When you call Psychiatry Services at Crozer-Chester Medical Center, you are immediately put in touch with a board-eligible psychiatrist who, as a medical doctor, can provide comprehensive help. In that first conversation, he or she will ask what is bothering you, and will reassure you that many people experience similar feelings. He or she will also tell you that help is readily available. An appointment will be set up as soon as possible.

When you come in, we first assess your overall health, to rule out a physical cause for what you are feeling. Emotional difficulties have a physical basis only about 10% of the time, due to a thyroid problem, for example, or as a side-effect of medication taken to control high blood pressure. In these cases, treating the physical problem takes care of the emotional difficulty.

More often, your feelings will have an emotional basis and must be addressed with talk therapy and, possibly, medication. You would meet weekly with your Crozer psychiatrist, to sort through the problem and to develop skills that will allow you to cope more effectively.

Medication may be prescribed for initial relief of physical and emotional symptoms to speed the healing process. Half of those who are prescribed medication for these purposes use it only temporarily; others require continuing medication. Taking medicine to correct an emotional disorder is no different from taking medicine to manage a physical disorder, as with taking insulin to control diabetes.