As our business has grown, I am constantly asked why the mental health needs in the community are in such dire need that we need so many therapists. I thought I would address that concern in this blog.
There are many reasons why the need has increased. One of the first reasons is that insurance covers the cost of needing to see a mental health professional. You don’t have to have chronic, debilitating mental health issues to seek out mental health services. Most insurance companies cover the cost with the exception of a deductible until your overall deductible is met and then they cover the entire cost.
The stigma for going to see a therapist has also contributed to the increase in therapy needs. It’s not uncommon to share with someone that you struggled with an issue and are now seeing a therapist regularly. It’s usually met with support as well as a revelation that they too have been seeing a therapist.
People are realizing how helpful and beneficial it is to see a therapist. Stress rates decrease, communication in marriage, with co-workers, and friends is more effective, and the list goes on and on. Finding someone to listen to you for an hour with no interruptions and solely focused on your needs is a rarity in our society unless you are seeing a therapist.
The list of reasons is exhaustive but the last one I usually cover is that anxiety is at an all time high in our society. The expectations we put on our children at the school age level has increased exponentially. We have reduce the amount of time our youth spend in face to face interaction with other children and teens. This has a bearing on our kids.
As adults, the anxiety over getting everything done to the social media standard is exhausting. Not only are we working more hours, but also our kids are now engaged in far more activities that require us to be out of our homes until late in the evening. If you have kids in club sports, then your weekends are also taken up. That leaves very little down time to process the week’s events much less your emotions.
With all that increased anxiety, we are also seeing high rates of increase blood pressure, heart attacks, ER visits, etc. Our physical health is taking a beating and the costs for health care are increasing, not to mention the deaths of young people to heart attacks.
My hope is that people continue to see the benefits of therapy and schedule themselves an appointment, not because of the increase of business, but because of the increase in the overall health of our community.
I believe with more access to mental health services, we will see decreases in suicide rates, decreases in mass shootings, decreases in divorce rates, decreases in heart attacks, and the list goes on and on.
My goal in growing our business is to reduce wait lists for mental health care. If you are having a crisis now, you don’t want to be told the wait list is 3 months or more. My second goal is to provide quality mental health care services and choices. Having the right clinician makes all the difference in improvement.
This year, give yourself the gift that will aid you in many ways, schedule an appointment and make it a self-care priority.