Chatting with a colleague the other day, we reflected that amongst the sea of media about the Covid 19 pandemic, there is an idea that has been cropping up regularly. The idea has been expressed in slightly different ways which essentially convey the same notion. The idea has been expressed as ‘we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease’ and ‘we don’t want the solution to be worse than the problem’. These phrases speak to an idea which is familiar to those working systemically in mental health services. In our context, it is often expressed as ‘today’s solution can become tomorrow’s problem’.

As we know, psychologically speaking, some of our problems today are a continuation of ways that we used to cope with issues in the past. These ways of coping may have been successful originally, but they may now have become the source of problems today. For example, perhaps in the past things were so distressing for us and there was no-one to help, so we learned to cope by becoming self-reliant and pushing our feelings down until we couldn’t feel anything anymore – an effective way to survive a very difficult context at the time. But when we continue this habit years later, even when we are surrounded by people who would like to get close to us and share our inner world, then we start to encounter a new problem of feeling remote and depressed, and perhaps being experienced by others as distant. We have been practising not feeling and aloneness for so long that now it is difficult for us to be intimate, both with our own inner world of thoughts and feelings, and in relationships with other people. We have become trapped by our own solution.  

Happily, if we can notice that this is happening then we have the possibility of choosing to let go of our old ways which no longer serve us well. In delivering services to help others with psychological difficulties, we can ask ourselves if their problematic way of being might indeed be one of these attempted solutions which have now become stale. Through this, we might help another person realise that a habit they themselves constructed is now no longer helpful and is one that they can decide to end.

When we look back in hindsight, we may be able to see how yesterday’s solutions have become today’s problems. Extending this, it is also useful to look forward to the possibility that today’s solutions can become tomorrow’s problems. When we are faced in life with a new situation to be addressed, perhaps it is wise to think through whether our next solution might inadvertently create our next problem.  For instance, when we physically restrain a child as an answer to their distressed behaviours, whilst we solve some issues, which new problems might we generate? Or when we medicate emotions away, what unintended consequences might be waiting down the line?

Undoubtedly, sometimes we have to reach for emergency solutions. That is granted. However, given that so many attempts to solve problems lead in themselves to more problems, we must perhaps always consider the full repercussions of ‘today’s solution’ as we decide how to go forward. After all, a quick fix can take a very long time to shake off.

Jael 2021