Make better mental health your resolution in 2023
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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 and life.
This piece will address a couple of critical questions you should remember as you start on the journey of self-discovery and better understanding of your mental health and who you are. Although you obviously won’t have all the answers, if you did, you wouldn’t need someone else to assist you.
Expectations
Often, people who come into therapy or counseling expect that I will have the cure-all for their issue. That is furthest from the truth. My role is to explore situations with my client and to pick up on patterns or processes to reflect with the individual. Then, when the time is right, we utilize various techniques and methods to help my client better understand how they responded and reacted to change how they might respond or behave in the future. It’s important to note there’s no guarantee that you are going to meet the expectations that you have in mind. Again, it’s a process, so we want to set…
