How do I know if I need therapy?
Knowing whether therapy might be of benefit is different for everyone. It can be influenced by our life circumstances, personal history, coping mechanisms, and attitude towards therapy. Many people wonder if they have enough of a reason to try therapy, or how it might help, and it’s not uncommon for people to revisit the idea several times before making a decision. This blog provides some ideas on how to decide whether therapy might be right for you now.
Knowing what’s normal for you
Noticing how we’re doing isn’t something that we all do naturally. Becoming familiar with our emotions, body, thoughts, and ways we function can be a useful starting point when considering what we need. Knowing what’s normal for us allows us to recognise if something is affecting us. It also allows us to reflect on whether our normal is ‘good enough’ or whether something needs to change. Our levels of resilience – our ability to recover from setbacks or change – can also indicate how we’re doing. When our resilience is low, we might notice reacting to things in a disproportionate, unusual or more negative way. We might feel more easily overwhelmed, stuck, or less confident. Therapy can help us distinguish moments of low resilience that are part of everyday life from a need for change.
Relationship health check
Our relationships can be a good source of information about what’s going on for us. We might notice wanting to spend less time around others, feeling less able to bring our usual energy or attitude, or feeling more susceptible to judgement or misunderstandings. Alternatively, we might notice that we’re wanting to socialise more, wanting more comfort or attention from others, or wanting a distraction from other parts of life. We might also notice aspects of our relationships with others that we’re feeling or behaving differently around. We might observe a change in how we’re responding to differences of opinion, requests for support, closeness, or disappointment. Therapy can help us to understand more about what’s going on for us in our relationships, what this might mean, and what we might do about it.
Holding a mirror up to ourselves
Another useful lens to inform how we’re doing is how we operate in the world. Feeling we can unapologetically be ourselves is a sign of good mental health. However, many of us notice adjusting to feel more acceptable to others. Exploring why we might not share our full selves can help distinguish when this is part of everyday social integration or when it reveals a worry or judgement about ourselves. Therapy acknowledges there are things it can be difficult to notice about ourselves. Instead, we can gain information based on the way others are behaving towards us. Do we perceive confidence or hesitation, openness or reservedness, good humour or seriousness? If we’re lucky, people will give us direct feedback about how they’re experiencing us. The therapeutic relationship can also broaden our understanding of how we’re doing.
When is a problem a problem?
We get many messages telling us how we should feel. Sometimes these messages are well meaning, persuasive, and encouraging. However, they might also be misinformed, outdated, or not the right fit for you. I believe that we’re the only person who can know what’s best for us. If we’re satisfied with how we’re feeling, able to do the things we want and need to do, and content in our relationships with others, then we might conclude that we’re ‘good enough’ (a term used in therapy to acknowledge life isn’t perfect). If we decide we could use some support, we can then reflect on what might best meet our needs. This could include friends and family, others experiencing the same challenges as us, a spiritual leader, medical practitioner, or a specialist or generalist mental health professional.
Further Information
This piece written for Greatist identifies 14 Signs it’s Time to Talk it Out in therapy. And this Psych2Go video outlines 5 signs you should consider therapy.
