Forbes magazine dubbed it, “America’s Shadow Pandemic.” As hospital emergency rooms flooded with COVID-19 patients, mental health issues took a toll on millions of people across the United States. Social isolation, economic uncertainty, and other stressors cause a sharp rise in symptoms ranging from depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, just to name a few. These issues have been especially pronounced in children and young people, who have had their worlds turned upside down.
It’s not just an attention-grabbing headline. The American Psychological Association conducts a survey every year called Stress in America. The 2020 edition found that 78% of adults reported the pandemic as a “significant” cause of stress in their lives. Approximately 20% of adults reported their mental health was worse last year than at the same time in 2019. The survey revealed Generation Z adults, born from 1997 onwards, were the most likely to feel symptoms of depression.
Stress is ubiquitous. And while demand for mental health services skyrocketed, some interesting lessons have begun to emerge which could benefit the profession and our clients in the future.
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1: Mental Health Services Should Focus on Solutions
Mental health services are becoming more accessible than ever. Gone are the days when clients would come to our offices, lay on our couches, and answer our questions for an hour at a time. There are so many different methods and modalities, which means there really is something for everyone. Talk therapy. Art therapy. Music therapy. Couples’ therapy. Family therapy. There are so many different ways we can connect with different types of people experiencing different types of issues, which means we can be sure to find a treatment solution for each individual.
We can also meet people where they are. The outbreak of COVID-19 proved that mental health services can be effectively delivered in a range of ways: in person, over the phone, via teleconference, in the early morning, after hours, and on weekends. We collectively discovered we can even conduct sessions online or while social distancing and wearing face masks. Mental health professionals across America have jumped in the deep end, gotten their hands dirty (so to speak), and come up with creative and practical solutions to ensure services are delivered.
Telehealth is undoubtedly here to stay, because it allows people to access mental health support from the safety and comfort of their own homes. It increases flexibility and means providers are able to serve wider geographical areas without having to worry about lengthy commutes. This will play a key role in lessening the divide between metropolitan and rural Americans in the years to come.
This commitment to getting the job done, no matter how challenging the circumstances, is an important lesson we should all hold onto for many years to come. It puts our clients first and ensures they can access the support they need because they know we’ll find a solution that fits.
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2: Mental Health Services Are More in Demand than Ever
America has mental health care deserts. We know this to be true. An estimated 115 million Americans live in Health Professional Shortage Areas, as designated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration. On top of that, by 2025 it’s expected that there will be shortages of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors, in the workforce.
The language is dramatic. On June 19, 2020, the National Alliance on Mental Illness published a press release that stated: “America’s mental health crisis is exploding during the coronavirus pandemic.” Of more than 83,000 polled in a survey at the time, nearly half were experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression. Women, Black, and Latino Americans were most likely to be affected.
Interestingly, researchers noted that many more people have been mentioning anxiety and depression in calls, even if they don’t have a pre-existing diagnosis of mental illness. This indicates that the pandemic has been causing new populations to experience mental health issues. Early data suggests that the severity of these mental health issues is unchanged; however, the sheer volume of new people being affected by serious mental health issues is an ongoing cause for concern.
Increasing demand during the pandemic has revealed two key lessons:
- We need to invest in training the next generation of therapists.
- We need to work smarter to ensure we deliver services efficiently.
It will be some time before we know the long-term effects of COVID-19 on mental health. For example, will these issues resolve once more people are vaccinated and the threat of transmission reduces? Or will they cause ongoing effects that will take time and treatment to resolve?
As the dust settles, education will remain vital so that people who are struggling are able to seek help. Prospective clients must know about the range of options available, and the flexibility of services, to ensure they can connect with a provider who can help them heal.
Want to dive in deeper? Here are some statistics every therapist should know.
3: Technology is Changing Mental Health Services Forever
Crisis inevitably sparks innovation. COVID-19 has sparked millions of great ideas in sectors as diverse as housing, finance, medicine, technology, and the quality of internet memes.
As far as the provision of mental health services is concerned, the development of HIPAA-compliant video conferencing systems will change the way we do business forever. However, it’s not the only technology that is set to shake-up the mental health services delivery for 2021 and beyond.
Ravel Mental Health is an online booking platform that is set to become the go-to scheduling tool for American therapists. It’s designed to help private mental health practitioners connect with new clients, streamlining the process of finding someone who is the right fit with a set of comprehensive and inclusive filters. For example, say a teenage boy is struggling with his sexual identity and wants to see a provider who specializes in LGBTIQ+ issues, all he has to do is apply the filters. Or say a Muslim woman is experiencing anxiety and panic attacks and she wants to see a Muslim woman with experience treating these issues, she can generate a list of providers straight away.
Once a client finds a practitioner who suits their requirements, they can check their availability and select a spot in their schedule with the click of a button. This means they no longer have search high and low for a list of potentially suitable therapists, only to call or email them all and risk being knocked back because they don’t take the right insurance or they have no availability. It puts the client first right at the very beginning of the process, acknowledging the courage it takes to ask for help and making it easy for them to access the support they need as soon as possible.
The lesson here, of course, is to look for technological solutions that make it easier to deliver mental health services and to always keep working on new ways to improve outcomes for clients.
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