Mental Health Moment: Mental Health Terminology

TRANSCRIPT

Go ahead and get started here. Hello everyone. My name is Chante Meadows. I am founder and owner of Meadows Counseling Group located in Columbus, Ohio, where we provide individual couples and family therapy. Also training around clinical issues, mental health issues, and how they intersect with multiple areas of life. So that is Meadows Counseling Group. If you are ever interested in learning more about Meadows counseling and our services, please visit our website at https://www.meadowsllc.com. That is Meadowsllc.com to learn more about myself as well as our services.

So today is Monday, May 9 and May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And I said I was going to go live every Monday in this month. So that is why I am here with you all in this lighting. I just for whatever reason can't get right today. But it is what it is. Almost also, I just got back from the gym. So doing my mental health self-care thing as I actually went to the gym today. So I'm super excited. That does not happen often. But I am trying to do better to take care of myself as well as I'm trying to help others take care of their selves. So I'm excited I did get to go to the gym today.

So today, so like I said, in May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I said I was gonna go live every Monday in May I won't be before you long, these will not be long videos, because they're just supposed to be little helpful tidbits for you to take with you. And to watch and not take up a lot of time. Just want to provide some information. The goal of these videos is to help remove any barriers, any any barriers, any confusion, anything that will stop you from accessing mental health services is really what my goal is in doing these mental health is my passion and advocacy and awareness and raising more wellness, awareness, getting people to get to live their best life, whether it's healing or growing, or talking someone thing out, people not feeling like you're alone, you have to just do life on your own. So yeah, that's what we're gonna that's what the purpose of these mental health moments on Mondays are. And last week, if you did not catch it is it's available on metals counseling, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn if you want to catch last week's last week, we talked about insurance. The key takeaway about insurance is make sure you know what your insurance is pay attention when you get your plan, pay attention to co pays deductibles. And biggest thing is don't let insurance be a barrier. That may mean spreading out your services looking at HSAs FSA IDs. That may mean using a credit card. But the biggest thing is don't let insurance be a barrier. Make sure you are if you need help and seek treatment, there's a way and don't let insurance be that barrier. So that's the key thing you can watch last week if you need to.

Today, I just want to come and talk about terminology. Because one of the other confusions that a lot of people are like okay, well, who do I go to? How do I find a lot of us therapists and a lot of us clinician in the field, we have the alphabet soup behind our name. And that can be confusing and trying to figure out who was the best? Or who's you I have to see. Is everyone a doctor? Or what does this mean? So I just wanted to kind of help hopefully clear up a little bit of that confusion. And let you know when you're looking at websites and when you're looking at profiles of potential therapists or places. What is it when you hear these terms? Right now you hear coaching a lot you hear. You'll hear psychology, counseling therapists, all these different terms. And what do they all mean?

I'm going to start with coaching. Let's start with coaching. Typically, coaching is a person they can have a certificate in coaching. They have sometimes there's levels of degrees. Behind coaching, there's different degrees. There's lots of different types of coaching, there can be wellness, coaching, nutrition, coaching, spiritual coaching, you can have a business coach. So there's different types of coaching. The thing about coaching nine out of 10 There is not a mental health diagnosis attached to coaching. There is not a mental health diagnosis attached to coaching. So most coaching, they're pretty. They're there to help guide with a specific purpose, a goal in mind and they are helping process through that goal. They're helping with recommendations, options to help you think through it. Coaching is not typically covered by insurance. So coaching is usually out of pocket. So it's private pay amount, usually when you find a coach, so that is not something insurance typically covers all the time, every now and then you can have a job that will help you with executive coaching. And that's learning how to be a manager or learning how to be a supervisor, you'll occasionally have companies that will sometimes help with that. But more often than not coaching is Hey, Stephanie, more often than not coaching is not attached to a mental health diagnosis, coaching can be very helpful coaching can be very specific. So if someone's like, well, I don't really feel like I'm depressed or I'm anxious. But I want to talk through these next steps in my life, that want to just talk through what I don't necessarily feel like there's a lot of emotion coach, finding a coach is a great way to do that.

Also, remember, with coaching, there's not a diagnosis attached. So it is also because insurance is not involved. It's a lot more freedom sometimes offered in coaching. But the hard part is coaching is often private pay so that how much that can cost can probably go anywhere from probably $40 to 1000s of dollars. There's a range in coaching out there, but that's what coaching is, more often than not a mental health diagnosis is not attached to it. But it can be very helpful and insightful to get coaching.

Let's talk medication and psychiatry and psychiatric nurse practitioner. So those who prescribe medication in our field, our psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse practitioner, so I psychiatrists, psychiatry, they have an MD. So they have gone to medical school, and they prescribe medication. A psychiatric nurse practitioner is a nurse practitioner, so they are nurse, but they specialize in mental health and prescription medication. More often than not, but not always. Psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners don't typically do counseling and therapy. They are specific to kind of like a doctor's appointment, you come in, you talk about symptoms, what's going on. And from that assessment, they prescribe medication, they'll probably follow up with you three months, six months, kind of make sure that medication is going well. But more often than not, who does the prescribing are psychiatric nurse practitioners in psychiatrists. So that sort of level. We've got coaches, we've got psychiatry, we've got psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychiatric nurse practitioners in psychiatry do typically take medication, how I mean that medication insurance, however, there's a lot of them who are also private pay, because the rate that insurance aren't going to pay psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatry, they don't feel like that rate is enough. And so you will find some that are at a private pay rate. So you just kind of got to search around.

Next up, okay, let's take a look at cheese meal. I guess I just got back from the gym. So I'm also still trying to catch my breath. So counselors, therapists, psychologists, what's the difference? So actually, you have there's probably four professionals who are in the therapy counseling business, you have a counselor. And actually there's more if you get it, there's a counselor. There is a counselor has a counselor, a mental health counseling degree. So those are people you'll see like LPC or LPCC, behind their names. Those are counselors. Then next up, you can have social workers. I am a licensed clinical social worker. So you'll see LCSW behind people's names, you'll see li SW, I use those and I use therapists because my within my social work framework, I specialize in mental health, and I provide mental health therapy. So you'll also sometimes see psychotherapist, and that's because there's different types of therapy, meaning like, you know, you could have physical therapy so when people are like what type of therapist, I'm a mental health therapist, so but I'm a licensed clinical social worker. So what you usually see behind my name is Li SW or LCSW means they're a licensed clinical social worker, that person specializes in mental health. So you have your counselors you have your LPC yo PCC, you have your social worker, your li SW using your LCSW So then next you have your marriage and family therapist, your MFTs so behind their names, you'll see if MFT or MFT. They are Marriage and Family Therapists even though marriage and family therapist is behind their name. They can provide individual but they do specialize in couples and family. So MFT specializes in couples and family but you can also see an MFT for individual as well. And then you have your psychology, your psychologist, and very often for psychologists they call themselves psychologists and psychologists have a PhD more often than not, there's a few master level psychologists working in the field, maybe doing a set Smith's and things of that nature or working in schools, but psychologists very often call themselves a psychologist. And so, but at the end of the day, whether you're seeing a therapist, a counselor, a psychologist, or you're seeing someone who is an MFT and LPC LCSW psychologists, like I said, it's alphabet soup.

Regardless of who you're seeing, we all for the most part, provide individual therapy, individual counseling, they provide couples or family. Now, the biggest thing to note for yourself is who's a good fit? Who works best. So don't honestly I tell a lot of people don't get caught up into the alphabet soup behind people's name. You more than anything, when you were looking for a counselor, or you're looking for a therapist, you want to go online and see that they have a website, read their website, some people have profiles on like therapy for black girls or Psychology Today, or you can Google them or there's all these other sites, you want to go read their profiles, see what you can see about them. But don't get caught up in the alphabet soup, behind people's names and what's all behind the names.

Now all of us we did work hard to get those letters behind our names. But as far as you're concerned, in terms of what you're looking for, you're looking for good fit someone that you feel like you can really connect with and share your journey your story with that is going to help you get to that place of growing it helped me get to that place of healing, to wherever on the journey you're trying to get to live in your best life, you're looking for that good fit, don't get caught up in the alphabet soup. Um, things you'll see sometimes also differences. If you look at your insurance, you're gonna see behavioral health and mental health. I said this last week, they're the same thing. And so you're looking for behavioral health.

Now, all of us even though we can provide individual couples and family you want to look to people have specialties now specialties come in a few different ways are specialties and come and diagnosing meaning someone can specialize in trauma, someone can specialize in family issues, women's issues, you can specialize in a diagnosis, or you may specialize in a treatment. So I am EMDR trained, which is a trauma based therapy I have trained in sex therapy and a few different modalities. I been to through cognitive behavioral therapy, training, those are specialties. So you can also look for someone if there's a specialty that you're looking for, that you feel like will work best. But what I really will say is give whoever you're getting ready to work with don't get caught on their specialty either. You really want to see is this person a good fit for you. So there but there could be different specializations.

The biggest thing I wanted you all to learn and take away is there's going to be all these names all these things. More often than not insurance will cover all the mental health therapist. You hear mental health, you hear she was a term mental health, you hear us use the term mental illness. Health is health, meaning it's our mind behavioral, emotional health, that is our health. Mental illness usually means there is a diagnosis attach that diagnosis could be anywhere from depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, those are the, quote illness. And those always come on a spectrum. But just knowing these terms, do not let these terms become a barrier Do not get so caught up. Oh, and I have to see. And I have to see a marriage and family therapist that specializes in a Mago therapy, be careful of getting caught up in those things. Not saying that because it worked before because this worked for my friends or I get that but you really want to find what works for you. And the only way you're really going to get that is through having a conversation and building some form of relationship with whoever it is that you're going to speak with. Like I said, my goal of these Monday moments is really just to remove any confusion, any barriers, try to answer questions around why people sometimes have problems accessing services, kind of like well, what does this mean? I don't know. That is really my goal. And these Monday more