Summary: Mental health treatment is worth the effort for anyone of any age with any diagnosis because mental health treatment can improve overall quality of life and help resolve problems with family, friends, partners/spouses, and at work and school.
Key Points:
- Mental health treatment is professional support provided by licensed psychiatrists, therapists, counselors and others with specialty training for the treatment of mental and behavioral disorders.
- Psychotherapy, counseling, medication, medication management, and lifestyle changes may all be part of mental health treatment.
- High quality treatment centers offer comprehensive, holistic programs that address all areas of life, with plans tailored to meet individual needs and diagnoses.
- The sooner a person who needs mental health treatment gets the treatment they need, the better the outcome.
Evidence-Based Treatment for Mental Health
We’ll clarify something right away. Mental health treatment is worth the effort when qualified professionals offer evidence-based modalities in situations that are safe, supportive, and promote a positive treatment alliance between patient and provider.
In this article, we’ll offer seven (7) compelling reasons mental health treatment is worth the effort. First, though, we want to clarify two more things:
- Getting help for a mental health or behavioral disorder is no different than getting help for any physical problem you might have. The difference is the type of doctors and clinicians you see, and the type of treatment you receive. Mental health treatment involves more talking – i.e. psychotherapy/counseling – than most physical problems. Like many physical problems, though, treatment often involves medication and some changes to you daily habits and routine.
- Mental health treatment works. Compared to receiving no treatment at all, professional support can reduce symptoms and improve general health and wellbeing.
What we want you to take away from these two things is that getting treatment is a logical thing to do – get sick, see doctor – and may be exactly what you need: effective treatment for the specific problems you face.
Mental and/or behavioral health treatment can help a wide range of disorders, challenges, and/or diagnoses.
Disorders and Diagnoses Mental Health Treatment Can Help
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD)
- Suicidality
- Personality disorders
- Psychosis
- Behavioral problems
- Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
The way professionals support people with the conditions/disorders above depend on the diagnosis and circumstances unique to each patient. Your treatment program will contain different elements, determined by what you need. If you have ADHD, for instance, your plan may involve practical skills to improve organization and follow through. Whereas if you have depression, for instance, your plan may involve developing skills to process uncomfortable and disruptive emotions. The same is true for each diagnosis: the contents and goals of your treatment plan depend on features unique to your diagnosis and aspects of your life unique to you.
Our Top Seven Reasons Why Mental Health Treatment is Worth the Effort
Without further ado, here’s our list.
1. Reduce Symptoms
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth discussing. In some cases, you may not recognize that some of the ways you think, feel, and behave are symptoms of a mental health disorder. Symptoms common to many mental health disorders include sadness, hopelessness, despair, withdrawal from friends or family, isolation, anger, irritability, problems concentrating, and difficulty managing powerful emotions.
If you feel sad all day every day for two weeks or more, you may think to yourself, this is just how I am – I’m a sad person. However, what you may be – rather than a sad person – is a person with major depressive disorder. Mental health treatment is worth the effort because it can help you process those feelings of sadness, and learn that with help, you may not be sad every day.
In the same way, you may feel anxious, on edge, and irritable or angry all day most days. And you may think to yourself, this is just how I am – I’m an anxious and angry person. In this case, we’d suggest that what you may be – rather than an anxious and angry person – is a person with an anxiety disorder. Menta health treatment is worth the effort because you can learn to manage your anxiety, and develop skills to reduce the anxiety, irritability, and anger you feel.
Therefore, we place symptom reduction at the top of the list because in some cases, you may feel like you are your symptoms. When you get mental health treatment, you can learn to develop the skills that allow you to be who you want to be and live the life you want to live, rather than a life defined by the symptoms of a mental health disorder.
2. Improve Daily Function
When we say improve daily function, we mean across all areas of life. We’ll start with practical things you need to do every day. In some cases, a severe mental health disorder can prevent you from accomplishing those basic tasks, such as attending to personal hygiene, getting dressed, and eating regular meals.
Mental health treatment can help you regain those skills.
In addition, a severe mental health disorder, in some cases, can prevent you from going to school and academic accomplishment and/or prevent you from going to work, acquiring job skills, and maintaining gainful employment.
If you’re having trouble at work or school, mental health treatment is worth the effort because it can help you get back to school, back to work – or get you to school and work for the first time – and back to living life on your own terms.
3. Reduce Stress
In this context, reducing stress means learning practical techniques that can help right now and at any moment in the future. Different techniques work for different people. For some, reducing stress may mean learning simple breathing exercises derived from mindfulness. For others, it could mean learning yoga or meditation. And for others, it may mean exercise, playing music, or engaging in a hobby. During mental health treatment, your treatment team will work with you to find stress reduction techniques that work for you and meet your needs.
4. Develop Coping Skills
In some ways, coping skills and stress reduction techniques overlap. In this context, we use coping skills to refer to the way you process strong, overwhelming, or painful emotions. Mental health treatment is worth the effort because you can learn how to identify, experience and process – which means move past in healthy and productive manner – the types of emotions that may be completely debilitating, and make it impossible to even get out of bed, much less get out the door and go to work or school.
5. Improve Relationships
When you research the things that can promote successful mental health treatment, one thing you learn is the importance of having a robust social support system. This means you have a group of well-intentioned people around you to whom you can turn when you need someone to talk to, someone to spend time with, or someone to do an activity with.
However, when you have a mental health disorder that disrupts relationships and makes establishing meaningful relationships difficult, mental health treatment is worth the effort. A mental health professional can help you learn the essential components of healthy communication, conflict resolution, and setting personal boundaries that can transform a difficult, rocky relationship into one that’s enriching and fulfilling.
This may mean relationships with your family, your friends, your coworkers, and your spouse/partner. During treatment, the important people in your life may participate directly in the process, either in educational workshops, family therapy, or shared therapeutic activities. Evidence shows that when the people in your life know what you’re going though, they’re better able to offer support, and when you have a robust social support system, you increase the likelihood of successful treatment.
6. Improve Overall Wellbeing
With reduced symptoms, improved daily functioning, reduced stress, effective coping skills, and healthy, supportive relationships, you increase your likelihood of improving your general health and wellness, i.e. your overall wellbeing. You also increase the likelihood of meeting the criteria for good health established by the World Health Organization (WHO):
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the stress of life, can work productively and contribute to their community.”
Mental health treatment is worth the effort because your mind, emotions, and relationships are as important to your health as your physiological systems. When you work to improve your mental health, you work to improve your health in general.
7. Prevent/Reduce Long-Term Negative Consequences
When mental health disorders go untreated, the consequences can be serious. The most serious consequences of untreated mental health disorders are premature mortality and suicide attempts. Premature mortality related to untreated mental health disorders means death before the average/expected age of death for people without a mental heath disorder, and a mental health related suicide attempt means what it sounds like: when the symptoms of a mental health disorder cause a person to attempt to end their life.
Additional consequences of untreated mental health disorders are also serious:
- Reduced/declining self-esteem
- Self-medication with alcohol or substances
- Self-harm, i.e. non-suicidal self-injury
- Escalating mental health symptoms
- Increased isolation
- Decreased self-efficacy
- Impaired achievement at work or school
- Inability to go to work or school
- Problems making and maintaining meaningful relationships
- Increased instances of chronic illness and disease, such as cardiovascular disease and hypertension
That’s the end of our list, and we think it contains powerful reasons to consider engaging in mental health treatment, if you have a mental health disorder, or to recommend mental health treatment to a friend loved one who’s not convinced – yet – that mental health treatment is worth the effort.
What Happens During Mental Health Treatment?
The treatment you receive depends on the problems you have and the challenges you face. A treatment plan for severe anxiety would be different than a treatment plan for mild depression, which would both be different than a treatment plan for moderate ADHD, for instance.
However, most mental health treatment plans have common components, which are worth repeating here. Treatment most often includes:
- Psychotherapy and/or counseling, one-on-one, group, and/or family. The most common modes include:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
- Trauma-informed care, for people with PTSD/history of trauma
- Motivational interviewing (MI)
- Internal family systems therapy (IFS)
- Medication:
- Antidepressants
- Anxiolytics (anti-anxiety medication)
- Antipsychotics
- Mood stabilizers
- Complementary support:
- Lifestyle changes, i.e. healthy eating, sleep hygiene, exercise/activity, stress management
- Education about mental health and mental health treatment
- Yoga, mindfulness
- Peer support groups
Although all of the above may seem like a lot, and the idea of treatment may seem overwhelming, we believe this:
You can do it.
Don’t worry. You won’t do all of the above, all at once. You’ll take your treatment and recovery one step at a time, day by day. You work diligently, make and meet core goals, consolidate your progress, and move on to you next set of goals or challenges. You have your treatment team – and your family, if appropriate – by your side the whole time. They help you manage the tough days, and celebrate your successes and breakthroughs as you navigate your life in recovery.
We’ll allow the experts at the World Health Organization have the last word, and explain, in their words, why seeking evidence-based mental health treatment is worth the effort for you, your family, and your community. When one person heals, we all heal – and we all benefit – including you:
“Mental health is fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, emote, interact with each other, earn a living and enjoy life. On this basis, the promotion, protection and restoration of mental health can be regarded as a vital concern of individuals, communities and societies throughout the world.”
