It's hard to accept advice from non-teachers and non-practitioners who just show up with this opinion. The real work of meditation comes from learning to observe the deep rooted fault lines. Eventually we arrive on the other side. No need to torture ourselves though. Balance.
If you read the paper he linked, it's pretty weak. I don't know how you can possibly establish causality (although they attempt it).
It's just as likely that someone who is experiencing distressing mental problems will turn to meditation as a solution
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176239…