Despite the fact that more people are seeking help for their mental health than at any time in history, for some people, going to see a therapist can seem like “giving up.” Others may think that only seriously mentally ill are supposed to receive therapy. But these aren’t true.
What everyone needs to understand are the important ways that a skilled therapist can help anyone. Here are just a few ways that is possible.
Therapy helps you be a better you
If you think that doing a search for “best therapists near me” is a way of giving up, then you need to understand what therapy is all about. Therapy is not about fixing you, because you aren’t broken in the first place. Instead, therapy can help anyone because therapy is about making you a better you.
One primary purpose of therapy is to help you understand your own strengths and, ultimately, to understand yourself. A therapist helps you uncover how you think and why that’s important. They help you find the inner resources to cope with life’s difficulties, solve problems, and move forward.
Therapy helps you learn about relationships
In the old days, psychotherapists had a not-entirely-undeserved reputation for basically just being listeners. The classic trope was of a patient laid across a couch, talking endlessly while the therapist listened, pen poised over a notebook, asking an occasional question.
Psychotherapy has come a long way, and effective therapists are appropriately active. They build a relationship with you, and while that may start mostly by listening and asking key questions. in time your therapist will start offering you helpful insights, as a friend would — but a friend who is highly skilled and isn’t intertwined with your social and family networks which is the key difference.
This experience helps you learn how to engage with others more easily, how to convey what you’re really feeling, and how to listen to what others have to say. This will very likley help with all your relationships across the board.
Therapy helps you learn to love and accept yourself
A lot of people struggle to accept who they are and be kind to themselves. You don’t have to be clinically depressed or have a severe mental illness to deal with this sort of thing. A lot of us are skilled at sabotaging our own happiness, and even if we’re not doing that actively, nearly all of us are conditioned in some way to put true happiness and life satisfaction aside in favor of something else.
That “something else” could be instant gratification, which is not happiness. It could be pleasing others, which is great at times but cannot be the basis for all of life’s decisions. It could be work, which is also a good thing, but not enough to make us truly satisfied with our lives. Look up occupational therapy services if you need someone to talk to.
Therapy helps you find your purpose
Therapy isn’t just about making you a better you so you are stronger and more resilient; it’s also about helping you figure out what to do with that better you. A good therapist helps you uncover your passions and potential.
Once you know what you’re really good at and what you care about most, a therapist can help you reflect meaningfully on that and understand how to apply it to your career, your marriage, your parenting, your friendships, and all of life.
Therapy helps you reach your goals
We all have goals we struggle to reach. We might want to forgive someone and really let something go. We might have fitness goals we just don’t have the motivation to reach. For most of us, the problem is mental roadblocks that we don’t know how to overcome and might not even realize are there.
A skilled therapist knows how to help you see these roadblocks for what they are and learn how to overcome them. Once you do that, there’s nothing to stop you from reaching your goals.