Make better mental health your resolution in 2023

Aaron Matthew Laxton, LCSW
6 min readDec 31, 2022
Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash

The incidents of mental health crises and destabilized mental health throughout the United States is at all-time highs. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI):

  • 21% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2020 (52.9 million people). This represents 1 in 5 adults.
  • 5.6% of U.S. adults experienced serious mental illness in 2020 (14.2 million people). This represents 1 in 20 adults.
  • 16.5% of U.S. youth aged 6–17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016 (7.7 million people)
  • 6.7% of U.S. adults experienced a co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness in 2020 (17 million people)

Simply put, the last few years have been super hard for a lot of us. As we think about resolutions, our first thought may be a gym membership. However mental health therapy and counseling may be a better and longer-lasting benefit.

What has caused you to seek out mental health support therapy or counseling? Oddly, something in your life was symptomatic of a more significant issue. As a result of that, or maybe at the encouragement of friends or family, you took that considerable step to seek help and let somebody else into your private thoughts. Congratulations on taking that first step in improving your overall mental health…

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Aaron Matthew Laxton, LCSW

I am a psychotherapist who writes about mental health, addiction, recovery and the impact of substance use from personal experience. Views are my own.