The Importance of Active Engagement for Mental Health Patients
Mental illness patients can experience severe isolation and a sense of hopelessness. Encouraging active engagement gives the patient ownership in their wellness and allows them to see the condition as something that must be managed. Mental wellness means more than simply medicating the disease, and active engagement promotes building a life that works alongside the management of the mental illness.
The Difference It Makes
The care that must be given early in the process of treating the mentally ill is crucial. If a patient cannot see the path to recovery more clearly at the end of the appointment when compared to the beginning, the session has been another roadblock. The patient must leave their first sessions with a psychiatrist knowing that their life can be healthy and whole while working through mental illness.
Ownership
If a mental health patient gets no hope from early sessions, they will take ownership by not returning. Sufferers of depression and anxiety can gain a sense of ownership in their treatment by structuring activities to promote social growth and mental flexibility. Isolation is hard for an ordinary, healthy person. Putting a mentally ill person in an isolated state can be deadly. Ownership also helps them follow through on treatment options when they aren’t talking to a counselor. While therapies like TMS are effective, they require follow-through to see results.
Off-Hours Options
A person suffering from mental illness can easily enter a crisis, and these crises seldom happen at a convenient time. To provide consistent support for mentally ill patients, it’s good to make an advice hotline available. Patients may be in need of a medication adjustment or simply be facing a challenging interpersonal issue that they need assistance working through immediately.
Following Up
Treatment professionals need to meet their own needs for time away from the office, so a client in a crisis may be under the care of another professional. When returning to the office, the professional should immediately check in with any patient who called the hotline to determine their status and schedule a follow-up appointment and assessment. The hotline can serve as a vital lifeline for a patient in treatment. However, it should not stand as a replacement for in-depth personal care, though.
The stigma around mental illness is slowly fading from society. However, appropriate treatment can be hard to come by for those who suffer from mental illness if early experiences were not supportive. Untreated mental illness and mood disorders can be life-threatening conditions if left to spin into a crisis.
