How would you know if you should see a therapist?

[citizen cane]

The title is pretty self-explanatory. I think answers will vary quite a bit, so this should be a valuable thread.

 

[kyuuei]

Coming from someone who's suggested therapy to others, attended sessions, but never used it for personal reasons. It's really quite arbitrary.. sometimes, people just need a third party person to talk to to sort their thoughts out. But the main motivators I've seen:

- Major life event.. losing a loved one very close to you, experiencing a traumatic event, being forced to move to a new place or starting a whole new life.
- Having someone toxic in your life change your baseline... having low self esteem due to other people pushing you down for example, or oppression, bullying, or having a lifestyle that is not currently accepted by mainstream people will sometimes cause this as well.
- Addiction
- Anger issues
- Lack of coping mechanisms.. if anxiety hits you from the small stuff (aka you see people handle it no problem but you cannot), you likely lack the ability to cope with what life is throwing at you, and you probably need help developing those things in your life.
- Having come from a shitty past and not knowing how to move forward.
- Having someone tell you that you can benefit from counseling.. Seriously, I see a lot of people ignore this one, but if someone who cares about you says that this is outside of their scope, it probably is.
- Being diagnosed with a mental illness of any sort usually requires periodic management through CBT and counseling to get an outsider perspective on how you're doing.
- Happy events that have a nasty way of going bad... marriage counseling is a fairly routine thing that even healthy happy individuals should go through to ensure they are where they want to be before taking such a major step.

I tell everyone that counseling usually doesn't hurt. Of course there's bad counselors just like there's bad anythings out in the world, but to speak generally and not to the small percentage, counseling is there because people have a passion to help others help themselves and study hard to do just that. Counseling gives you what you put into it, and most of the time people are far more cautious with counseling than they should be... this, to me, should be the first in line to try for most things. If you're debating going, go. If you have no one to talk to, go.

 

[Cloudpatrol]

How does one know when seeing any medical professional is necessary?


Concern. Is one troubled by feelings or behaviour that are present?


Progression. Is the issue getting worse?


Treatment. Have one’s own efforts to stop, reduce or cope with the dynamic been effective?


Function. Is the issue affecting the ability to function properly (sleep disturbance, anxiety, social disruption, impulse control problems, recurrent negative thoughts, food or drug complications, negative work performance etc.)?


Pain. Are pain or suffering present? Causing distress? Are unexplained/recurrent headaches or stomach pains occurring? Is the immune system seemingly compromised? Sex drive diminished?


Relationships. Are relationships with others strained? Do activities that previously brought joy = now fall flat? Have other’s expressed concern?


Seeking the help of trained professionals, to re-adjust oneself mentally is logical. Like consulting a Doctor to re-set a broken bone.


People do fear pain. But, the pain involved in solving (speaking aloud) problems is always less than the hurt that comes from attempting to ignore & continuing to struggle.

 

[ceecee]

I think simply asking this question is enough to consider therapy.

 

[Mole]

Therapy, the National Training Laboratory, and the Arts of Peace

In 1947 it became apparent we needed to change from a war economy to a civilian economy.

The National Training Laboratory (NTL) in Bethel, Maine, realised that in order to segue from a war economy to a civilian economy, we needed to change our epistemology.

And the National Training Laboratory was immensely successful in teaching us how to work empathically in groups.

So we might say the National Training Laboratory used therapy to change our minds and our hearts.

And therapy today is still used to socialise us into a civilian economy based on co-operation rather than command and control so necessary in wartime.

So today therapy teaches us the arts of peace rather than the arts of war.

So if we wish to be at peace with ourselves and our neighbours, we can do no better than therapy.

 

[citizen cane]

I think simply asking this question is enough to consider therapy.

Could you please elaborate?

 

[ceecee]

Could you please elaborate?

I think if a person poses a question like - should I see a therapist or should I get therapy - to themselves, that's a good enough reason to at least consider therapy. That's how I did it. I wasn't having any immediate problems but there were things in my past I was going to have to address sooner or later. I said to myself - maybe I should look into therapy. Then I did it, for about a year.

 

[Merced]

Are you unhappy and/or at risk of causing harm to yourself or others? Do you want to better yourself or your relationship with others?
If you said yes to either of those two questions, then congratulations! You should go to therapy.

Therapy isn't a crisis-only solution. You can seek therapeutic advice on day to day things and it will still be 100% valid. The question shouldn't be "am I unhealthy enough to go to therapy?", it should be "am I willing to improve myself through therapy?" Studies show that every person has met the criteria for some major mental illness for a part of their life by the time they turn 25. We are not perfect. Therapy also isn't you sitting down crying in front of someone while they take notes. Most therapists practice CBT stuff. Y'know, Cognitive-Behavioral stuff. Cognitive therapy focuses on working on your thought process to better yourself while Behavioral therapy focuses on working on your habits to better yourself. Usually, a therapist will incorporate both, hence why it's Cognitive-Behavioral.

It's like that because of the Cognitive Triangle. The Cognitive Triangle suggests that your emotions effect your actions and thoughts, your actions effect your thoughts and emotions, and your your thoughts effect your emotions and actions. By altering one, you alter the others. Isn't that rad?

So at therapy, you are given tools to put the proper adjustments to your triangle, so that you can become your own mechanic. At the end of the day, a therapist's job is to get themselves fired, because the goal is to do everything you do in therapy outside of therapy.

This is all coming from an aspiring business psychologist with zero training in the field other than an AP textbook, a bunch of episodes of Crash Course, and three years of ongoing therapy, so take what I say with a grain of salt.