Mental Health Care Research Paper

In my life I have gone through and witnessed many different events involving mental health care. Several members of my family have problems with anxiety and depression. There are many problems with the current mental health care system. Even though I live in a relatively affluent area with access to many doctors and hospitals, it is difficult to find mental health care providers who have available appointments and take insurance. Some people, even in 2017, think of mental health as unnecessary or expensive. However, as we can see from the news, problems in mental health are affecting many communities throughout the United States. We need to improve our mental health care system so that more people can get the care that they need to improve …show more content…
Mr. Henderson, FCPS psychologist, states that even when mental health care is available, not everyone will take advantage of it because of cultural norms in their communities. They might not even feel it is necessary to help their child. He might suggest therapy for a family, but then the family will not follow through. For example, in Asia where many cultures value conformity to norms, mental illnesses are often stigmatized and seen as a source of shame (Module 2). In Module 2 it stated that there was a study that showed that some Chinese-Americans would not want to marry and have children with a person with a genetically caused mental illness. Even so, there is more interest in finding out who needs help. However, some people believe that if teens are asked about their feelings and emotions they will become more distressed and actually get ideas from the questions that will lead them to become suicidal or just become more depressed …show more content…
Also, people need to be educated about the benefits of mental health care so they can be more likely to utilize what is available. Mr. Henderson believes that students today have a lot of stress from tests and from social media, so the need among this age group is particularly important. 16.9% of high school students seriously considered suicide and 8.4% of students attempted suicide in 2005 alone (Friedman). Mr. Henderson has also observed cases where students had barriers to receiving treatment such as the high cost of treatment, a lack of insurance coverage, language barriers, and long wait lists for treatment. In another example, the number of young people in Ontario, Canada, visiting a mental health professional nearly doubled in the two years from 2006-2008 (Agrell). There seems to be mounting evidence that mental health care is important and access needs to be increased and participation