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Many people experience stress, anxiety, phobias, fears or depression while grieving which may well affect their lives, but not result in them seeking treatment or displaying outwards signs of their problems. This doesn’t mean that either their problems are not real or that they need to get treatment, but just illustrates the fact that issues of mental health will affect most people during the course of their lives.

If someone has a mental health problems and need or want some form of help there are several options available.

Your GP should always be the first person to speak to when seeking further help for a mental health problem, as he or she will be able to either refer you on for further treatment or give treatment themselves. He may refer you on to a counsellor, therapist, or psychiatrist.

A counsellor is someone you can talk with to try to sort out your problems – often it is by working through the problems with someone else listening to keep you on track that you can find your own solutions.

A therapist tends to be more of a two way method of treatment – you will be able to talk about your problems and if you can find solutions to your problems, but the therapist will often give you tips and ideas of how to solve them as well – therapy tends to be more in depth than counselling, and will often look at the behaviour of a person in a particular scenario, or the way a person thinks about a certain topic. Although there are general therapists there are also specialised ones in areas such as music, art or drama, which can help people to express themselves through the different media in order to identify their problems.

A psychiatrist is a doctor specialised in dealing with psychiatry. They will be able to give a diagnosis if your GP can’t, and will also be able to refer you on to further sources of help, or give counselling or therapy themselves as required.

With all of the above, different techniques may be used to help the person deal with and cope with their problem

Should people who have help be treated differently?

No. Try to think of the mental health problem being a bug a person has got. The person may choose to go to their GP and get it checked out, they may need treatment such as medication for it, or they may choose not to and wait and see what happens – trying to use their own techniques to treat themselves, such as drinking lots of water, or resting for a few days. Would you say that the person who went to the doctor for help should be treated differently to the one who stayed at home? Of course not. Similarly people may choose to seek help, such as that described above, or they may choose to talk to friends or to try to solve their problems themselves. This may be by confronting fears, or equally, by avoiding situations which produce them. Both directions are valid, and people who do choose to seek help should not be treated any differently or discriminated against.

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