Mental Health Services Are Here To Help

Mental health services can cover a wide variety of needs. Therapy for traumatizing events or counseling for marriages and even premarital counseling. The deep toolbox of mental health services has many tools for giving a helping hand to those in need.

Children are one of the world’s most guarded groups of people. Their minds are impressionable, and easily shaped by traumatizing events. Many children, around 10 percent in the United States between the ages of 3 and 17, have undergone some form of professional treatment and or mental health counseling. Their mental scars can run deep into their adolescent and even old age. Erik Erikson, a developmental psychologist, has stated five out of eight key stages of a person’s life happen in one’s childhood and their young adult life. This can lead to serious mental disorders, like in the United States where one out of 7 children between the ages two and eight, are diagnosed with disorders ranging from mental, developmental and behavioral. Furthermore, without access to proper mental health services, one might find themselves abusing illicit drugs or psycho-therapeutic medication like in 2002 when 13 percent of Americans 12 years of age and up did. That number has risen to 13.2 percent of Americans by 2012, equating to 4 million Americans falling victim.

Counseling can be valuable mental health services. Think of it as a kind of manual for yourself. Like in the case of marriage, one might seek couples counseling to strengthen one’s marriage or to preemptively avoid the nasty pitfalls that might naturally or unnaturally occur when two people live together for any given time. Even before marriage, premarital counseling has been used as a valuable tool to ensure both parties feel comfortable with their decision. In fact, the likelihood of divorce has shown to decrease by 50 percent when premarital counseling was utilized, according to Scott Braithwaite a psychology professor attending BYU. One would assume it is thanks to the opportunity to iron out details and feelings before the prospect of marriage, rather than contributing to the 50 percent divorce rate seen in the United States. The divorce rate is seen to be at its peak in the first three to four years, while couples who have been married for longer, around 12 years, get divorced.