Therapy is for the rich and wealthy. It’s most certainly not for anyone who needs help but doesn’t have the money for it. This is a pivotal issue. The mental health struggle is shared among all classes and races, not just the rich. This phrase was commonly used as a joke but there’s always some meaning behind the joke. Sadly, this is our truth about our reality.
Finding a good therapist alone is of difficulty, now on top of the fact that their price is usually too much for the lower or middle class. It’s a shame because it can really work wonders on people. It’s like having to jump through hoops to get the help we need or want. Frankly, I can see how some may view therapy as a scam. Even when we have saved every penny to attend therapy, we don’t even get the full hour or two. Instead, they charge you for every forty-five minutes. Those are the most expensive forty-five minutes of your life.
It’s an issue because the people who need the most help can’t afford it. Those people continue to live their lives in pain, agony, and misery. Imagine for instance, that you’re in need of help, you were just diagnosed with a mental illness, so they also want to put you on medication. The challenge here lies in the fact that requires even more money to be spent. Money on a psychiatrist to prescribe you the medication that’s supposed to help make your life a little more liveable and bearable. Then you have to fork over more money for the actual medication. Keep in mind these aren’t one time fees. Medication is probably a monthly expense, whereas however often you see a therapist or psychiatrist will vary. If someone seeks therapy once a week every week that could get very pricey. Even seeking therapy monthly could be expensive and probably not as helpful as going maybe every two weeks. Rates can vary anywhere from $90-$200, it’ll depend on how experienced they are.
There are various situations in which it could make it difficult to get therapy and get it for an affordable price. Perhaps someone doesn’t have health insurance, so they are unable to find proper help. Maybe they have health insurance but their health insurance doesn’t cover mental health. Another plausible situation is that their health insurance includes mental health but all the available therapists in their area are out of their coverage, aren’t taking new clients, or their prices are still too high after the insurance. One could even decide to find a way to get the money later and just put it on their credit card every time, racking it up into a debt that they can’t escape later on. There are so many roadblocks getting in the way of taking care of our mental health.
The lower and middle class can’t just start therapy, they have to save money for therapy. The healthcare caters to the rich and wealthy. Ironically enough, the lower and middle class are more likely to develop mental health problems. There’s evidence that supports the correlation between the lower the socio-economic class is, the more susceptible those people are more at risk of damaging their mental health. It’s a vicious cycle for them since they’re not getting the help they need, their needs are being pushed down further and further which deteriorates their mental health even more from being frustrated that they can’t go to therapy.
Of course, there are free mental health resources available but in this case, you really do get what you paid for. I say this because those free services typically only offer general talk counselling and not any other forms of therapy that a licensed therapist is able to provide, such as CBT, DBT, and other types of psychotherapy.
Society treats mental health and physical health completely different from one another. For one, everyone treats physical health as a priority, more important than mental health. This may be due to the fact that it’s easier for the naked eye to see physical pain, like a broken arm. While it’s not as easy to see mental health problems. If society treated mental health just as important, then change could come about. Even sick days at school and work don’t necessarily acknowledge mental health sick days, this would be a good place to start making a change in the healthcare system. People often feel remorse for calling out of work or school for a mental health day, to hit restart or refresh on their brains to rest and reorganize their thoughts. More people need to take mental health days.
Therapy is treated as a luxury when it should be treated as a necessity. They don’t treat it that way till it’s too late. It should be treated just like a broken arm or any other physical injury. Just because you can’t physically see the scars and pain, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and won’t kill them. Till someone with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or any other mental disorder puts themselves in the hospital or commits suicide. That’s just too long to go without help.
