8 Steps to Getting Help for Someone

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When someone you love needs help for a mental health condition, it can be hard to know where to begin. Here are steps to help you help someone in need:

1. Talk About It

Explain your concerns. What do you observe that makes you think the loved one needs help?

2. Challenge Their Denial

Does your loved one say, “There’s nothing wrong with me!” but you can see the signs of a problem? Gather evidence that shows why your concerns are legitimate and challenge their belief that nothing is wrong.

3. Find a Healthcare Professional

Whether the help you needs comes from a counselor, a doctor, or a treatment center, assist by doing the research and facilitating the process of finding the right professionals.

 

4. Get Pushy if it’s Urgent

If the situation is becoming serious or dangerous, don’t be polite or delicate. Urgent problems require urgent intervention.

 

5. Refuse to Feed the Problem

Have you been making it easy for a crisis to develop? Do you smooth things over when your loved one’s mental health condition gets in the way of other relationships, or success at work? One of the best ways to truly help is to stop all the covering up and smoothing over.

 

6. Be Part of the Process

Don’t send a sick person into the treatment room alone to explain why s/he needs help, especially if you had to drag them to get help in the first place. Take just 5 minutes to explain why you’ve made the help session happen, and then excuse yourself.

 

7. Call a Crisis Line

If you can’t get your loved one to help, and things are building to the point of danger, contact a crisis line to talk you through it step by step.

 

8. Enlist an Intervention Professional

Interventionists work with addictions and (increasingly) with mental health crisis. Get a professional to come to you and walk with you to implement the treatment your loved one needs.

Posted on February 11, 2019 by Melissa Deuter.