AUDIO – LOST AT HOME –

March 6, 2022 – In most cases, their waiting lists were closed as well, even though Gullett was willing to pay hundreds of dollars in cash for each session. She spent February’s Super Bowl in tears, watching the Cincinnati Bengals, the team her father rooted for.

“I’m in a big city. I’m in L.A. We have a lot of therapists,” she said. “So it’s just kind of wild to me that that many people are at capacity.”

It has been difficult to find mental health counseling in much of the United States for years, long before the coronavirus pandemic began. But now, after two years of unrelenting stress, turmoil and grief, many people seeking help are confronting a system at or beyond capacity, its inadequacy for this moment plainly exposed. It is even more difficult to find specialized care for children or those with lower income. Assistance of any kind is in short supply in rural areas, where all health-care choices are more limited than they are for residents of cities and suburbia. Those hoping to find a Black or Latino therapist face even more limited options.

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