A guide to mental health resources
- Rachel Bugge
- Aug 21
- 10 min read
I wrote up a very high-level overview from my experience with mental health interventions (gratefully, none of which have required hospitalization) as a favor for a friend of a friend. I figured this might be a helpful resource to share out more broadly, so I'm publishing here. For the sake of this write-up and addressing some previously stigmatized sentiments around mental health resources, I've referred to the variety of resources referenced as "interventions." I want to also highlight that this is not an exhaustive list, and of course, I'm not a licensed therapist or counselor in any manner. I've simply been through a lot of these things myself first hand and have consumed a lot of media surrounding therapy and counseling.
Intervention methods
Calling it types to manage expectations, but really there are different levels of interventions for mental health. Don’t be afraid or scared to identify yourself as something more serious than “mild.” If you’re starting your journey in the “mild” category, take pride in knowing you’ve put yourself on a preventative path and will reap the rewards for doing so.
If you’re not, know you’re not alone and it is not only acceptable to admit you’re not “okay,” but desired by your community - there is no shame in receiving medical treatment (whether that treatment is for cancer, anxiety, or skintags–what a blessing to be alive in a time with so many tools available to us!)
Severity of Mental Health Concern | Intervention Methods available | At-home management tools |
Mild Symptoms are <2 weeks at a time
| Talk therapy Counseling CBT |
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Moderate Symptoms last 2 weeks or longer:
| Talk therapy Counseling Psychiatric therapy (prescriptions) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Somatic therapy Art therapy Psychodynamic Therapy Trauma Therapy (EMDR, TRM) Group Therapy |
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Severe Symptoms can include those of Moderate concerns as well as:
| Counseling Psychiatric therapy (prescriptions) Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Trauma Therapy (EMDR, TRM) Group Therapy Out patient treatments In patient treatments | See above; Call 988 (or visit them online at https://988lifeline.org/) International readers can check out their help hotline here: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines |
Why might you seek out therapy?
The brain is a beautifully designed, endlessly complex, and unfortunately complicated organ. A lot of disorders have high rates of comorbidities, especially when untreated. I myself can speak endlessly on the unique Rube-Goldberg my brain created for the common scenario of unmanaged ADHD forming into anxiety, untreated anxiety begetting depression, and untreated depression manifesting into suicidal ideation.
Thankfully, we can treat that!
Below, I’ve listed a variety of more common mental illnesses for those who wish to do more digging. I'm not getting into antisocial personality disorders as that goes far beyond the scope I know and can support or speak to.
Anxiety disorders can be debilitating. These disorders include:
Generalized anxiety disorder
Social phobias (social anxiety in certain settings)
Specific phobias (agoraphobia, claustrophobia)
Panic disorders
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
As a personal note, my mother and I were both surprised to learn I did not have OCD when I went through a comprehensive neuro-psychological evaluation as a teen, but instead my generalized anxiety manifested itself in pristine and compulsive controlling behaviors.
Bipolar affective disorder
Depression
Dissociation and dissociative disorders
Eating disorders, including
Anorexia (restriction)
Bulimia (purging)
Binge eating disorder
Orthorexia (obsessive restriction with an emphasis on perceived “healthy” foods)
Paranoia
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Psychosis (delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia)
Depending on what you struggle with, there are many different treatment routes to pursue. My recommendation will always be to start by scheduling time with your General Practitioner while you wait to hear back from various other providers. What type of other provider(s) you’ll benefit from meeting with depends on your concerns and focus areas.
Your search for a therapist
The main resource I’ll recommend is Psychology Today. Therapy requires commitment. It takes commitment to make appointments and show up, and it takes additional commitment to bring yourself with full vulnerability ready to discuss the hard things. If you’re seeking out a therapist, evaluate how “ready” you are as you start your search. I personally have worked through things that I thought would take a few weeks (one small thing took 7 months of EMDR therapy). I have avoided addressing past traumas that I know will require years of effort when I was already battling more broad-stroke mental health challenges brought on by my active circumstances.
Figure out a goal for yourself: is there an immediate need to get you back to just being a human who can do their work, take care of basic hygiene? Are there circumstances out of your control that actively toll your mental health? Those scenarios should typically take priority over resolving past hurts (though the past often informs and shapes our present worldview).
In addition to sorting out a goal for yourself, identify any characteristics you might like in a therapist. I know I am much more likely to trust a female provider and be vulnerable in that setting than with a man. I also know I have been diagnosed in the past with ADHD and generalized anxiety.
For that reason, and others, I often search for faith-based female counselors who offer in-person and virtual appointments who specialize or focus on anxiety and depression with knowledge of neurodivergencies.
My recommendation is to identify a few goals and write them down, even if just to keep for yourself as you search for your therapist. If you are searching with your parents or a partner, you can feel free to share these alongside any other preferences you might have.
You might also be wondering: should I be searching for a counselor? Psychiatrist? What are all the various licenses and what do they mean for me?
I personally think for most cases (barring concerns of psychosis, paranoia, and bipolar symptoms) therapy and counseling should be sought out long-before psychiatric intervention. While I feel I lost almost a year of my life to my most recent battle with deep depression while in routine therapy, I am now able to say that I truly did everything I could do without prescription intervention. I knew without a doubt that I really did need something more to help change my brain chemistry. This was a dialogue I had with my therapist throughout the year of doing work with her in-session, trying to get outside every day for a minimum amount of time, investing in meal-kit services to ensure I was eating, taking COLD SHOWERS EVERY MORNING to try and defibrillate my brain, sleeping well, and meeting social goals I had for myself. I was still just barely surviving… lookup “functional freeze” in depression. Conversely, if you can’t imagine barely surviving and being so low-functioning, look up “high-function depression” and “anhedonia.”
Of course, that said, there are exceptions to every scenario and your community can help figure out what is best for you. Eating disorder patients are almost always going to be recommended to connecting with a dietician or nutritionist (n.b.: all dietitians are nutritionists, but not all nutritionists are dietitians). PTSD patients might be recommended for art therapy to help boost cognitive function and emotional-resilience. Group therapy is often available for a lot of specific needs.
Title | Licensing Required | What it means |
Licensed professional counselors (LPC) | Masters in their chosen field | Study individual psychology and human development |
Licensed mental health counselors (LCMH) | Masters in their chosen field | Study individual psychology and human development |
Licensed clinical social workers (LCSW) | Masters in their chosen field | Study social contexts that impact mental health |
Psychologists (PhD or PsyD) | Doctorate | Specialize in testing |
Psychiatrists (MD or DO) | Doctorate | Can prescribe medication |
TL;DR: Before starting therapy, it’s helpful to assess your readiness and clarify your goals. Consider what kind of therapist you’re most likely to work well with, along with any specialties (e.g., anxiety, ADHD, faith-based care) that matter to you. Writing down your goals and preferences can guide your search. In most cases, therapy should come before psychiatric intervention, unless symptoms are severe. And remember, treatment isn’t one-size-fits-all.
A note on in-person vs. virtual therapy:
In a post-pandemic era we all see great benefits to virtual meetings and appointments. While I cannot extoll the virtues of remote meetings enough for a corporate setting or for students and employees on the tail-end of a contagious infection, therapy is different.
Therapy, once you get into the routine and crux of it, is psychologically arousing (that is, psychologically activating and emotionally heightened) work. Doing this from home might feel convenient or comfortable, but I do not recommend long-term for the same reason scientists do not recommend working from your bedroom. Your brain will associate the place with the work. I, personally, don’t want to sit at my kitchen table with guests and have a conscious or subconscious change as I recall the time I broke down in tears and discussed a dehumanizing trauma or realized something fundamentally broken with my worldview.
What to expect when starting therapy
My general recommendations for anyone seeking out therapy for the first time is this: reach out to several providers at the onset of thinking you might want to meet with a therapist. If you’re struggling with anxiety, maybe asking a parent or partner to help you manage the outbound requests and responses can help filter through. Now more than ever people are often waiting for 6-8 weeks to get in with a provider.
On top of that, it takes a few sessions to figure out if you and your therapist are going to jibe. Unfortunately, the personal connection cannot be ascertained ahead of your second meeting.
Why not the first meeting?
Intake. The first appointment is always going to be intake. These can be emotionally taxing appointments. Any prep work you did on identifying your goals will help. Usually, this will be one of the first or last questions a new therapist will ask you. So what about the rest of this appointment?
It is not uncommon for a provider to start as nuclear as they can and work their way “out” through your life–i.e., starting with yourself before asking about your work, financial life (don’t worry, they aren’t going to judge you for not having 5 savings accounts and multiple retirement accounts, they just want to understand if financial stress is a driving stressor in your life), and living situation; moving to your family; then asking about your romantic and social lives, then any other stressors or factors that might be influencing the world around you. They have to get a general baseline of who you are and where you think you’re at before they can start to help work through any issue. The first session is always going to be the mental health equivalent to your nurse taking your height, weight, and vitals at the start of a physical exam: it’s just a base assessment.
Your provider should end the session (n.b.: your hour-long session is likely only going to be 45-55 minutes so they can document afterwards) with a note on their practice, a lightweight evaluation summary, and ask you about your treatment goals practically. Do you want to meet weekly? Are you hoping to leave therapy with a realistic goal? How can they partner with you to do that? Is there another provider they think might be better suited for your goals?
One key thing to note here is that these questions are also going to provide room for you to share your thoughts and feelings - did you like talking with that particular provider? Did you feel misunderstood, judged, or like you don’t trust them? While these things take time to build as with any rapport, noting how you feel before agreeing to book your future appointment is important.
Once you’ve found a provider you like to proceed past intake with, the second appointment varies from provider to provider. Some will jump right into suggested therapy methodologies depending on your need and their confidence in your case, others might continue to just offer talk therapy while building a relationship with you and continuing to evaluate the best treatment plans.
After a handful of sessions with a counselor in college, I walked in unsure what to discuss and if I really was getting anything out of the time spent. I’m not sure if she could sense my uncertainty or if she was just ready to progress, but she asked me one question about how emotions were displayed or managed by someone in my family growing up and I spent the hour rambling as I came to articulate all of the ways I was subconsciously shaped by the answer to her question. I walked out stunned and totally unaware that my brain was sleeping on some connections it seemed to already know subconsciously.
After a few months with a therapist after grad school, she suggested I try EMDR therapy. To this day I will extoll the virtues of this therapy methodology - while taxing, it is approachable and achievable.
On the flip side of evaluating a therapist/counselor we have to consider what you’re willing to bring to the table. I know I have many things I could bring to any appointment I walk into, but I know I need to focus my thoughts and be truly ready to dig into whatever I bring. And after a year or so with my faith-based therapist and working through EMDR for something that comparatively seems trivial, I was finally able to open up about some incredibly damaging traumatic events to her supervisor while my therapist was on maternity leave. Thankfully, my therapist took this as the indicator it was that I was not fully ready to talk about it, but needed to get it off of my chest and wanted to eventually address it. She was then able to work around it and guide me to sorting out supplemental concerns that led to the Big Bad Thing.
Closing thoughts
If you or someone close to you is displaying any challenging mental health problems, there are different methods you can use to approach and handle them. Mental health challenges can manifest in numerous ways, including anxiety, depression, mood swings, or behavioral changes, and they can significantly impact daily functioning and overall well-being. Understanding these complexities is the first step toward finding appropriate support and solutions.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this post is written based on my insights and experiences with therapy, counseling, and psychiatry. Each person's experience with mental health is unique, and therefore, the approaches to managing these challenges must be tailored to the individual's needs. It is essential to foster an open and non-judgmental environment where feelings can be expressed freely. Encouraging dialogue about mental health can help individuals feel less isolated and more supported in their struggles.
Finally, it is important to remember that recovery is a journey, often filled with ups and downs. Patience and persistence are key, as progress is rarely linear. Celebrating small victories along the way can help maintain motivation and hope.
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