Luxury accommodation on Rhodes, sun, light and a holiday mood as a remedy for mental illness – a video on Instagram, with which Cathy Hummels wanted to present her “Strong Mind Retreat” project and advertise it to her 688,000 followers, led to the past week plenty of negative reactions. Followers were outraged, the tone in the comment columns was angry to stunned, critical comments and considerations in the media, including in the SZ. And those affected also felt more mocked than understood – the German Depression League was appalled and accused Hummels of “banally referring to sunlight in the case of the serious illness depression and thus advertising their company”. The videos from Hummel’s company “Events by CH” suggested that depression was “only a brief phenomenon” that could be “conjured away with the sun’s rays”.
Now Cathy Hummels has deleted the corresponding video and apologized – on Instagram. “It was in no way my intention to downplay the depression,” she writes. In her youth, she herself suffered from severe depression and apologize if those affected by depression or other mental illnesses felt hurt. Rather, you wanted to draw attention to the topic: “That’s exactly what we need: AWARENESS” – the communication of their concern was “not always successful”.
According to studies, one third of all Germans are affected by mental illnesses at least once in their lives, and around twenty percent of Europeans suffer at least temporarily from depression. But the topic of mental illness is still surrounded by a high level of taboo, although the number of diagnoses is increasing, the number of unreported cases is still high. According to World Health Organization surveys, around three out of four Europeans suffering from depression do not receive adequate treatment. On the other hand, experts have repeatedly pointed out the downside of “awareness” on social media: The mental health discourse runs the risk of trivializing mental illnesses via text panels reminiscent of calendar slogans on “mental wellness” and could become a competition to outdo it.