Mental health treatment or counseling among U.S. adults 2002-2020

In 2020, around 41.4 million adults in the United States received treatment or counseling for their mental health within the past year. Such treatment included inpatient or outpatient treatment or counseling, or the use of prescription medication. Anxiety and depression are two common reasons for seeking mental health treatment.

Who most often receives mental health treatment?

In the United States, women are around twice as likely than men to have received mental health treatment in the past year, with around 22 percent of adult women receiving some form of mental health treatment in the past year, as of 2020. Considering age, those between 18 and 44 years are more likely to receive counseling or therapy than older adults, however older adults are more likely to take medication to treat their mental health issues. Furthermore, mental health treatment in general is far more common among white adults in the U.S. than among other races or ethnicities. In 2020, around 24.4 percent of white adults received some form of mental health treatment in the past year compared to 15.3 percent of black adults and 12.6 percent of Hispanics.

Reasons for not receiving mental health treatment

Although stigma surrounding mental health treatment has declined over the last few decades and access to such services has greatly improved, many people in the United States who want or need treatment for mental health issues still do not get it. For example, it is estimated that around half of women with some form of mental illness did not receive any treatment in the past year, as of 2019. Sadly, the most common reason for U.S. adults to not receive mental health treatment is that they could not afford the cost. Other common reasons for not receiving mental health treatment include not knowing where to go for services or simply not having enough time.