Why Therapy is Important
Making a decision to begin therapy can be a tricky one. Yes, it is a big decision and choosing the right therapist for you is very important. Building rapport with your therapist is the cornerstone of treatment; without which growth and change would be difficult at best to occur. A good therapist can teach skills that can last a lifetime. They can teach skills such as CBT to treat all sorts of disorders such as social anxiety, depression and a whole host of other mental and emotional health disorders. Therapy is not for “crazy people”. This is one of the most common misconceptions. Therapy is for everyone.
Therapy can help you learn new skills to cope with social and coping with stress. CBT is one of the most common tools used to help treat these issues. CBT stand for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (or treatment), (Floyd and Winkier, 2021). CBT is the process by which negative thought patterns about the self and the world are altered to change negative behavioural patterns. It can be used to help change how you interact with others in romantic relationships, business relationships or other types of relationships. The therapist can help you develop reasonable expectations of others. Because of attachment styles we develop as children, we may develop unreasonable or negative expectations of others. You might believe others are naturally hostile so as a result we may behave in ways that would be suspicious of others. Or you might believe you cannot live without others and you become dependent on others to support you (Walton, 2014). Therapy can also help advocate for yourself (Floyd and Winkler, 2021). A good therapist would give you the tools to become a good advocate for yourself. DEAR MAN is a common DBT skill on how to assert yourself and make your needs known.
Therapy can help you become happier (Walton, 2014). We believe happiness comes from within. But one of the most common sources of unhappiness is self comparison with others. The therapist can use psychodynamic treatment to point out patterns of behaviour that leads to our unhappiness. The psychodynamic approach is simply you talking about what is bothering you. The therapist can help you work though long standing issues from childhood. Where as CBT and DBT are typically short term treatment models. He or she could give you skills to help with future issues as well as to deal with past issues (Walton, 2014). The therapist could help uncover repressed emotions that stem from childhood issues that can have a negative affect on present day situations.
Finally, therapy can help resolve issues such as anxiety and depression. Depressive symptoms can have somatic (bodily) effects such as pain. The therapist can help you work through these issues with depression with CBT and DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy). A treatment model in which you will learn distress management techniques. It brings together the concepts off acceptance and change. Acceptance of how your situation is and how to change your view toward it (Taylor, 2020). Although this was originally used to treat symptoms of borderline personality disorder, it can be modified to treat all sorts of disorders such as social anxiety disorder. With Social anxiety disorder you worry about making a fool of yourself in social situations or saying the wrong thing. With DBT and CBT you would learn distress tolerance skills to help reduce the level of anxiety. Studies has shown that childhood trauma can trigger physical symptoms such as pain and fibromyalgia. With the use of CBT and other treatment options we can help reduce the level of somatic symptoms. Now we cannot promise that we will eliminate physical symptoms.
To sum up, therapy is a good source of comfort and to learn new skills. Think of it as the gym for the mind. Finding the right therapist can make this process relatively easy. Now we know change is challenging. We all should have therapy at some point in our lives. I am a therapist and I have a therapist. Although friends and family can be a great source of support, therapy will give you an unbias view of your lives situations.
RESOURCES:
Floyd, Anne and Winkler (2020), Robert, 5 Long Term Benefits of Therapy, daveandhoy.com
Frye, Devon, A Reason to Reach out Psychology Today February 2022
Taylor, Rebecca Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (2020) Webmd.com
Walton, Alice. Forbes Magazine (2014)
