Daniel Reyes 
The Phone Number That Could Have Saved a Trip to the ER Most Americans, when faced with a mental health care crisis at home, have exactly two phone numbers in their head. They call 911, which usually dispatches police and an ambulance, or they drive their loved one to the nearest emergency room. Both responses are blunt … Read more
Marcus, a 38-year-old software engineer in Denver, Colorado, did the math one Sunday afternoon and the result startled him. He had not had a one-on-one conversation with a friend, in person, that lasted longer than thirty minutes, in nearly fourteen months. He had a wife he loved, two kids he adored, colleagues he liked, and … Read more
Marisol Reyes had been searching for a therapist in Houston for nearly four months when her sister-in-law mentioned a name. Marisol, a 38-year-old Mexican-American mother of three, did not want a counselor who simply spoke Spanish. She wanted someone who understood why she could not bring herself to set a boundary with her mother without … Read more
Sergeant Matthew Briggs had been out of the Army for seven years when he finally admitted he was not okay. The 41-year-old former infantryman in Colorado Springs had tried the VA twice. The first appointment was canceled after a six-week wait. The second came through, but the assigned counselor had never deployed and asked questions … Read more
Hannah Bergstrom’s HR rep told her, with cheerful certainty, that her Aetna HMO was “great coverage.” Hannah, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Minneapolis, took her first therapy job seriously. She found a clinician who specialized in postpartum mental health. The clinician was excellent. The clinician was also out of network. Hannah called Aetna to … Read more
Maya, a 34-year-old graphic designer in Portland, Oregon, sat in her therapist’s office holding a wedding invitation she had not opened. Her younger sister was getting married in Charleston in six months, and Maya already knew she would not attend. The decision had taken three years of family estrangement therapy to reach. Her father, a … Read more
The Screen Between You and Your Therapist Two years ago, the idea of having a therapy session from your living room felt strange to most Americans. Today, millions of people cannot imagine going back. The pandemic forced a massive experiment in mental health care delivery, and the results surprised even the skeptics. For many conditions, telehealth works … Read more
Priya Ramanathan made twenty-three phone calls in two weeks. The 34-year-old graphic designer in Sacramento had just been diagnosed with PTSD after a traumatic motor vehicle accident, and her trauma therapist’s intake coordinator had told her to find an EMDR-certified clinician on her Blue Shield HMO. Twenty-three calls — twenty-three voicemails, full inboxes, “not accepting … Read more
Priya was thirty-four, an associate at a corporate law firm in Houston, when she had what she was certain was a heart attack on a Wednesday afternoon at 4:18pm. She was in her office reviewing a draft contract when her chest tightened, her hands started tingling, her vision narrowed at the edges, and her heart … Read more
Priya Ramaswamy, a thirty-four-year-old graphic designer in Minneapolis, came home from a five-day inpatient stay with two pages of discharge paperwork and a recommendation that she enrol in either “the day hospital program at the medical centre” or “a PHP through her insurance network.” She spent most of an afternoon trying to figure out which … Read more