Is Psychotherapy Right for You?
Here are five questions than can help you decide.
1. Is someone urging you to come in for therapy, or are you seeking to do this for yourself?
There’s an old maxim: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”
No one can force you to engage in therapy. Oh, maybe someone -- a spouse, an employer, a physician -- can put enough pressure on you to get you to your first appointment. After all, this is just their way of showing love or concern. But nobody can make you participate in the process against your will. Therapy just doesn’t work this way.
On occasion, someone will call my office attempting to make an appointment for another adult (e.g., husband, girlfriend, partner). But unless there is some true reason why the person in question can’t use the phone, I always suggest that the concerned party have the person call for him- or herself. Just because someone wants you to get therapy, it doesn’t mean you’re ready.
Why? Because the fuel of therapy is motivation. Without it, we sputter and go no where fast. With it, we can travel great distances.
2. Are symptoms beginning to interfere with your ability to function?
There are any number of ways we can be distressed, but the most common symptoms therapists see are anxiety and depression. Other symptoms can include difficulty sleeping or concentrating, problems with emotional control, angry outbursts, self-defeating or self-injuring behaviors, and more.
One way to gauge whether symptoms are interfering with your ability to function is to consider how well you’ve been able to work lately. Work requires sustained effort towards a set of objectives and goals. To work effectively, you must focus your attention and suppress competing desires and emotions. But when symptoms are present, focus becomes difficult. When distress is mild, you’ll have to work a little harder to stay on task, which is exhausting, but do-able. When distress is moderate, your performance will be effected. And when distressed is either severe or sustained, it will be difficult to maintain steady attendance.
When it becomes difficult to function at work, it’s as if your psyche is sending you a message: something else needs attention. You may wish you could ignore the message, but your psyche keeps knocking at the door, demanding to be heard. And what is the message telling you? Generally, it’s a sign that something about your life isn’t working.
3. Are you ready to address the problem?
Here is the plain truth about therapy and change: when we make a decision to confront a personal problem, we have to be prepared to face discomfort. Think about going on a diet, or quitting smoking, or trying to establish a workout routine. Have you ever tried to change any of these habits? If you have, you know what I’m talking about. Change -- even change for the better -- involves some discomfort.
Talking about your problems in therapy may unsettle you, at least at first. Strong emotions may come to the fore and anxiety may accompany attempts to alter old, worn-out patterns. Moreover, the very act of stepping back from your life may prompt you to re-think your lifestyle, which in turn generates uncertainty. But growth without effort is a myth.
Most human beings are reluctant to change until the cost of not changing starts to outweigh the cost of facing the problem. Sometimes it’s helpful to ask yourself a key question: what is your problem costing you? This is a good first step in trying to decide if therapy is right for you. If the price-tag is small, you may not have much motivation to do the work of self-examination and change. But if the price-tag is big, how much more life can you afford to spend on this problem?
4. Are you willing to work collaboratively on your concern?
More than anything else, therapy is a collaborative venture. Therapy requires your full participation.
When you decide to start therapy, you are essentially inviting someone else into your life to help you as you work to solve your problem. This does not mean a therapist solves the problem for you; rather, he or she helps you understand how your unique psychology is holding you back.
Sometimes therapy is compared to medical treatment. But the truth is, most medical procedures are done to you. Therapy is something that is done with you. If you decide on therapy, think of your therapist as an ally. An ally is someone who is on your side. When we are hurting, it’s easy to feel like we are alone in the universe. But a therapist is someone who understands psychological pain and has been down this road many times with other people.
You don’t have to go it alone.
5. Are you willing to see therapy as an investment?
We invest in education, physical health, and products and services that enhances our lives. Therapy is really no different. It’s really an act of declaring that you have made yourself a priority. Your needs, wants, wishes, and feelings. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to create a good life if at first you don’t feel good.
We can’t stop the challenges of life from coming at us, but we can change the way we react and respond to them. We can invest in a newer, more vibrant version of ourselves. If you are willing to look at the therapy process this way, therapy may indeed be right you.
But make no mistake: therapy costs more than money. It also costs time, attention, and energy. If it’s going to do you any good, you’ll need to commit to it. Which is really just a way of saying you’ll need to make a commitment to yourself.