Mental Health Singapore

Our mental health is important as it influences and determines how we think, feel, and behave.

Prioritising our mental health positively impacts several aspects of our lives. Having good mental health boosts our productivity, helps us foster healthy relationships, and allows us to stay resilient amidst life’s challenges.

Conversely, having poor mental health lowers our focus and motivation, and impedes our ability to tackle our daily stressors. In the long-term, it can lead to severe emotional and physical health complications. One may engage in self-defeating behaviours (eg physical neglect, excessive self-criticism) or even resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms (eg alcohol, drug use) to manage difficult emotions.

Online mental health self-assessments are a quick and convenient way to find out if you are experiencing symptoms of a mental health issue. However, they do not provide you with an actual diagnosis.

You may wish to visit a psychologist or psychiatrist for a mental health diagnosis. They are mental health professionals best placed to assess both your feelings and behaviours and determine the state of your mental health.

As mental health is complex and symptoms of mental health disorders often differ between individuals, it may take several assessments before you receive your complete diagnosis. Even then, your diagnosis is still subject to change, particularly if new symptoms show up over time. At times, you may also be required to undergo a physical check-up to draw out physical ailments contributing to your symptoms, if any.

The process of getting a diagnosis can be arduous. Many a time, you will be asked to share your innermost struggles and confront difficult experiences. Being diagnosed with a mental disorder may also leave you feeling lost and confused or even ashamed. However, always remember that you are not your mental disorder. You are simply an individual with a mental disorder, and a courageous one at that for seeking support. 🌱

A mental health counsellor is a trained professional who works with individuals experiencing a wide range of personal and emotional issues. Beyond providing a listening ear, they draw from several integrative therapies to help you see things from different perspectives and gain deeper self-awareness. A counsellor also gives you mental health tips and guides you along as you set goals and action plans to enhance your overall wellbeing.

Nonetheless, a counsellor does not tell you what to do, or how you should feel. Rather, they offer a safe and non-judgemental space for you to share your emotions and experiences honestly. Over time, your therapeutic journey is meant to help you build internal resources and develop skills to manage the challenges you are faced with.

Anticipating your first therapy session can fill you with nervousness and apprehension. Experiencing such feelings are completely normal, particularly if you are unsure of what to expect. That said, there are still steps you can take to prepare better prepare yourself and make the most out of your session. Some tips include:

• Envision your goals: Have a think about what you hope to get out of therapy. It is natural for your thoughts to be all over the place prior to your first session. You may even wonder if it’s too early to start envisioning goals. 
• Manage your expectations: Contrary to popular belief, going for therapy does not mean all your problems are solved in one sitting. Therapists do not provide advice, solutions, or a “quick fix”. Instead, they journey with you and guide you to find answers for yourself. 
• Keep an open mind: Counselling sessions often reveal insights about ourselves in ways that we may not have expected. Be honest with yourself. Keeping an open mind invites new ideas, possibilities and experiences, which help to foster self-growth. Your therapist may also ask you more questions during your first session to better assess your situation and understand you.
  
• Ask questions: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Clarifying your doubts during the session, be it about therapy itself, appointment frequency, or payment, relieves you a great deal of uncertainty after the session. 

If you are keen to learn more about how to prepare for different types of counselling sessions, further information can be found here.

Most individual therapy sessions run for 50 to 60 minutes. Couples or group therapy sessions, however, may run longer (eg 90 mins).

At Talk Your Heart Out (TYHO), all sessions are an hour long. 

There are a few reasons for keeping to hour long sessions. Some clients may feel overwhelmed when they are made to discuss deeply personal and emotional issues, often including traumatic experiences, for more than an hour. Limiting sessions to an hour allows them to discuss, feel, and contain their emotions with a clear endpoint in mind, such that resuming daily activities after would be less tedious.

Adhering to such session length also encourages clients to dive more directly into their issues, which in turn helps therapists to absorb what they have shared and offer insights with greater ease. Altogether, it ensures that both clients and therapists stay focused across the hour and reduces the chances of an information overload.

Prior to beginning therapy, individuals often want to know therapy will last or the number of sessions they will need before their problem is resolved. Even so, there is no set length. The amount of time you spend in therapy is highly subjective and depends on several factors:

• Severity of issue: There is a great variety in the issues people seek therapy for: mental health disorders (generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder), relationship conflicts, adjustment difficulties, and trauma, among many others. Individuals who come forth with more complex issues involving longstanding abuse or traumatic experiences, often need a longer time to develop trust in their therapist. Consequently, they may require more sessions before they begin to see improvements.
• Individual goals and needs: While some individuals go for therapy to tide themselves through a difficult period in their lives, others attend therapy periodically and view it as a consistent source of support for their emotional wellbeing. Hence, the length of time you spend in therapy is also dependent on one’s individual needs, goals and preferences.
• Availability of external resources: Having access to external resources (eg social support) is highly beneficial when one is in therapy. Individuals with a strong social support system are less likely to shy away from sharing their concerns with loved ones. This gives them an added emotional outlet outside of sessions and possibly facilitates their therapeutic journey.    

In essence, how long therapy lasts remains an open question. It can range from a single session to several months, and possibly even years. Be patient with yourself and your progress. Progress is not linear and looks different on everyone.

On average, an hour long therapy session is priced between $100-$300 for individual counselling, and $180-$400 for couples counselling.

Some counselling centres utilise a sliding scale structure, where fees are often adjusted according to a client’s income. When in doubt, seek clarification from the respective service teams.

At TYHO, our individual counselling sessions are starts from S$ 130.80 (w/GST) and our couples counselling sessions starts from S$ 152.60 (w/GST). Package pricing is also available for both session types. For more pricing-related information, please click here.

Some negative experiences it is associated with include:

• Unhealthy comparisons: People tend to share only the highlights of their lives on social media. Comparing ourselves to others and slipping into feelings of inferiority becomes almost second nature when scrolling through our feed. Over time, this cycle of social comparison can lead to feelings of inadequacy and lowered self-esteem. 
• Fear of missing out (FOMO): Fear of missing out is understood as a form of social anxiety that stems from feeling excluded when one sees others partaking in fun, interesting or fulfilling activities. In recent years, FOMO is closely linked to social media use as the ease of updating one’s social media account has proliferated the number of posts people share about their lives and consequently, intensified feelings of social exclusion. 
• Body negativity: Relying solely on external validation to determine one’s self-worth causes frustration and distress, as easily as when one does not receive the number of likes one hoped for after posting a picture on the gram. In a bid to receiving more likes, one may even feel pressured to alter one’s appearances to fit unrealistic ideals. 
• Insomnia: The need to stay connected and informed all the time can keep one up all night. It is easy to lose track of time when using social media, whether we are interacting with our followers, catching a live stream, or simply scrolling through our feed mindlessly. To get on with our daily activities per usual, we then make up for this lost time by sleeping less.

Exercise is known to strengthen our physical health, but how does it relate to our mental health and wellbeing?

• Reduced stress and increased energy levels: Research has shown that when we exercise, our bodies release chemicals known as endorphins, ie mood elevators that reduce our perception of pain and bring general feelings of euphoria. When confronted with life’s challenges, engaging in physical activity helps to temporarily take our mind off things and provides us with some respite. Endorphins also increase our energy levels and help us better focus on everyday tasks.
• Enhanced self-esteem and -efficacy: Exercise is also linked to one’s self-esteem and self-efficacy. Regular exercise brings about visible changes to our body and boosts our body confidence. Achieving our exercise goals and seeing improvements in our physical abilities also allows us to feel productive and motivated. The discipline and sense of purpose found in keeping to an exercise routine are also applicable to other areas of our lives.
• Sharper memory and mental alertness: Certain exercises such as yoga also regulates stress and induces mindfulness. In fact, Harvard Health Publishing reports that yoga not only brings mental health benefits (eg reduced anxiety and depression) but also enhances our brain function. More specifically, the mind-body coordination central to yoga improves memory and mental alertness.

As with any activity, the beginning is always the hardest. Starting or restarting an exercise routine is not always easy. Try selecting an activity you are keen on and schedule a time for it. If you are not interested in the usual jogging or swimming, try something else – cycling, bouldering, or spin. You can even rope your loved ones in for added motivation and fun. Remember, exercising even for just 5 minutes a day is better than not exercising at all.

In the United States, Mental Health Awareness Month is celebrated in May. Events and activities to raise mental health awareness are usually planned during this time of the year. Collectively, they aim to show support for individuals with mental health issues, normalise conversations around mental health and wellbeing, and reduce the stigma surrounding seeking professional help.

Across many parts of the world, as well as in Singapore, World Mental Health Day is also celebrated on 10 October each year.

The mental health awareness month and World Mental Health Day are important initiatives. While mental health should always be a priority, many often feel afraid to admit their vulnerabilities and tend to trivialise their emotions. Some may even find the topic taboo or foreign. Such observances thus establish the universal significance of mental health, provide a platform to mobilise wellbeing efforts, and encourage more workplaces and individuals to commit to self-care.