Professional mental health help can be a lifesaver

Professional mental health help can be incredibly effective, even though there is a lot you can do to improve your emotional health by yourself. Mental health counselling can bring clarity to a confusing mess of symptoms and problems, and can provide you with ideas and tips on how to fix those problems in whatever way will be most effective for you. This is especially true in times of crisis. Mental health therapy can also give you results much faster than you can do alone, particularly for serious emotional disturbances.

Often, people are apprehensive or cynical about seeking mental health help. Maybe you even tried it before and had a bad experience, or know someone who did - and sure, there are inept or unethical mental health professionals out there, but the whole field can't be judged based on them. There are also a lot of compassionate and caring people out there in mental health care who really know what they're doing and how to help people who are struggling.

What's available?

Professional help for emotional health concerns is available short-term or long-term, in crises or when you just want to work on a particular issue. In the past, long term therapy in which the client and therapist would go extremely in-depth was the most common and recommended, but now short-term action-oriented therapy has become much more of a viable option. Both approaches have their benefits and detriments – it depends on what you are looking for (and unfortunately, also on your budget).

One thing to keep in mind – there is a very wide variety of mental health help options out there, including both medication and therapy. In my view, medication has a specific and important place – correcting biological imbalances, and controlling symptoms so that you can get back on your feet and start to work through things and benefit from therapy. It's not a cure-all. Medication can be a life-saver for some people and some mental health issues, but this website will be focused on self-help and coping, since nearly everyone can benefit from learning how to cope better, whether you also take medication or not.

Therapy options

There many different therapy options, and therapists have many different degrees and qualifications, and use very different methods. The website GoodTherapy.org is a great resource on therapy and how to find a good therapist. It has a comprehensive list of types of therapy, and also provides an international directory of therapists who believe in collaborative and empowering therapy - helping you to become healthy, not just no longer be sick.

The bottom line when it comes to therapy is that it's your life and your mind, and one size definitely does not fit all. If you don't find a particular therapist or type of therapy helpful, shop around. This doesn't necessarily mean the therapist or type of therapy is bad or ineffective, just that you need to find something that really fits you. The relationship between the therapist and the client and whether the therapist's methods work for you can make all the difference between helpful therapy and a waste of time – it's worth the effort to find a person you connect with and an approach that you find useful.

For emotional health issues like anxiety, depression, and stress, the types of professional mental health help I consider most helpful are cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Both of these therapies emphasize learning specific skills that will help you to to change your thoughts and manage your emotions. Some of the information on this website is based on techniques from these therapies, adapted for self-help, so if you find this website helpful but need or want more support and more in-depth help, you could try looking for a cognitive behavioral therapist or a dialectical behavior therapist.

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