Hello Jetters
Prior to moving to Japan with JET, I worked with professionals to discover if I had adult ADHD. I am from Canada so, safe to say the process (though free) was months and months long.
The process was not completed and now that I am settled in Japan I am looking to restart the process here. After speaking to a few clinics I have been informed it will cost nearly $3000 CAD for the diagnostic tests and psychiatrist appointments.
That is… a lot. I heard there is some sort of JET additional support for mental health? Has anyone used this service and can give some guidance? Or does anyone know who I can reach out to to get more information?
Are there any Japanese social services for foreigners that support mental health or any additional tips you can provide?
I appreciate any advice- My brain thanks you.
5 comments
This will not be covered by CLAIR.
At best, any therapy or mental health counselling you receive “privately” CLAIR will pay for 50% of up to 30,000 yen. Which doesn’t go that far when it comes to therapy.
Japan’s healthcare system has a lot going for it, but a lot of the mental health stuff isn’t covered.
The costs you were quoted are outlandish, whilst not as easy to do as in the West due to language barriers it’s not impossibly difficult here. My best advice at this point would be to shop around at other clinics until you can find an appropriate price, here’s my anecdote for reference.
My partner suspected she had adult ADHD so we booked her into a mental health clinic (in Kyoto), we had an initial consultation with who I think was a counsellor, she only spoke Japanese so I was present and interpreted for her. This consultation had one of those self reporting tests to gauge for the likelihood of ADHD. After this session she arranged to have a proper ADHD examination done with a qualified doctor of the clinic who spoke English. My partner took the test and was officially diagnosed with ADHD, the process took maybe a month or two.
As for costs, the initial consultation was a few thousand yen, as was the ADHD test. I’m not sure how much was covered by national health insurance, but we were asked to present her insurance card at each billing. I would guess we spent less than 10,000 yen for the entire ordeal, as there were a couple of follow up sessions for my partner after the initial consultation, alongside referrals to other clinics who had a licence to dispense ADHD medication.
Slightly on a tangent but if you are able to get a diagnosis, be aware that the drugs situation here in Japan for ADHD is a lot more tricky. Rittalin is not legal given its stimulant properties. My partner was prescribed strattera, which is a nonstimulant based ADHD medication (these are much easier to get here) but ultimately it didn’t work well for her. From what I understand concerta is the main stimulant drug that is actually legal here, but the laws became even stricter for prescribing this a few years ago. Your doctor needs to be specifically licensed to dispense this drug so finding one can be a bit of a pain, and they can only give it out in small quantities (I think it’s two weeks at a time?) so you’ll be going back quite often, if you end up being prescribed it.
I’ve said this before in other threads about mental health services. Make sure you do a ton of research before committing to an English speaking therapist.
I’m not going to mention the name as I don’t want this person showing up with straw accounts to harass people but I will link to some reddit threads.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/l985al/dr_douglas_berger_aka_marc_berg%C3%A9_aka_douglas/
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/4cfz65/avoid_dr_douglas_berger_for_therapy/
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/k5t6dk/tokyo_therapist_warning/
Trying to get antidepressants was relatively easy and cheap. First consultation was something like 3000 yen, and my current visits are only 1400 yen for the doctor checkup, 800 for a month and a half of medication. My psychiatrist told me “I don’t think you have depression, you just don’t understand Japanese culture” before I cursed him out, so expect some dumb people on the way.
I tried getting my ADHD checked. They needed to talk to my parents? To confirm I was experiencing things since I was a kid. I guess screw the people who live far or don’t have good relationships with their parents. I went in and they asked me a bunch of questions, did a cat scan of my brain, and wasted like 2 hours of my time… Just to tell me I needed to go back twice for more tests that would take 3 hours each. That first visit was about 10,000 yen. I didn’t bother returning because I’m heading home soon.
JET won’t do much for you, but healthcare is very affordable. Just expect some prejudice/ignorance. They do offer free online therapy sessions though.
I can tell you how I personally got “diagnosed” with ADHD here and got medication with no prior diagnosis from my home country. I am not suggesting you do this, that’s what your psych is for. I suspected I had it and wanted to try meds. I went to Kokoro Care Clinic here in Tokyo. I also tried depression meds here for the first time. You honestly just have to just be strategic. With health/medicine, you gotta try more than 1 thing to see what works best. I wanted to try ADHD meds first because I read depression can be a sympton of ADHD. My goal was to get Concerta after doing research on the ADHD sub. First they put me on Stratera (common, they won’t give concerta first) after filing out an ADHD questionnaire. The psych didn’t even look at it for over 10 seconds and said “ok, this is enough to see you may have ADHD.“ I reacted poorly to straterra, so I went back and told them this. Then they said in order to get on Concerta I needed a letter from my family/someone who had known me for years. I wrote a letter, signed it myself and said “here, my mother mailed me this.” at my next appointment and I got on concerta. Again, I reacted poorly and then asked about depression and tried those meds too. Personally, I had really bad ADHD-like symptoms and depression when I arrived, depressed, anxious, memory was shot, etc. It was mainly the stress of moving, now I’m better than ever w/out treatment. I also tried a naturopath who just gave me basically oyster shell powder, lol. I went to what is considered “the best” clinic here for foreigners and I meeeeean….it’s just a place to get meds really. Kokoro refers you to an English counseling place too if you need it, which I have heard good things about actually. JET does provide mental health reimbursment up to 300,000 yen/year, I didn’t use this because all in all the meds + appointments I tried were very cheap, all of this journey was less than 200 USD. I also tried their free Skype mental counseling sessions…honestly didn’t help at all but YMMV.