German health insurance will reimburse a mental health app within days but cannot provide a therapist within six months. Last week, psychotherapy fees were cut by 4.5%. Baumol’s cost disease — originally about why string quartets get relatively more expensive — explains why the app gold rush and the collapse of mental health provision are the same phenomenon.
AI companions promise to address the loneliness epidemic. Daniel Wegner’s ironic process theory predicts they will fail under exactly the conditions where people need them most — and recent data from MIT and OpenAI suggest the prediction is correct.
I am on the spectrum. Code is easy; emotions are not. This post is about the phrase ‘making mental illness visible’, what science actually tells us about that goal, why a non-affected person fundamentally cannot understand — and why trying still matters.
“Aus der Nähe betrachtet ist keiner normal.” The slogan of a Sozialpsychiatrisches Zentrum sounds compassionate. It is, under scrutiny, a gift to everyone who has ever said “but everyone gets depressed sometimes.” It attacks a concept psychiatry abandoned decades ago, dilutes the clinical categories people with severe conditions need to be taken seriously, and — most ironically — argues against the relevance of its own institution. A Karneval roast, with citations.