In just a few years, residents of Dallas-Fort Worth have seen the impact of a shifting society and the effect on mental health. Throughout the COVID pandemic, the demand for mental health services has increased. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that in January 2021, 41% of U.S. adults said they felt symptoms of depression or anxiety.
In Dallas, therapists are in high demand and are being stretched thin. Fort Worth licensed counselor Scott Smith shares his experience turning down patients.
“Clients are calling me and saying they can’t find anybody. They can’t get in. Everybody’s booked,” Smith told the Dallas Morning News.
He says he also has nightmares of turning people down, with thick folders of troubling cases haunting his sleep. Smith has received dozens of phone calls asking to book an appointment. Smith feels burdened by not being able to help them.
“I wish there was something I could do to help these folks.” Scott Smith’s crammed schedule is just one of the many therapists seeing increased caseloads.
Jan Fries is the director of the TCA or the Texas Counseling Association. She says this problem is not isolated to just Dallas. She told DMN that even before COVID, a shortage of therapists was beginning to be seen, and that “COVID exacerbated it.”
Reports show that half of Texas’s lesser-populated counties do not have licensed psychiatrists, and some do not even have counselors.
Smith speaks on how being a counselor is unlike other jobs, saying, “When I’m done with the workday, I don’t have much of a chance to unwind because you still have the mental stuff playing with your head.” He told DMN that therapy is not like a job you can “punch out of,” and that his patients take massive priority in his life.
