All of us at the Duluth Psychological Clinic live in the Twin Ports region, admire and benefit from the talents and resourcefulness of it residents, and enjoy its striking natural beauty.

Professionally, we are committed to promoting the mental health of the region's residents in concert with providers at area hospitals, community mental health centers, private clinics, chemical dependency treatment centers, group homes, residential treatment centers, college counseling centers, and other facilities. We regularly collaborate and exchange referrals with these providers to help create an accessible, responsive, and effective mental health treatment network in the Twin Ports and the Arrowhead region.

Area residents cope with the same mental health challenges that beset people everywhere. Mental illness, psychological disorders, relational difficulties, parenting concerns, grief and loss, the psychological dimensions of medical problems: these are aspects of the human condition in all places at all times.

Statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health indicate the scope of these problems:

• One in four Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental health condition each year.
• Almost one in ten American adults suffer from a mood disorder and one in eighteen suffer from an anxiety disorder.
• One in seventeen Americans suffer from a serious or persistent mental illness (such as Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, or Major Depressive Disorder)
• One in twenty-five youth ages 9-17 suffer from Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
• One in two Americans have at least one relative with an alcohol use problem.

Living in the Twin Ports can influence our experience of these problems. Economic difficulties -- both the long-evolving changes in the economic bases of northern Minnesota, as well as national and world-wide economic problems -- contribute to the development and maintenance of mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, addictive behaviors, and relational problems. The region's gorgeous summers are balanced by long and cold winters whose darkness (and sometimes apparent interminability) can significantly influence our moods. (Research suggests, for example, that 6-8% of individuals at our latitude will experience seasonal affective difficulties in a given year).

Clinicians at the Duluth Psychological Clinic are attentive to these region-specific risk factors for mental health difficulties and use current psychological knowledge and practices to assess and treat them.