People with untreated mental illness incur excessive costs for other medical conditions. Providing Real Mental Health Care is the Right Thing to Do Without an informed public, real mental health care will never happen. These elements are like the 3 legs of a stool, if one is missing, real mental health care falls down. Each person needs the right kind of care, at the right time, for the right length of time. Patient choice, privacy, autonomy, and decision-making power are especially critical for effective treatment of mental illnesses and addictive disorders.
Treatment aimed only at symptom relief is wholly inadequate .
The goal of treatment is to maintain normal mood and help you achieve your highest functional, intellectual, and emotional capacities. To have real parity there must be no more discrimination or fake parity . Without real parity there is no real mental health care . Mental illnesses and addictive disorders and emotional problems should be treated the same way as physical illnesses are treated. Access to mental health professionals should be immediate and direct, just like access to family practitioners, internists, pediatricians, and OB-GYN physicians.