thanks for your post, spiritual emergency.
do you know if any of those professionals you mentioned have published books? when i first became ill one of my lecturers got me to read jamieson's "an unquiet mind" and that did help me want to continue to become a professional in the field one day.
i agree that there are many ways of helping besides becoming a professional, and these are things i want to try out first before i commit myself 100%.