Around 25% of adults and 13% of children are diagnosed with a mental illness sometime in their lifetime, according to the site http://www.medicinenet.com/mental_illness/page2.htm. We all know that there are many different types of mental disorders, although we may not all know the different treatments for them. There are so many types of mental illness treatments nowadays, one of the major ones being talk therapy. A mental illness can affect the way a person thinks, feels, behaves, or relates to others. It can be either a disease or condition and there is a large range of symptoms.
Usually people think of a therapy session and/or medication when they think of treatments for a mental illness. There are actually a lot of treatments involved when treating mental illnesses. As I said medication and therapy are some treatments but there are different types of therapy including, psychotherapy, group therapy, cognitive-behavior therapy, behavior modification, and many more specific therapies (http://www.medicinenet.com/mental_illness/page2.htm). Mental illnesses should be treated with psychological therapy. According to the New York Times during psychological therapy a health professional talks with the patient about their conflicts, concerns, and practicing new behaviors. Over the last two decades there has been numerous findings that talk therapy actually alters the brain! On the other hand there is medication. I strongly suggest that patients with mental illnesses do not take medication. The effects of medication seem to go away once they stop taking it. Whereas, talk therapy seems to have a long lasting impact because it does not just alter the mind, but it seems that it alters the brain too.

http://www.medicinenet.com/mental_illness/article.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-treating-mental-illness.html?_r=1&