Some emotional pain — like heartbreak or taking a risk and failing — can help us to learn and grow. But much of it is unnecessary: prolonged low mood, imposter syndrome, crippling social anxiety. This is the stuff that detracts from, rather than adds to, life's richness.
At Spill, we believe the solution to unnecessary emotional pain is already here — it just hasn't been evenly distributed yet. This isn't like the challenge of how to cure cancer, which still requires a lot of research, time and brainpower to crack. Counselling and therapy have existed for over a century, and have been shown time and time again to dramatically increase emotional stability in as little as one or two sessions, and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety as successfully as antidepressants
The demand for mental health support is there: 87% of people in the U.K. said that mental health interfered with their ability to cope with normal life in some way. And the supply is there: with 38,000 counsellors and therapists currently working in the U.K., ten hours of therapy time are technically available for every working-age adult every year.
So why isn’t everyone doing therapy? In short, it’s kept behind waiting lists, buried away on hard-to-reach phone lines, and stigmatised by the entrenched view that it signals weakness. Spill is determined to help everyone get the emotional support they want (or need) by making it everything it’s currently not: easy to access, designed to actually be used, and 100% unintimidating.