I don’t know if this belongs in the forum or not…
But what options are there for psychological treatment if one doesn’t have the money to spend on a personal therapist?
Depends on the problem.
But tons of problems have mutual help groups, usually 12-step based. They’re free. At least the good ones are.
Of course, if you’ve got disorders like bipolar, schizophrenia, or severe depression, your chances of being helped solely by such groups are not great.
Might gain some insight or make some connections thru them, though.
It depends on where you are but there are also research studies where you get free care and maybe even a small amount of money. I was a subject in a study in which the idea was basically to give us a combination of the best treatments available and see what happens in the long term. There are a lot of those in the Boston area.
I second the idea of 12-Step meetings and support groups. There are more of those out there than you ever dare to guess. I find them at least as effective as talking to a $100+ hour therapist.
I don’t know what the issue is for you but it could be that the main person you need to see is a psychiatrist. They sometimes have sliding scales of payment. If you have Bipolar Disaorder, schizophrenia, or major depression for example, you can talk to people all you want but it won’t get completely better until you have some medical intervention.
I am not a doctor but I have been through hell and back over the last few years trying to get my Bipolar Disorder under control. Things are way more under control (most people call it normal) than any time in my adult life. Consider this an informed opinion.
You don’t say where you are, but many areas have county mental health departments. Some offer counseling services on a liding scale. Look in the blue pages of your phonebook under health/mental health.
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has affiliates in all 50 states. The members tend to know how the local mental health system works; call their local contact number, or go to a meeting. They don’t bite.
It really depends on what you are seeking treatment for. In this area, the “sliding scale” places (run either by charities or governmental agencies) employ only LPCs and phsych students. If you have problems that need more than a few months or are beyond the scope of these counsellors, you may find you are out of luck.
I gave up after about two years and I can’t even remember how many schools and agencies, always getting told that my problems were too deep-seated and long-standing for them to be able to tackle. And it wasn’t even like I was schizophrenic or bi-polar or anything like that - I just had alot of anger issues from being physically and emotionally abused by my parents. Surprisingly, what “cured” me was when my father died and my mom suddenly had an epiphany, apologized, and truly worked on changing her ways. But I wasted a lot of years letting that anger ruin me, and I still wish I could have gotten some help dealing with it.
On the other hand, my son got some excellent drug counseling at a clinic that was totally free (and it was free to anyone, it was not simply sliding scale) and run by our county. I feel like they saved his life, in fact.
If you live close to a teaching hospital with a psychiatric residency, or to a university with departments for social work or psychology, you might contact them and ask about their affiliated clinics. Those usually have sliding scales.
These have the disadvantage of frequent changes as the training doctors and therapists move on. But they also tend to have enthusiastic young clinicians who are versed in state-of-the-art research, supervised by professors with years of experience. For some types of problems, this could be just what’s needed.
I also heartily second all the suggestions previously posted. There is a lot of help out there.
Ragiel, M.D.
Psychiatrist.