High fees and long waiting lists are the main obstacles to face-to-face therapy, psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald says. (File photo)

More Kiwis are seeking help for mental health issues but many struggle to access counselling services, a psychologist and mental health advocate says.

Kyle MacDonald has launched a campaign on advocacy website Action Station calling on the Government to increase funding for counselling and talking therapies.

The "Kirwan effect" – former All Blacks star Sir John Kirwan's long-running depression awareness campaign – had helped break down the stigma, he said, but services had not kept up with demand to ensure treatment was there.

High fees and long waiting lists were the main obstacles to face-to-face therapy.

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Counselling from private psychologists cost between $100 to $160 a session, MacDonald said.

Charities and GPs also provided some counselling but many clients were forced to wait for up to six weeks for an appointment.

He hoped the Government's mental health inquiry would consider his open submission and include it in its final recommendations.

SUPPLIED MacDonald has launched a campaign calling for free counselling services for all.

Contact with mental health help lines and online resources had increased over the past year, National Telehealth Service chief executive Andrew Slater said.

The 1737 helpline had received text and call contacts from 14,890 people since launching 10 months ago, with some users returning to the service several times.

Formal referrals to other services, such as face-to-face counselling, were made in 4 per cent of cases, Slater said.

"We receive many texts from younger people later at night when they are in their room away from parents, sometimes in need of an ear to express what's going on."

MacDonald said there was a place for helplines but there was a "gaping hole" in provision of talk therapy, which would be the "next step up".

"You have to get to a level of severity where either you can get into the weight lists for funded services or get into the public [specialist] system."

GPs were attempting to fill the need for counselling through referrals to "brief intervention counselling" for four to six free sessions, he said.

In Canterbury, about 7100 referrals were made over the past year from Pegasus Health GPs, a Pegasus Health spokeswoman said.

When the service was first offered in 2011, about 4500 referrals were made.

Waiting times for the service were about four to five weeks.

National Telehealth Service clinical lead psychiatrist David Codyre, who also coordinates a mental health service for a group of 35 Auckland GPs, said he wanted more access for people least able to afford it.

He saw huge potential in phone counselling service, E Talk, trialled recently in Canterbury with 140 people referred by GPs.

Codyre said the programme addressed many of the barriers to counselling and an assessment found it to be just as effective as face-to-face counselling.

"For some the anonymity was what allowed them to take up the offer. If it had meant seeing someone face-to-face, the shame and stigma would have been a barrier and they probably wouldn't have got there."