Skip to main content

Mental Health Resources

Mental health is just as important to our lives as our physical health!

Mental health refers to our cognitive, behavioral and emotional well-being — it is all about how we think, feel and behave. The term “mental health” is sometimes used to mean the absence of a mental disorder.

Mental health can affect daily life, relationships and even physical health. Mental health also includes a person’s ability to enjoy life — to attain a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.

Mental health includes:

  • How you feel about yourself, the world and your life
  • Your ability to solve problems and overcome challenges
  • Your ability to build relationships with others and contribute to your communities
  • Your ability to achieve your goals

Many people take care of their physical health before they feel sick. They may eat well, exercise and try to get enough sleep to help maintain wellness. You can take the same approach to mental health. Just as you may work to keep your body healthy, you can also work to keep your mind healthy.

Explore resources to support your mental wellness below.

Support and resources for medical students, residents, fellows and physicians are available through: 
Support for University of Arizona staff is available through: 
Banner – University Medicine Center provides mental health support resources including onsite, virtual and one-on-one.
  • Call 1-800-243-5240 for more information.
  • On-campus resources are available through Banner Health’s employee assistance program, 1-866-568-7554, or Resources for Living using username Banner and password EAP.
  • Video or text visits are also available at Talkspace.
  • Guidance on understanding grief and loss

APAL Directors Drs. Kalia, Esque and Emerick.

APAL Directors Drs. Kalia, Esque and Emerick.

Photo by Jamie Manser
APAL includes two access lines: Arizona Pediatric Psychiatry Access Line and the Arizona Perinatal Psychiatry Access Line. 

These lines offer free case consultations with psychiatrists to guide medical providers in the best individualized treatment options for their child, adolescent, pregnant and perinatal patients with substance use and mood disorders. 

Child and adolescent and perinatal psychiatrists are available by phone Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 888-290-1336. 

Abundant resources are available on the APAL.arizona.edu website, along with scheduling options for the free case consultations.

Difficult to Treat Depression Clinical Resource Center

Jordan Karp, MD

Professor & Chair Jordan Karp, MD

In mid-2024, we convened the Southwest Forum on Difficult to Treat Depression: Focus on Approach, Algorithms, and Access with internationally renowned thought leaders and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, with unrestricted funding from J&J Innovative Medicine Neuroscience and support from the Banner Health Foundation. 

The impetus for the forum was a response to the pandemic’s impact on mental health refocusing interest on the burden of depression and anxiety across the lifespan — along with the launch of novel mechanism medications and brain stimulation that leads to rapid improvement in symptoms never previously observed in the treatment of depression.

We are proud to share the resources created from this forum, published by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (JCP), to create meaningful contributions to the field.
Visit the following pages to read the academic highlights, watch the experts’ insights videos and access the resource center.

Background

The increased efforts to prevent and treat depression is now a priority of health care systems, insurers, digital therapeutic engineers, telemedicine platforms and community health agencies. However, the challenges of treating to remission those patients who don’t respond to first, second or third levels of oral pharmacotherapy remain. The increased prevalence in these conditions is at odds with the shrinking psychiatric workforce. 

Because addressing persistent difficult to treat depression is situated in a rapidly evolving treatment landscape, it is vital that leaders in depression treatment: 

  1. Consider the most strategic, cost-effective and clinically useful sequencing of emerging treatments
  2. Implement patient and family-focused depression approaches to care that use the best efficacy and safety evidence in bringing clinical advances to the clinic.

The resources we feature above, created from the SW Forum and captured by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, address the emerging treatments that can be utilized to advance clinical care for our patients with treatment resistant depression. 

Jordan Karp, MD, SW Forum Program Director
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry
University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson
Clinical Service Chief, Behavioral Medicine
Banner – University Medical Center and Group Tucson

This Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System webpage includes comprehensive information about court-ordered evaluation and court-ordered treatment in Arizona. 

See the overview and training video below. 

Court-ordered evaluation (COE) and court-ordered treatment (COT) are designed to help people who are unwilling to or incapable/unable of providing consent to receive behavioral health services and who meet legal criteria for the State of Arizona to step in and compel (mandate or order) them to receive treatment. 

In Arizona, COE/COT addresses the needs of individuals who meet one or more of the following criteria according to Title 36 of the Arizona Revised Statutes: 

  • The individual is a Danger To Self (DTS) and/or, 
  • The individual is a Danger To Others (DTO) and/or, 
  • The individual is identified as being Persistently or Acutely Disabled (PAD) and/or, 
  • The individual is identified as being Gravely Disabled (GD).

Psychiatry Internal Resources