> Such as when people just discard mental health issues as "just matter of will" ?
I am very much aware of mental health issues as I am healing trauma, self harm in one way or another (internalized anger and even rage). I am healing a childhood of abuse and neglect. Lots of broken people in my family, generational trauma from the wars, I believe.
You're talking about ignorance. But it's better for people to understand inter-dependence then. Telling them they have no freewill will only meet resistance. Inter-dependence, ultimately, reaches the same conclusion.. but it can help develop a sense of connection and warmth to life. In theory I can see that for some people "no freewill" implies as much and is obvious but I suspect for most, it's not obvious that "no freewill" means "we are all one".
What is generally misunderstood about mental illness is the mechanism of dissociation. Dissociation goes hand in hand with suffering, and is behind much of the news of the world everyday.
From my experience healing trauma, I'd wager most mental health issues are related to an imbalance between the left and right brain hemispheres (cf. Ian mcgilchrist "the divided brain" for a lot of research on that). The left hemisphere deals with narrow attention and the "map" of the world. When traumatized, our nervous system is overwhelmed. Somehow, it causes a shift where we live life predominantly from the left hemisphere, because mind provides an illusion of safety through a known world. Why this happens I don't know.
This is dissociation at work. This is why dissociated individuals act in what seems completely irrational ways. They are acting from a map that has become their reality.
I make this connection because since doing trauma therapy, massage and yoga... last couple years... I started to "fall" sometimes back into silence. (edit: i should mention also, that "integrating" is a key aspect of trauma therapy which incidentally means.. to be with present experience.. the direct opposite of dissociation). It's as if the body starts feeling safe enough, to say, ok... no need for right hemisphere right now. This shift is not something you control directly. The individual needs to feel safe for this to happen AND somehow I think you also need the curiosity, the desire to fall into the silence because of exhaustion... you have to be really exhausted with thinking.
> And doesn't the idea of "free will" also do harm ?
Yes but it goes hand in hand with the materialist paradigm we are in. Our entire society is based on the notion that we exist, independently, as separate entities. That "oneness" is merely a feel good thought.
And honestly i don't know what the next paradigm is. It's a very peculiar question... we are wired quite clearly in our brains to experience life as individuals. Our conceptual mind inevitably sees cause and effect (its is after all said to be "dualistic").
Thats why I think right now the next big step forsociety is to undestand trauma, understand that it is the nature of suffering, that addiction and dissociation goes hand in hand. That dissociation is actually rampant in our society and unconscious developments in technology can become a further support to dissociate which doesn't help at all..