Gordon Flett

That will shift population health.

First of all, it's important to point out that there's now about 10 studies that have shown that mattering is associated with the poor health in terms of self-rated, but also objective measures.

But I look at it in terms of how many people are out there feeling marginalized and feeling unimportant in society.

We know that community research done with surveys of children, United States that when asked, do you matter in the community?

about half of the young people say, I don't matter in the community.

And then it's worse if there's other forms of marginalization or stereotype or stigma.

So LGBTQ kids, it's about only one in three say I matter in the community.

And I said, until we address that as a basic indicator, we're going to see all kinds of problems emerging through either depression and mental health or some of the more violent episodes that are there.

And it doesn't take a lot.

That's what frustrates me about why we don't have more of a prevention mode.

It doesn't take a lot to go and change and give somebody a sense of mattering in society.

One person can literally change somebody's life in terms of this.

And we need to do this broadly.

And I had a colleague who was talking about, she sat in on a proposal for a giant resilience project and they were getting millions of dollars to do this.

She sat there listening and said,

They've covered every construct in psychology except mattering, self-regulation, mindfulness, and just generic talk about resilience and just saying, you know, if mattering was prioritized, that this would address so much of the issues that are there in terms of the mental health.

Because I do believe that, you know, not mattering can make you susceptible to these problems.

But also, if you feel like you don't matter, it's going to impact the course of recovery once you have such.

And that's why I talk about in terms of the healing power of mattering, the importance of having mattering centered therapy relationships as well, or sites that are dedicated to getting everybody feel like they matter.

It frustrates me because a little bit could go such a long way.