How Do I Know If I Need Professional Mental Health Treatment?

Summary: You may need professional mental health treatment if your symptoms disrupt, impair, or prevent your ability to participate in the basic activities of daily life.

Key Points:

Mental health disorders exist on a continuum, from mild to moderate to severe.
All levels of mental health disorders can benefit from professional treatment.
The best way to determine whether you need professional mental health treatment is by arranging a full psychiatric assessment administered by a licensed, qualified mental health provider.
Most treatment plans include a combination of psychotherapy, medication, and changes in some lifestyle habits

Clinical Mental Health Disorders: What Should I Look For?

To understand whether you need professional mental health treatment, it’s important to understand the most basic signs and symptoms associated with clinical mental health disorders identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Volume 5 (DSM-5). While each diagnosis listed in the DSM-5 has its own, specific set of diagnostic criteria, many symptoms overlap between various disorders.

We adapted the following list from information provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Warning Signs of a Clinical Mental Health Disorder

Extreme mood swings: recurring high highs and low lows
Persistent, excess worry or fear
Persistent sadness or low mood
Constant irritability/anger
Frequent outbursts/tantrums
Confusion
Problems concentrating
Difficulty learning new things
Problems with memory
Decline in work or school performance
Withdrawal from friends and family
Loss of interest in favorite activities
Problems with relationships
Changes in sleeping and eating habits
Significant changes in sex drive
Experiencing hallucinations or delusions
Problems connecting to personal feelings/feeling disconnected from self
Misuse or disordered use of alcohol or drugs
Phantom pain/physical discomfort with no identifiable cause that doesn’t respond to typical treatment
Inability to handle stress, change, or difficult situations
Inability to manage powerful emotions
Problems engaging in basic daily activities, such as personal hygiene, eating, or getting out of the house to go to work or school
Suicidality: talking about, thinking about, planning, and/or attempting suicide

Important note:

Never ignore suicidality of any kind. If you or a loved one is at imminent risk of harm, call 911 or go to the emergency room immediately. Do not wait. If you or a loved one is in crisis, but not at imminent risk of harm, call the national emergency crisis line at 988.

If you’re concerned about your mental health, and wondering if you need professional mental health treatment, review the list above. The presence of some of those symptoms some of the time is common: as we all know, experiencing psychological and emotional difficulties and/or challenges is part of life. However, when the items on the list above recur frequently – a common benchmark if every day for two weeks or more – then it may be time to consider seeking a full psychiatric assessment.

The Most Common Mental Health Disorders: How Common Are They?

When we report on mental health disorders, the primary reason we include prevalence data is to remind everyone who has a mental heath disorder, or thinks they may need professional mental health treatment, about this one fact:

You are not alone.

Here’s how the experts at NAMI describe the implications behind that simple sentence:

“Millions of people are affected by mental illness each year. Across the country, many people just like you work, perform, create, compete, laugh, love, and inspire every day.”

What that means is that if you have a mental health disorder, you may need professional treatment for mental health, but you can gain confidence and hope by understanding that evidence-based treatment can work, and that it’s likely you know someone with a mental health disorders who’s successfully engaged in treatment and learned how to manage their symptoms.

In fact, treatment can be effective for all the mental health disorders we know about, from the least to the most common. The most common mental health disorders include:

When the people at NAMI say millions of people are affected by mental illness, they’re not speaking figuratively: literally millions of people have mental health disorders, engage in treatment, and live a full and productive life.

Here’s the latest mental health prevalence data, as published in the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2023 NSDUH). We’ll start with the big picture statistics, then list prevalence by diagnosis.

Prevalence of Mental Illness: Adults 2023

Total, 18+: 58.7 million
Young Adults 18-25: 11.5 million
Adults 26-49: 30.3 million
Adults 50+: 16.9 million

Prevalence of Serious Mental Illness: Adults 2023

Total 18+: 14.6 million
Young adults 18-25: 3.5 million
Adults 26-49: 8.2 million
Adults 50+: 2.0 million

That’s the general data. Now let’s look at the past-year prevalence – i.e. had diagnosis in past 12 months – among U.S. adults, by disorder:

Anxiety Disorders: 51.5 million
Major Depressive Episode: 22.1 million
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: 9.3 million
Bipolar Disorder: 7.2 million
Borderline Personality Disorder: 3.6 million
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: 3.1 million
Schizophrenia: under 1%: 1.0 million – 2.0 million

We’ll take the time to reiterate the fact that if you have a mental health disorder and think you need professional menta health treatment, there are millions of people who can relate: they have a mental health disorder to, and according to the latest data, around half of people with any mental illness get professional treatment, and close to 3/4^thsof people with serious mental illness get professional treatment.

I Think I Need Professional Mental Health Treatment: What Happens During a Full Psychiatric Evaluation?

In many cases, when people arrange a full psychiatric evaluation, they’re nervous about sharing personal details about their life and their family.

However, it’s important to understand that all your personal medical information, including anything you share about your family medical and/or mental health history, is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). In other words, it’s illegal for a healthcare provider to share your health information – meaning anything at all about history, diagnosis, and treatment – with anyone at all without your consent.

It’s also important to understand that during a biopsychosocial evaluation, it’s all about you. You’re the focus and the center of attention. Every detail your provider collects can help them arrive at an accurate diagnosis, make the proper referral for care, and enhance the specificity of your treatment plan, if you decide to commit to treatment.

Here’s a run-down on the types of information a mental health professional will collect during a comprehensive biopsychosocial evaluation/assessment:

Biological Info:

Medical history
Family medical history
Mental health history
Current physical health issues

Psychological Info:

Current symptoms, problems, or issues
Past symptoms, problems, or issues
Family mental health history
Current or past psychiatric medication
Stress/stressors happening now
Stress/stressors/trauma in past

Social Info:

Functional ability, present time
Home situation, present time
State of personal, family, and work relationships, present time
Gender expression/sexual expression
Past family dynamics
Past trauma
Level of educational attainment
History of work/employment
Risk factors, present time
Protective factors, present time

During a biopsychosocial assessment, a mental health professional may go further and ask questions about spiritual and/or cultural factors that may have an impact on your mental health. Here are the types of things they may ask about:

Spiritual/Religious Life:

Your religion or connection to spirituality
Level of participation in religion/spirituality
Protective factors associated with spiritual/religious life

Cultural Background:

Your primary culture, i.e. your family/childhood/developmental cultural milieu
Your current level of identification with that culture
Norms associated with mental health and mental health treatment
Protective factors associated with your cultural background/tradition

After a biopsychosocial evaluation, a mental health professional can arrive at a formal diagnosis and refer you to a specific type or level of care. If you receive your evaluation at a treatment center that offers the level and type of care you need, then you may begin to collaborate with your provider to formulate an individualized treatment plan that takes everything above into account, with the addition of identifying your personal goals for treatment.

Do You Need Professional Mental Health Treatment?

If you’re still unsure whether you need professional mental health treatment, we encourage you to take one of our assessment quizzes.

Note: The results of these assessments are indications of symptoms. They are not a clinical diagnosis. Only a qualified healthcare professional can diagnose mental health disorders.

Once you take the quiz, call us to schedule an assessment with one of our mental health professionals: when you’re ready, we’re here to help.

Angus Whyte

Angus Whyte has an extensive background in neuroscience, behavioral health, adolescent development, and mindfulness, including lab work in behavioral neurobiology and a decade of writing articles on mental health and mental health treatment. In addition, Angus brings twenty years of experience as a yoga teacher and experiential educator to his work for Crownview. He’s an expert at synthesizing complex concepts into accessible content that helps patients, providers, and families understand the nuances of mental health treatment, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes and quality of life for all stakeholders.