General Mental Health Support: How to Support Yourself When You Don't Quite Have a Diagnosis

As a therapist, I have a love-hate relationship with diagnoses. On one hand, they can help us therapist pinpoint what is going which can help us choose the appropriate treatment. On the other, they can be very rigid and limiting.

In case you were not aware, most therapists will give you a diagnosis as part of the mental health treatment. If they are billing your insurance, they have to diagnose you in the very first session so that your insurance will pay for the sessions.

A diagnosis is nothing to be afraid of. The purpose is to help us figure out what is happening to help guide treatment. It is no different than when you go see your doctor with a cough. If they diagnose you with bronchitis that is certainly a different treatment than if they diagnose you with strep throat.

Unfortunately, mental health isn't always that black and white, however, the concept is the same. If I diagnose you with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), that may mean a different treatment than if I diagnose you with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

But diagnoses can be somewhat restricting. They are usually made up of very specific criteria and a person has to meet a certain amount of them in order to receive that diagnosis. So what happens if you meet 3 out of 5 instead of 4 out of 5? What if you have symptoms but they don't quite look like the symptoms described for that diagnosis? What if you don't meet any of the criteria at all, but you clearly have something you are struggling with?

This is where the "hate" part of that love-hate relationship comes in.

As a therapist, I think diagnoses are important. But I also think that they're not always necessary. Because if you're struggling, you're struggling.

Below are 5 coping skills that I think everyone could benefit from. No matter the issue, no matter the diagnosis, no matter the person. We all share a human experience that could benefit from the following:

Deep Breathing Exercises

This could be mindful meditation exercises or just taking a breath in a challenging situation. Your body and brain are connected so when your body is keyed up, so is your mind and visa versa. Taking slow deep breaths helps stop that cycle by regulating your body which then helps regulate your mind.

Cognitive Reframing

This is a skill from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) that takes some deep diving into your brain space to learn about your unhelpful thoughts, as well as a lot of practice to learn to change those thoughts. However, a short-cut is when you're having a thought to ask yourself if you can think of it in another way.

Behavioral Activation

These are skills that focus on engaging in positive and pleasurable activities. Simple, right? Not necessarily when you don't feel like it. Although there are many skills that make up behavioral activation such as activity monitoring, goal setting, and addressing avoidance, the overall concept is to be deliberate, intentional and take action.

Distress Tolerance

This concept comes from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and refers to a person's ability to manage negative emotions and stressful situations without becoming overwhelmed. These skills focus on just tolerating the distress but without making the situation worse. We often engage in unhealthy behaviors when feeling stressed or activated such as drinking, overeating, self-harm, or fighting. These skills work on acceptance and enduring uncomfortable emotions. I also like these skills because you do not have to try to actively make anything better; just tolerate.

Engaging Values-Based Behavior

This concept comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and there are many worksheets and exercises that can be helpful to go through with a therapist. However, a main idea here is to find out what is important to you, and engage in behavior that supports that. A simple way to implement this is to make a list of what is important to you and make sure you are routinely doing something to support the top 3 things on that list.

These skills are great to try on your own, find as a subject of a workbook, or ask your therapist about. However you do it, remember to start small and gradually increase over time. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.