If there’s one thing I’m a little bit envious of with generations below me, it’s the comparative ease and openness with which people talk about mental health now. I used to be a Samaritans volunteer for many years and what became apparent was how many people felt in crisis for different reasons but help wasn’t always readily available.
Take physical health. If you are feeling perfectly healthy, you wouldn’t consider going on a doctor’s appointment to get a check up. Usually people reserve doctor’s appointments for when they are feeling less than healthy or actually starting to feel sick. The thing is, everybody should be booking doctor’s appointments when they are actually healthy and not waiting until they are ill and the reason for this is because prevention is better than a cure.
The same is true for going to therapy. You may not book an appointment with a therapist until you feel like your mental health is in crisis, but if you wait that long, you’re going to get to that crisis point sooner than later. The best thing that you can do is to reach out to the therapist when you are still feeling healthy. Because even though you think you won’t need any help, healthy people need someone to talk to just as much as those who are struggling. Benefiting from therapy isn’t something that happens just because you’re in crisis. Here are some reasons to consider it, even if you feel mentally healthy.
- It’s an affordable way to stay healthy. Therapy doesn’t have to be expensive. You can get a recommendation from your doctor from a great therapist, and you can look online and speak to your friends about therapists that they may have used in the past. But it doesn’t have to be an expensive venture.In fact, therapy could be the most cost effective thing you ever do because it’s all about that prevention we talked about earlier.
- They are great listeners. You might think that you only need to lean on your friends when it comes to your health, but therapists are trained to listen to you in an active way that allows them to give you an impartial opinion about your life where your friends may not be able to. Sometimes there are issues that you want to talk through that you might not be able to go to your friends and family with, and that’s exactly why therapists can be there for you better than they can.
- There may be underlying issues that you didn’t realize you had. Repression is a very big thing for human beings. We push down the painful feelings and we hide them away in an effort so that people don’t know that we are struggling. In fact, you may not even realize that you are struggling and that’s why getting therapy is always a good idea. Some issues may come to the surface and your therapist will be able to help you to figure them out.
- You gain an unbiased opinion. As we said, therapists are great listeners, and when you get your therapy going, you’ll be able to rely on somebody to give you an unbiased opinion who doesn’t know you or your situation. You’ll also be able to give you some tips and hints on how you can make some changes in your current life to continue along this healthy mental health path.
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