What it is and why we need therapy?
Thinking about therapy, but not sure if it’s the right thing for you? You’ve heard something about it, but you actually feel like you don’t have enough information and you wonder, “Is my problem really that big”? Maybe someone recommended the therapy to you based on your experience or it seemed to him that it might be helpful for the problem you entrusted to him? But you are not sure!
Still thinking!!
If these are some of your dilemmas, we want to offer you more information about what therapy is and for whom it is intended.
One of the biggest myths related to therapy is that only people with “serious” mental disorders go to therapy.
The stigma associated with seeking help for problems of a psycho-social nature has long rejected people from therapy. Fortunately, today more and more people are familiar with the facts that dispel this myth, and seeking the help of a therapist is increasingly seen as a sign of healthy self-care.
Research is constantly finding new evidence that emphasizes the importance of taking care of your psycho-social health as well as your physical health. There is more and more talk about the unbreakable connection between the state of mind and the body, and you have probably heard that mental health care is an important prerequisite for good physical health.
Although the therapy was originally created as a set of methods, procedures, and techniques aimed at treating mental disorders by psychological means, ie. conversation, instead of medication, later found that individuals who do not suffer from a mental disorder but simply want to work on themselves, discover their potential, new sources of motivation, new insights about themselves and others equally benefit from therapy.
Here are some signs that you may benefit from therapy:
- You feel overwhelmed and prolonged helplessness and sadness
- Your problems do not go away despite your efforts and the efforts of your family and friends to help you
- You find it difficult to concentrate on work or do daily activities
- You get bad feedback about your work
- You are constantly worrying and expecting the worst from situations
- You have experienced a traumatic event and you cannot stop thinking about it
- You have frequent and unexplained headaches, abdominal pain or suffer from weak immunity
- Your relationships are tense and strained
- Your behaviors such as excessive alcohol consumption, drug use, or aggressive behaviors hurt you or others
- Your good friends tell you they are worried about you
A competent therapist can help you solve these difficulties.
Despite the fact that the word “therapy” is often interpreted as something that is broken or damaged needs to be repaired (like when someone needs to go to physical therapy after knee surgery), therapy is not just there to repair something that is damaged. In addition to solving a wide range of problems, therapy is much more than that.
It is possible that you have entered a phase of your life when you feel a strong desire to understand yourself more deeply. You may be curious about what drives you, how you create relationships with others around you, or how your past affects how you lead your life in the present. Therapy can help people explore places where they feel blocked or stuck and open up to new possibilities.
So today, most clients are healthy, stable people who are facing some current difficulties and problems.
Because they do not have a mental illness, they are called clients, not patients; since they do not have a psychiatric illness, we cannot say that they need treatment, but some form of professional support in overcoming current problems.
Therefore, today therapy is defined as a structured process in which a specially trained psychotherapist helps a person or persons to achieve the desired change. Therapeutic encounters are called sessions. Sessions can be aimed at children, adolescents, or adults and are organized to involve individual one-on-one work, working with couples, families, or groups of people who share similar problems.
Here are some more valuable “bonus” reasons to go to a therapist:
- You want to learn to love and accept yourself.
Many people have difficulty with this without necessarily being depressed or having some disorder. Therapy can help you explore what keeps you from being confident and can teach you practical ways to make your happiness your priority.
- You want to make a good marriage great.
Many relationships work well, but they are no longer fun. Partner therapy can improve communication and devise ways to return excitement and passion to marriage.
- You want to be a really good parent.
Many of us, despite our own objections to our parents, resort to the parenting patterns we observed during our childhood in parenting. Therapy can help you get out of that well-trodden path and be the parent you want to be (and what your kids need).
- You want a change in your career.
You feel and say that you are not happy where you are, and yet you are still in the same place and no way to go for something different. Is fear, hard work, or conflicting relationships with others what prevents you? Therapy can facilitate and accelerate a healthy change in your career.
- You want to understand your purpose in life.
Many therapists like to dive deeper with you and help you realize who you are on a deeper level, help you rediscover the passions that you have buried beneath the hustle and bustle of life.
- You want one hour a week in which you will focus completely on yourself.
Therapy is a course where you are the main subject. You can explore yourself, go deeper into your thoughts and feelings, or sit with someone and just “be” for a while.
- You want to forgive and let go of painful experiences.
A life in which you cling to your resentments and resentments has serious consequences for your body, emotions, and relationships. Through therapy, you can learn to resolve these difficulties for your own benefit and move on.
- You want a place where you will practice assertiveness, expressing emotions, or expressing yourself in general.
Therapy is a laboratory for researching, experimenting, and practicing behaviors that are intimidating in life, without fear of punishment. Shy people can practice coping. Closed people can experiment with expressing their feelings. After trying this out a few times within a session, you might be ready to take that skill with you into the world.
When we feel better in our skin and when we understand ourselves better, our ability to go smoothly through awkward situations grows as well as our energy to live more fully and be more present in important relationships. The moment you finish the therapy, not only will the problem you came up with be solved, but you will leave with new skills that you will be able to use to better cope with all the challenges that may await you in the future.