Mental Illness and Applying for Disability Benefits
It is possible to receive disability benefits for mental disorders.
It is possible to receive disability benefits for mental disorders. It is typically harder to receive benefits for a mental health issue because some mental health disorders fluctuate in their severity which can make them hard to categorize. Claims examiners who work for the Social Security Administration are not psychiatrists and don’t always understand how certain mental illnesses can be limiting and how the symptoms can go through cycles in severity.
When evaluating a condition, the disability examiner consults the list of impairments (sometimes called the blue book).