Audio clip
Kip Matthews
In the midst of a mounting national economic crisis, more Chattanoogans are feeling overwhelmed, anxious and depressed by their financial situations, some local mental health care providers and counselors say.
“We’ve had an increase of new patients coming to us as a result of just struggling and not knowing how to handle it and getting to the point of feeling hopeless and helpless,” said Nancy Holland, manager of the adult partial hospitalization and outpatient program at Parkridge Valley, a private psychiatric hospital in Chattanooga.
“I’ve been in the mental health field since 1984, and I don’t think individuals have identified the finances stressors (as their source of anxiety) as consistently as what we have seen in these last couple of months,” she said.
Across Hamilton County — as the stock market plummets, employers tighten up on hours and cut jobs and utility cost increases pressure consumers — stress levels are heightened, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2008 Stress in America survey. The survey found that eight out of 10 people surveyed in September listed the economy or money as their top source of stress, up from 66 percent just months earlier in April.
One striking result of the survey was the finding that half of Americans are stressed about their ability to provide for their family’s basic needs, anything from putting food on the table to keeping a roof over their heads, said Dr. J. Kip Matthews, an Athens, Ga.-based psychologist and spokesman for the American Psychological Association.
“When you’re saying half the people are concerned about that, that is pretty significant,” he said.
At Chattanooga’s Fortwood Center, a mental health practice, the number of uninsured clients is on the rise, likely because of local job cuts that result in a loss of health care benefits as well as the increasing pressures on those who already couldn’t afford health insurance, CEO Earl Medley said. The center provides psychiatric and mental health evaluation and treatments. TennCare enrollees are eligible for case management and residential services there, he said.
The center typically uses about $200,000 a year in local donations and United Way funding to cover the expense of caring for the uninsured and underinsured, Mr. Medley said.
But now, because of the increase in need, “we’re restricted on how many new (uninsured) cases we can carry until we have somebody drop off,” he said.
MORE SEEKING HELP
A growing number of people are seeking assistance with necessities such as food, mortgages and utilities payments, and more are seeking outside help to cope with their related anxiety, area mental health professionals said.
Ms. Holland of Parkridge Valley said that just this month a local man enrolled in the hospital’s outpatient program, citing the strain of a family member getting laid off and a pending foreclosure on their home.
The number of case assessments done at Parkridge Valley has increased 22 percent this year from last year, from 2,626 to 3,199 through September, officials said. The number of those assessments that resulted in a client getting referred to the hospital’s outpatient or inpatient programs has increased 36 percent, figures show.
Dr. Jon Cohen, a psychiatrist at Behavioral Health Associates, a private practice in Chattanooga, said he has not seen an increase in new patients seeking treatment, but he has noticed that many of his patients are trying to cut back on their number of counseling appointments or even discontinuing counseling because they no longer can afford it.
Social workers at the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults have noticed a change in the intensity of their clients’ problems — people who already were dealing with high anxiety and depression say their problems are being exacerbated by the financial crisis, they said. The Partnership is a nonprofit agency that provides professional counseling, crisis intervention, education and other social services.
“They’re seeking assistance for having the power bill paid, and we're finding when we sit down and talk with them that they’re having some suicidal thoughts going on,” said Rhonda Jacks, the Partnership’s director of family services, which includes counseling programs. “Especially with our young adults in their 20s, maybe early 30s, who have not been through a difficult economic time in their professional life, their anxiety is really high because they’ve never had to deal with anything like this before.”
More and more, people in need of counseling or mental health services are calling the local United Way’s support service line, which helps provide callers with assistance with needs ranging from utility payments to mental health referrals, said John Hayes, director of the United Way’s 2-1-1 call center.
The number of referrals the call center has made to mental and physical health services has increased 152 percent this year over last year, from 399 to 1,005 so far this year, he said.
“We’re hearing a lot of angst, a lot of anguish,” he said. “They just don’t know where to turn.”
Health care reporter Emily Bregel has worked at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since July 2006. She previously covered banking and wrote for the Life section. Emily, a native of Baltimore, Md., earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University. She received a first-place award for feature writing from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists’ Golden Press Card Contest for a 2009 article about a boy with a congenital heart defect. She ...
People this past year have had to tighten their belts to make up for the exorbitant cost of fuel.The high cost of fuel in turn raised the prices of every consumer product from farming &shipping food, to producing and shipping other products.Electric companies passed on their higher production costs with large rate increases. We have spent less because we had less to spend.We quit eating out as much or at all, quit going to the movies, quit buying new products and only stuck to the bare necessities.Now it is being reported a lot of people have had to stop taking necessary medications because they can't afford them. That in turn has caused job losses. Just as gas prices start to fall some and they are still no where near cheap, OPEC cuts production of oil by 1.5 million barrels a day. There is no end in sight in this situation. We spent 168 Billion on the last stimulas pkg. That could have gone a long way toward getting some alternative energy set up such as wind or solar or getting the price of electric cars more affordable to buy. It would cost the consumer the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to charge and drive an electric car. Why doesn't our country invest in getting us out of this mess instead of their quick fixes that don't work? Just read a fascinating book The Manhattan Project of 2009 by Jeff Wilson . Every member needs to read this book too, and fast! www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com>
every member of congress I meant ...sorry
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