You can receive social security disability benefits if you suffer from a mental health condition such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. However, it is important to note that your mental health problems have to be “vocationally significant” in order for you to win a social security claim.

What do I mean by vocationally significant? Well, it comes down to whether your mental health impairment prevents you from working. For example, does your condition limit your ability to focus/concentrate, or does it make it impossible to relate to others in a normal manner?

Here’s an example of a mental health problem that I believe to be vocationally significant. One time, I had a client who had self-harming tendencies including “cutting.” This person also suffered from severe anxiety problems and had anger management issues, which made it hard for her to concentrate on the job and relate to others.

I explained to her that her mental health issues seemed to amount to a vocationally significant mental health problem and that I believed she could qualify for benefits.

But to better prove that her mental health condition was vocationally significant, we needed some evidence. So we had to get her to a treating psychiatrist or psychologist who would give her support by stating that her mental health issues stopped her from being a dependable worker on the job. She ended up seeing a psychiatrist, getting a diagnosis, and even getting a statement from her psychiatrist that work activity would be impossible for this claimant. This was a great help.

Also, I had to hear it from her that she believed her self-harming activity and anxiety were so intense that it affected her ability to work. Claimants must truly come to an understanding of how their mental health issues affect them if they are to successfully testify at a social security hearing.

In the end, the SSA decided that my client’s mental health problems did actually prevent her from paying attention and caused her to have concentration problems and problems relating to others in a work environment. These types of work limitations are common in mental health based disability claims.

But as I noted above, her mental health records also helped. Remember, in order to qualify for an SSI or a SSDI case based on mental health problems, a person has to obtain full support from a treating psychologist or a treating doctor.