How is Therapy Beneficial?
Therapy, also known as psychotherapy, is a form of treatment which involves talking with a trained therapist to alleviate mental, emotional, or behavioural challenges. While many may associate therapy with severe mental health conditions, its benefits extend beyond that, offering support to those dealing with day-to-day life stressors.
Apart from addressing mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, trauma, therapy can also help with managing stress, anger, navigating major life transitions, fostering relationships, and even goal setting and personal development. It's crucial to note that this list is not exhaustive, underscoring the broad spectrum of concerns therapy can effectively address. According to American Psychological Association, around 75% of people who take psychotherapy find it beneficial.
Therapy can be taken individually, as a couple, or even as a family. The number of sessions needed for therapy would largely depend on the nature and depth of the concerns. For more complex and deep-rooted issues therapy might last for months or even years. However, for dealing with something in the present it might take a few weeks to months. The therapist will mostly guide you on this based on your discussion.
Therapy has many benefits, of which few are listed below:
1. Developing Coping Skills- Distress arises when challenging situations exceeds our capacity to handle them. One of the primary advantages of therapy is the cultivation of essential coping skills. Therapy provides us with resources and skills to handle the stressors we are going through. When we have the tools we need to deal with the challenges we might be going through, the likelihood of us getting overwhelmed from it decreases.
2. Emotional Acceptance and Growth- We all face difficult emotions like sadness, anger, and fear to name a few. Left unregulated, it can hamper our relationships, compromise our mental well-being, and even impact our physical health. Understanding the source of these emotions and ways to regulate them is important and therapy can help with this. Emotion-focused therapy is a form of therapy designed to help individuals accept, regulate, and transform their emotions.
3. Initiate Deep Self-Understanding- Many of us grapple with the profound question of why we think, behave, and feel the way we do. Therapists can help guide self-discovery and awareness. Psychodynamic therapy, in particular, helps explore childhood and past experiences to understand how it has shaped us.
4. Goal-Setting and Self-Development- Therapy can help us in achieving our goals which we may have given up on. There are times when life circumstances may have derailed our goals or we might have certain life goals but need direction on how to achieve them. We at Empathic Counselling Centre use SMART Goals and Tools approach, to identify specific areas of your life that need improvement and lay out steps to achieve the goals.
5. Dealing With Trauma- For those who have gone through a challenging life experience that has completely overwhelmed you, therapy can help heal and recover. It will equip you with the tools and strategies to not only effectively heal from the trauma but also restore a sense of safety and resilience.
The benefits outlined above are merely a glimpse into the myriad of ways therapy can positively impact our lives. It's vital to recognize that therapy is not limited to specific issues or conditions; rather, it is a versatile resource that can be embraced for anything affecting one's happiness and life satisfaction.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/psychotherapy