If you don’t have any specific tools, I would advocate a mix of asking questions to help the other person clarify their thinking and providing information.
“Did you symptoms X and Y are signs of clinical mental illness Z?” is likely more effective than telling the person “You have mental illness Z.”
If the other person doesn’t feel judged but can explore the issue in a safe space where they are comfortable of working through an ugh-field, it’s more likely that they will end up doing what’s right afterwards.
I don’t think “Did you know symptoms X and Y are signs of clinical mental illness Z?” is appreciably different from “You very possibly have mental illness Z”, which is the practical way that “You have mental illness Z” would actually be phrased in most contexts where this would be likely to come up.
Nevertheless, your first and third paragraphs seem right.
In a conversation, you get another reaction if you ask a question that indirectly implies that the other person has a mental illness than if you are direct about it.
The phrasing of information matters.
What is the best way? It’s not like you can trick them into it.
A more serious issue, I would have thought, would be that the “professional help” won’t actually be effective.
If you don’t have any specific tools, I would advocate a mix of asking questions to help the other person clarify their thinking and providing information.
“Did you symptoms X and Y are signs of clinical mental illness Z?” is likely more effective than telling the person “You have mental illness Z.”
If the other person doesn’t feel judged but can explore the issue in a safe space where they are comfortable of working through an ugh-field, it’s more likely that they will end up doing what’s right afterwards.
I don’t think “Did you know symptoms X and Y are signs of clinical mental illness Z?” is appreciably different from “You very possibly have mental illness Z”, which is the practical way that “You have mental illness Z” would actually be phrased in most contexts where this would be likely to come up.
Nevertheless, your first and third paragraphs seem right.
In a conversation, you get another reaction if you ask a question that indirectly implies that the other person has a mental illness than if you are direct about it. The phrasing of information matters.