As a Mental Health Counselor in the state of Maryland who works with the College population; many of my clients are from DC, MD, VA, NJ and NY. When my clients have to withdrawal from school due to a medical reason or are returning to their home state for the summer, it is extremely difficult to find them a psychotherapist who is able to work with them long term. I want my clients to be able to establish a relationship with a therapist in their community where they can continue getting care even post-graduation. Outside of the DMV area, it is very difficult to find providers...you have no idea how helpful telemedicine has been during the past few years of the pandemic. Suddenly we were able to connect people with the perfect therapist for them, who specialized in their needs specifically, students that were restricted to their homes due to negative home lives, were still able to receive treatment. People who were inconsistent coming to therapy in person, suddenly had a 100% show rate. Moreover, there has been a great benefit to seeing the living spaces our clients are in, we are able to see just how bad their depression has become, we are able to see that they are unable to get out of bed, but still making the motivation to come to therapy because we are the only people who have not given up on them. 

Moreover, if individuals who were able to get help, no longer can receive services due to the state lines, where does that leave them? Who is going to help them? It is unethical to leave people without the care they need. Furthermore, the licensing restrictions in the VA make it really difficult for anyone with an out of state license to transfer their license over, so it sounds like VA will lose a lot of mental health care for their citizens and given the drastic increase in depression rates across America...this is not the time to pull back.