You deserve to live a healthy and happy life. Unfortunately, our mental healthcare system is frequently confusing. This page aims to be an entry-point that answers some basic questions from my dozen years as a patient.
Disclaimer: I am only a layperson, so please take this guide with a grain of salt and trust your expert care team more than me.
I assume most readers already have an idea of this question, suffice it to say that tending to your mental health can pay off with long-term growth and thriving. You can have happier days and be resilient to misfortune. For a lot of people this takes work, though.
Fortunately, there are many ways you can improve your mental health. Getting good sleep, exercising, walking, practicing mindfulness, eating well, and spending time with friends or family are all great self-care tools, among many others.
For more serious issues that are harder to address on your own, there are a myriad of professionals who are trained to help. You can think of these in terms of what techniques they use.
One way to categorize mental health professionals is by whether or not they are allowed to prescribe medicine.
Medical professionals primarily use medication, but may also offer talk therapy. These include psychiatrists (usually an MD or DO), nurse practitioners (some flavor of NP), and physicians’ assistants (some flavor of PA). Working with these practitioners, you’ll usually have one long intake appointment, and then recurring, shorter medication management sessions.
Your primary care phsycian may be able to help with mental health concerns as well, but they typically only deal with simple cases of depression and anxiety, referring out for more complicated stuff.
Nonmedical mental health professionals typically use variations of talk therapy, where you will have an intake and multiple follow-ups that run around an hour. Ideally, you will eventually graduate from therapy, but this can take a while if you have a lot to work through.
Psychologists usually hold a PhD or PsyD, and have the most training in this category. Unlike psychiatrists, psychologists are not medical doctors and are usually not allowed to prescribe medicine.
There are also various types of social worker (like an LCSW), counselors (like an LPC), and therapists (like an LMFT), who all generally hold a master’s degree. Most of these practitioners will be qualified to provide talk therapy, though they may have different approaches.
Finally, you may run into specialized professionals, like an art therapist or music therapist, though I don’t know much about these.
This is, of course, very dependent on your situation. One place to start is to search out a therapist, social worker, psychologist or the like through word of mouth or any of the online aggregators (Psychology Today is one that I’ve used). You can also use your health insurance directory or simple web search. If you don’t have insurance, look for providers who work on a sliding scale for more affordable options.
Ideally, a therapist etc. (or even your primary care physician) would be able to recommend whether you should also seek out a medical professional like a psychiatrist to explore medication. That said, if you suspect it would be helpful, you may be able to schedule a psychiatry appointment without a referral. Use the same search methods as for a therapist.
In general, when you’re evaluating your options, you want to consider the things that are important to you, e.g., how convenient is the practitioner’s location and availability? Do they accept your insurance? Do they offer virtual visits? Would you rather see them in person? Do you resonate with anything in their bio (if they have one)? Would you rather see someone who is attached to a nearby medical center or would you rather a smaller practice or solo practitioner? These are questions you can answer for yourself over time.
Mental health is incredibly personal, so it’s natural that mental healthcare would be too. To be an effective team, you and your provider need to work well together. This is sometimes called the therapeutic alliance or healing power of the relationship.
If you’ve given your provider a chance and still don’t have a strong relationship, it is completely reasonable to seek another one. Your existing provider may be able to help you with this, or you can use the above techniques for finding a new one.
Obviously, when you’re in need, it’s not easy to find and screen a bunch of practitioners. In my opinion, it’s totally reasonable to start with whoever you can get in to see, and dial in the perfect fit over time.