Elena, a 38-year-old freelance UX designer in Austin, left a salaried role at a software company in March to go independent. She had been managing generalized anxiety with weekly therapy at $25 copays and a low-dose SSRI. Six weeks into self-employment, her COBRA continuation premium for the same plan ran $749 a month for individual … Read more
Karen from Buffalo had been dreading October since college. Every fall the same pattern would arrive on the same schedule. She slept twelve hours and woke up exhausted. She craved bread and pasta and chocolate at quantities that did not match her summer self. She gained eight to fifteen pounds between Halloween and St. Patrick’s … Read more
Mental Health Parity Is the Law That Most Patients Do Not Know They Have Federal law has required most health plans to cover mental health care at the same level as medical care since the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act passed in 2008. The law was strengthened by the Affordable Care Act, which extended parity … Read more
Hannah grew up in Provo. Her family was eighth-generation Mormon. She served a mission in São Paulo at twenty-one, married in the Salt Lake temple at twenty-three, and by thirty-one was a stay-at-home mother of three who could no longer make herself believe. She did not announce it. She kept showing up to sacrament meeting … Read more
Marcus, twenty-three, walked into a corner store in the Bronx on a humid July afternoon and bought a small foil packet labeled “AK-47 herbal incense.” Twenty minutes later, his cousin found him on the sidewalk outside, frozen in a half-crouch, eyes locked open, drool tracking down his chin. He could not answer his name. By … Read more
Why Couples Therapy Is Different From Individual Therapy Couples enter therapy with a different set of constraints and goals than individuals. Two people are in the room. The therapeutic alliance is not with one patient but with the relationship itself. The skills the therapist needs are not the same as those used in individual mental health … Read more
Frank, a 67-year-old former hospital systems engineer in Tucson, retired on a Friday afternoon in March with a sheet cake, an engraved clock, and a folder of HR paperwork his wife Marta still has somewhere in a kitchen drawer. By the following October, Frank had stopped shaving on weekdays, was sleeping until 9:30, and had … Read more
Priya from Boston walked into a heated power yoga studio in Cambridge eight months after the assault, hoping the class would help her sleep. The teacher, well-meaning and certified through a 200-hour program that had spent maybe ninety minutes on trauma, walked the room with bare feet and a strong adjusting hand. He pressed her … Read more
Mindfulness as a Mental Health Tool, Not a Lifestyle Trend The cultural visibility of mindfulness and meditation has grown so much in recent years that the techniques are now associated more with corporate wellness programs and Instagram influencers than with their actual evidence base. The truth underneath the cultural noise is that mindfulness, when practised … Read more
Marcus, a 34-year-old combat veteran living in Austin, Texas, came home from his second deployment with PTSD that nightmares could not loosen. He tried weekly therapy. He tried sertraline. He tried a meditation app his wife downloaded for him. The first time the panic crested in line at H-E-B, he abandoned a half-full cart and … Read more