Do you feel sad, hopeless, fatigued, or even like life’s not worth living? Depression may not give you a fever, but it’s no less of a drain on your body than an actual, physical illness. In fact, it infects nearly every aspect of your life, making it harder for you to live as fully and vibrantly as you deserve to. Fortunately, help exists. Professional counselors are trained to handle depression. All you need to do is find “depression counseling near me.”
Before we get into finding depression counseling, take note: this advice only applies to people who aren’t at-risk for hurting or killing themselves or someone else. If you consider yourself a danger to yourself or someone else, please call the national emergency mental health line, 988, or go to a hospital.
What Is Depression?
Let’s be clear: regardless of whether you think you have depression or not, you should seek professional care if you’re noticing persistent sadness that lasts longer than 2 weeks. Likewise, you need to seek immediate attention if you start to notice hopelessness or thoughts of killing yourself.
Still, many people claim they have depression, but very few define what depression is. So, we think it’s helpful to separate out clinical depression from the regular mood swings we all get from time to time.
According to the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), people with depression exhibit these first 2 symptoms plus at least 3 more symptoms:
- A persistent depressed mood every day
- A decreased interest in activities the person once enjoyed
- Weight fluctuations, including a marked weight gain or weight loss
- Others noticing slowed thought and movement
- Experiencing daily, excessive guilt or feeling worthless or hopeless
- Reduced ability to make decisions and a lack of concentration
- Thinking about death, thinking about committing suicide without having a plan, or creating a plan to commit suicide
As you can see, depression differs from sadness quite a bit. In fact, depression can make it difficult for someone to get out of bed, perform daily personal hygiene tasks, etc. In some cases, depression even becomes terminal since it drives people to kill themselves. So, seeking out the proper care for depression proves crucial and might even save your life.
What to Look for in Depression Counseling Near Me?
When you’re looking for “depression counseling near me,” you need to know what to look for. If you run that phrase through a search engine, you’ll probably get a handful of counselors and centers to choose from. But because depression becomes so serious, you need to make sure you get the right form of care.
The first thing you need to look at is your provider’s credentials. Fun fact: anyone in the United States can legally call themselves a counselor, even if they don’t have training. We highly recommend that you don’t see anyone who has not received training in either counseling, social work, psychiatry, or psychology.
To tell the difference between the trained and the untrained, you need to know common designations that professionals use. Let’s break it down (please note that some of these designations differ from state to state):
- LPC – Licensed Professional Counselor. These professionals focus on providing talk therapy to people with mental health concerns.
- LPC-A/Intern – Note that “A” doesn’t refer to “advanced!” Instead, it refers to associates. These people have graduated with their master’s degree in counseling and passed the National Counseling Exam (NCE). However, they have not obtained full licensing yet. They need to complete thousands of hours with clients before sitting for the licensing test. Their work is supervised by a licensed person.
- Student Intern – These people are still getting their master’s in counseling. They have completed all of their core training and have been approved by their schools to sit in front of clients. In order to graduate, they need to see clients for a certain number of hours. Their work is supervised by a licensed person, and they operate at little to no cost.
- LCSW – Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Social workers focus on connecting people with resources. And not all of them do counseling. However, they are authorized to do talk therapy.
- Psychiatrist – These professionals go through medical school and choose to focus their practice on treating mental health concerns. In most cases, they’re the only people who can prescribe medication, and they might not perform as much talk therapy. In fact, many people see a psychiatrist and an LPC for depression counseling. Psychiatrists usually have an MD.
- Psy.D. – Doctor of Psychology. This doctorate degree focuses on training psychologists to be mental health practitioners. Most psychologists focus on research, but these people often treat clients.
Do you want to find several different kinds of mental health professionals? PlushCare allows you to find counselors and medical professionals and see them online. And, if you sign a release of information form, your mental health carers can talk to each other to form the best treatment plans!
Insurance
Mental health care has a reputation of being expensive, and for good reason. Many therapists charge upwards of $100 just for a single session!
However, the cost of therapy varies based on whether the provider takes insurance. If you have health insurance, check to see whether your plan covers mental health services. If it does, look for counselors in your area who work with your insurance to lower costs for you.
But what if you don’t have insurance plans? You have 2 options here. The first, private pay, proves expensive. If you choose this, you have to pay for the mental health services at your appointment or get on a payment plan.
On the other hand, some counselors offer sliding scale pay. This means your income will determine how much you pay. As you can probably guess, this is a great option for people who don’t have insurance but still need affordable therapy.
Find a therapist who accepts your insurance at Talkspace! After all, Talkspace accepts a majority of major insurance providers.
Accessibility
Sadly, many therapists need to improve the accessibility to their offices. If you have trouble driving to your appointment, look for a place closest to a bus or subway stop.
Even if you can drive, you should call your therapist and ask how to get into their building if you have mobility issues.
Finally, you’ll want to look for an office near you if your depression prevents you from wanting to leave the house for a long period of time.
If you have Wi-Fi, though, you might want to take advantage of online sessions! With online sessions, you have the chance to connect with a qualified professional from the comfort of your home. That way, you won’t have to think about transportation and you won’t have to worry about navigating the office’s layout. Plus, you won’t have to push the boundaries of your mental health in order to attend your session.
In particular, we recommend Cerebral. When you sign up for Cerebral, you’ll fill out some information that allows you to match with the most qualified professionals to treat you.
Care for Yourself in the Meantime
Depress sometimes proves a serious and even fatal condition. Even though mental health professionals want to help you, they’re sometimes busy, and you might have to wait to get into them. If you want something to help you take care of yourself, see our self-help checklist!
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