Commercial-Friendly Mental Health Narratives Undermine Community Mental Health: A Call for Action

Community mental health aims to provide effective care to all people, especially those living with serious mental illness. However, commercial influences undermine the ability to provide this needed care. In this commentary, we use the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) framework to analyze dominant mental health narratives that frame the mental health crisis as an individual problem, encourage mental health screening, and support the commercialization of mental health. To counter this intra-individual approach, we offer nuanced narratives that are robust enough to facilitate effective and focused care across the continuum of care: mental health promotion and prevention, mental health treatment, and recovery-oriented solutions.