Lifeline's national clinical manager, Melanie Ingram, says its counsellors recorded 66,000 calls during the first six months of the 2010-2011 year, just 11,000 short of the previous year's total.
Ms Ingram says as well as a huge spike in the number of calls following the Canterbury earthquake, counsellors have taken far more calls than normal in the past year.
She says many calls continue to be triggered by the loss of jobs, and there are significant numbers of people who are struggling in the current economic climate.
"They're still seeing the effects of the recession, the everyday person is still struggling. Things aren't that good out there, there's still job losses, still redundancies happening."
