Is Therapy a Wise Way to Spend Your
Money?
Copyright 2001 by Ivan
J. Miller, Ph.D. (published here by permission)
- When people have a need for therapy, they often
gain so much financial benefit that therapy becomes a wise use of
their time and money. Many research studies show that therapy can
reduce future medical expenses. Because so many long-term health care
expenses are a result of stress or untreated mental health conditions,
proper mental health treatment greatly lowers the overall cost of
health care. In fact, this "medical cost offset" is so large that
when medical costs are measured over a period of three to five years
after treatment, psychotherapy lowers overall health care costs so
much that it would more than pay for the cost of the therapy.
- Therapy can also improve a person's performance
on the job. Employers are becoming increasingly aware that mental
health problems can increase the number of sick days, interfere with
the quality of an employee's work, and decrease an employee's productivity.
The financial benefits of treatment are so great that many employers
have hired employee assistance programs to provide short-term therapy
and identify employees who can benefit from longer-term therapy. Executives
and some other people are now using a form of psychotherapy - coaching
- to improve their effectiveness and performance. Moreover, psychotherapy
helps many individuals succeed in gaining promotions or become ready
to change to a better job.
- Problems with relationships and family issues can
be very expensive. There are enormous costs that can result from divorce,
child adjustment problems, or other relationship problems. Individual
and family therapy can go a long way in averting these costs.
- So how should you decide if therapy is a wise use
of your money? Of course, individuals are different and need to decide
this for themselves by making some educated guesses. To figure this
out for yourself, try to estimate the total cost of your therapy and
compare it to the long-term benefits. You can ask your therapist to
help by estimating how long it might take to accomplish the kind of
changes that you hope to make in therapy. Use this information to
estimate the cost of therapy.
- To estimate the financial benefits, consider the
changes that you are making in stress levels that may affect your
long-term health care costs. Look at whether the therapy is helping
you be a more productive employee or enabling you to earn more money
through promotions or by changing jobs. Look at the relationship and
family problems that you are working on in therapy and evaluate if
the therapy is likely to avert expensive problems in the future.
- When you estimate the cost/benefit ratio, remember
your personal improvements may yield financial benefits over many
years to come, and the therapy costs are usually spent up front. If
you are like most people, as long as there is a need for treatment,
you will find that the potential financial benefits probably justify
the investment in psychotherapy even when insurance does not pay for
the treatment. In addition, think about the possible intangible improvements
in your quality of life that cannot be measured financially.