come up with great headlines, to get noticed.
As a group of writers here, we would like to think we are critical in what we read. Critical in terms of how valid is it? But how often do you get led into reading articles outside of Substack that you assume is true.
Back in the day, of our early ancestors, the most information we would be subjected to was the local gossip of the tribe. We LOVE gossip! It is that curious nature that we need to fully engage when we critique the validity of what we read. And I am talking about non-fiction, of course.
How do we do that? Well, for me, a total red flag is something like that Guardian article. It does not cite who the ‘experts’ are so I can check out that they are experts. It cites a study but does give a source so I can check it out (at least that I could see).
Other things to consider:
Do the authors have any links to the thing they are writing about? For example, a vitamin company writing a blog about a the amazing benefits of their XXX vitamin? Some pretend its an independent blog! They are, of course going to be biased.
How many participants were in the study? If it was 12, we know it might have helped 12 people. I notice that a lot of cosmetic companies say they tried their product out on 10 women. Well, that is not very comprehensive is it? That doesn’t give us much of an idea, we need at least 100s.
It should also be a random selection of participants, not hand picked people that the idea or product will work for. Hand picked does not tell us anything about the rest of us.
I would invite you to step back from the next thing you read and think about what they are telling you and not telling you! Love to hear what you notice.
I do wish you all a great week.
With all kind wishes
Jane
Accredited Cognitive Psychotherapist
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT), Mindfulness & Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
➡️If you would like to work with me on a 1:1 basis you can contact me at: mail@janewatkinscbt.co.uk
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Very interesting post and very thought provoking! We find ourselves surrounded by “Fake News” (trying not to say that whilst sounding like Trump!), that in itself that phrase has been hijacked to be used by people to dispute something they don’t agree with or is saying something about them that they wish wasn’t out there!
Your points draw us back to start to think for ourselves again! Question why, how and what for rather than accept blindly and spiral down the mass hysteria on a specific topic.
I think your insight into how we can become more rounded and open minded people is a salvation to the otherwise blinkered world of believing everything without question that we see around us. Thank you for shining a light in the darkness!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree, we need to move away from the brain washing that is going on and move towards and embrace our own common sense and curiosity.