Why do people seek therapy? And when should I start?

Since everyone is different, each of us will seek therapy or counselling for different reasons. However, many people begin therapy because they are suffering or feel ill at ease or unhappy. For instance, you might be stuck in certain relationship patterns that you feel powerless to alter. Or you might be mourning the death of a parent, friend, or child.

Sometimes people go to therapy to focus on past experiences (for instance, in childhood) that they have previously avoided thinking about or experiencing because of the pain and difficulty that acknowledging them involves. Sometimes an individual feels miserable, lonely, or disconnected from others without knowing why. For instance, one might feel entirely unable to express their feelings, or even to experience emotions at all, due to a traumatic event in the past, or a recent experience of loss.

To lift the experience of emptiness, we turn to therapy with the hope that it will release our feelings or revitalise us. Powerful emotions can also be overwhelming, frightening, painful, and too much to bear; for this reason, therapy can feel like a release and may allow modulation of emotional experience.

Speaking with someone in confidence and in a secure setting can be a powerful manner of understanding yourself, the past and its relation to the present, and your relationships.

Freud’s sofa.
Picture by ROBERT HUFFSTUTTER.
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/huffstutterrobertl/6888951554/in/photolist-buKFhN-bHF4bn-bJi1KD