Your mental health and behavioral health is just as important to take care of as your physical health. Mental illness affects thousands, and unfortunately most do not seek or receive proper diagnosis and treatment for their disorder. These conditions are nothing to be ashamed of, and should be treated properly with care and attention.

What is Mental illness?

Mental illness is a health condition that has the ability to affect your thinking, emotion, and behavior. It can happen to anyone, in fact, nearly one in five U.S. adults experience some type of mental illness throughout their lifetime. Mental illness can be hereditary, triggered by stress, or a large life change and can make it hard to function in social, work, or personal settings. Luckily, mental health is treatable. Depending on the type of mental illness, some may require more attention and treatment than others. With the correct type of individualized psychiatric care, a treatment plan can be instituted to give a patient the most effective support.

depression

What is it?

There are many types of depression that can occur, ranging in severity and effects. Some common types are:

What are the symptoms? 

How do we treat it?

Many that suffer from depression may feel like the illness will never go away, but luckily, depression is something that can be treated. While the road is not easy, with hard work and focus this illness can be tackled. Treatments in depression vary. Many people experience success with the combination of therapeutic sessions and medication, but there are non-drug approaches to curing depression.

Talk therapy: sometimes referred to as 'psychotherapy', can be used to help treat cases of mild depression. In a talk therapy session, you will sit down with your therapist and discuss what led you to eventually seek help. You may be asked questions about your personal life, including your family and relationships, goals and achievements. After listening, your therapist will give you his/her analysis on your case, and eventually offer suggestions on how you should go about treating it. There are several types of well-researched, effective talk therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Medication: Brain chemistry has been intimately linked to depression. For many people with more severe cases of depression, talk therapy is not enough to solve the problem. In that case, antidepressants can be used to realign the brain imbalances. There are many variations of antidepressants, but they show similar results. You will most likely see improvement within the first week or two of taking the medication, but could take up to 3 months to see full results.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Treating depression with TMS offers patients a unique opportunity to deal with depression symptoms without medication or side effects. NeuroStar TMS Therapy, offered at our offices, is the first non-systemic and non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation device cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with major depression who have not benefited from prior antidepressant treatment. NeuroStar TMS Therapy uses highly a focused, pulsed magnetic field to stimulate function in targeted brain regions offering these important benefits:

anxiety

What is it?

The word itself is a large umbrella term that covers a plethora of subcategories of anxiety. Symptoms can start to mold into a more specific type of anxiety. Some common types are:

What are the symptomS?

How do I know if I’m having an anxiety attack? An anxiety attack is different than getting worried about an upcoming event. When you have a panic attack, you will notice these symptoms:

If you believe that you are having an anxiety attack, try to acknowledge the fact that it is only a panic attack and it will eventually end. Make yourself comfortable and try deep breathing. An anxiety attack is only your brain sending a message to your body that you should be scared.

How do we treat it?

With help, anxiety can be treated. There are different types of therapy methods that can diffuse these negative, worry-some thoughts that cause stress and unhappiness. Just like depression, treatment can vary. Since anxiety is an umbrella term, someone may be experiencing multiple types of anxiety and treatment may take longer than expected. Some typical anxiety treatments are:

Talk therapy: Sometimes referred to as ‘psychotherapy’, can be used to help treat cases of mild anxiety. In a talk therapy session, you will sit down with your therapist and discuss what led you to eventually seek help. You may be asked questions about your personal life, including your family and relationships, goals and achievements. After listening, your therapist will give you his/her analysis on your case, and eventually offer suggestions on how you should go about treating it.

Medication: Medication can be used to help treat anxiety disorders, and is considered generally safe and effective when used with therapeutic sessions. There are many variations of anti-anxiety medications, but they show similar results. You will most likely see improvement within the first week or two of taking the medication, but could take up to 3 months to see full results.

Eating Disorders

What is it?

Some common eating disorders are:

Anorexia Nervosa: someone with anorexia will start obsessing over their body weight and image, and in return will starve themselves until they are dangerously underweight. They may eat extremely small quantities of food that they believe will not add weight to their bodies. The result of starvation can cause anemia, infertility, brain damage, organ failure and even death.

Bulimia Nervosa: this eating disorder will cause someone to eat an unusual large amount of food, followed by an episode of regret that ends in induced vomiting, laxatives, fasting, or excessive exercise. The fear of their body weight becoming out of control causes this need for ‘compensation’, resulting in shame and guilt. Bulimia can severely injure the body because of the stress put on internal organs.

Binge-eating Disorder: people that repeatedly binge-eat may be looking at an eating disorder. Binge-eating disorder is similar to bulimia, but is not followed with the ‘compensation’ part. Someone that has this eating disorder will have consistent periods of excessive eating, causing them to eventually become overweight or obese.

How do we treat it?

While eating disorders differentiate based on the type, their treatment is similar. With talk therapy, a psychologist or therapist can help get to the bottom of the eating disorder. In these sessions, you may talk about your life stresses and beliefs about food and the human body. Medications are often effective as part of the treatment.

Bipolar Disorder

What is it?

What are the symptoms?

There are two different types of episodes that occur when someone has a bipolar disorder:

-       Manic

-       Depressive

How do we treat it?

Bipolar Disorder is a very serious mood disorder, and because of that, should be handled very carefully. The objective is to get the disorder under better control, so the moods and episodes can be handled. Treatment plans usually consist of talk therapy and a combination of medication. Though bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness, with proper treatment it can be successfully managed.

Medication: Mood stabilizers can be used to keep mood swings under control. This can help dissipate the extreme highs and lows that come along with the manic and depressive episodes. Antidepressants are used to control the depressive phase, realigning the patient’s brain chemistry.

Talk therapy: Talking out the problems and stresses that come along with bipolar disorder is a great way to gain support, education, and guidance. Some of the treatments that can be used are focused on family and cognitive behavior, helping the patient come to terms with the feelings within their highs and lows