Of the 26% of the adult population in the United States who have a mental health disorder in any given year, many also have behavioral health issues. The terms, “behavioral health” and “mental health” are often used interchangeably, and, while the two are closely linked, they’re not exactly the same.
To help you better understand the subtle distinction between behavioral and mental health, as well as their close relationship, the highly skilled team here at Vital TMS Therapy in Washington, DC, and Chevy Chase, Maryland, offers the following.
Defining mental health and behavioral health
A good place to start when it comes to understanding the difference between mental health and behavioral health is to define the two concepts.
Mental health
As defined by the World Health Organization, “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
When you have a mental health disorder, there are several factors that may have contributed to the condition, such as biological influences (genes or brain chemistry), life events (especially trauma), and family history.
Some of the more common mental health disorders include major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.
Behavioral health
Not surprisingly, behavioral health refers to your behaviors and, with a behavioral health disorder, these behaviors can greatly impact your mental health. In most cases, behavioral health disorders involve a pattern of destructive or harmful behaviors that interfere with your ability to function normally and your quality of life.
Some common examples of behavioral health issues include gambling, sex addiction, substance use disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The two-way street between mental and behavioral health
To find out how your behavioral health can impact your mental health, let’s take a look at an example. Perhaps you enjoy a drink or two every evening with your spouse after work. This evening behavior begins to build and you find yourself drinking far more than just two glasses and you start drinking earlier in the day.
When you try to curb your drinking, you experience intense anxiety, so you continue to drink. Dismayed at your inability to quit, you may develop depression on top of the anxiety.
The resulting situation is a comorbidity, which means having two diagnosable conditions at the same time.
To be sure, this same scenario can go in the opposite direction. Perhaps you suffer from severe anxiety, and to calm yourself, you self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, which leads to a substance-use disorder.
Another good example of the close relationship between mental and behavioral health is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This condition falls under both categories as racing and intrusive thoughts lead to disruptive and maladaptive behaviors. OCD is just one of several disorders that encompasses both mental and behavioral health aspects.
Treating behavioral and mental health
Our feeling is that no matter how your mental health and behavioral issues developed, our goal is to treat them both. We’ve had great success using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy to treat a wide range of mental and behavioral health disorders, including those we mentioned above, such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD.
If you’d like to learn more about your options for treating both behavioral and mental health issues, contact us by phone or online today.
