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Why Mental Health Is Equally As Important As Physical Health

The human brain is full of wonder and mystery. It is the organ allowing you to perceive, understand, and shape the world you're living in. It is even the last organ to shut down after death. With the centrality of the brain to human health and function, it is only fitting to treat its malfunction as a health priority without the unnecessary stigma.

Mental health is important to understand because it affects a significant portion of the population. Mental illness is also closely associated with other chronic physical illnesses, such as heart disease and diabetes. Even more, individuals with mental illness also have increased risks of physical injuries and death due to violence, accidents, and suicide.

Eliminating the Stigma

Amidst the recent cultural shift towards compassion, there persists a stigma against mental illness and addiction. Most people tend to consider those with mental illness and addiction as morally broken rather than as sick individuals who need medical attention. Relatively few people see mental illness as a disorder of emotion, thinking, and behavior with medical and scientific backing and legitimacy. Rather, some dismiss mental illness as a weakness or a result of poor life choices. This stigma contributes to the reason why many of those with mental illness refuse to go to the doctor to be diagnosed and treated.

Mental Health Counseling

If mental illness is to be accepted under the roof of traditional medicine, mental health counseling at clinics like Community Counseling Group should be treated like the typical, routine, physical check-up. Mental health counselors help healthy people cope with difficult life events such as death of a loved one, divorce, and other tragic events. Mental health counselors also help people diagnosed with mental illness to manage their condition. They usually implement cognitive therapy, but may also use other treatments if needed. In the past years, psychiatry has also made important advances, and practitioners have been working hard to integrate mental health care into the traditional health care.

Mental health skill-building, with the help of a trained counselor, can be extremely beneficial to patients with a history of mental illness. It teaches them to recognize the signs that something is going wrong with their mental health and learn coping mechanisms or ways to get support in these pivotal moments.

Handling the Costs

Great health care plans help patients pay the costs of mental health care, just like any other illness. But even in the absence of this help, there are resources within most communities to support mental health counseling and treatment. 


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