Why You Might Need to Pause and Rethink Before Starting Therapy

Do not start therapy if you-

• You contemplate visiting a therapist because you are being pressured by family or friends. If you cannot say no easily or just want to appease them, this is bound to fail from the very first session as you might sabotage your own progress.
• If you feel there can be relief as talking can be truly cathartic. While speaking openly can indeed be healing and liberating, it alone won’t necessarily address deeper thoughts or behaviors. In fact, talking without a clear purpose  might trap you in a cycle of negative thinking or reinforce a victim mentality, providing only temporary relief without leading to lasting change.
• You saw the media suggest it’s enjoyable or interesting. Of late, therapy is glorified in media and movies, which makes it seem more fun and dramatic. This can lead to high expectations, and you might end up putting the responsibility on the therapist without taking accountability for your own progress.
• You see that advertisements or anecdotal stories show therapy as a quick fix or miracle solution. It is important to understand that nearly all forms of therapy require a commitment to the process and cannot be bypassed with shortcuts. Like any intensive educational process, it takes time to cultivate tools and techniques necessary to handle life’s challenges.
• You think that others are not right and validation from a therapist will boost your self-belief and help convince others. However, therapy doesn’t work that way. It requires examining your own distorted thoughts, focusing on personal change, and building emotional independence.

When and Why You Might need to Seek Therapy:

• You realise that you are experiencing severe distress, sleeplessness, sadness without any reason or you are facing extreme decision-making difficulties and your friends make sense when they asked you to seek therapy. 
• You notice that you have too many fears, extreme guilt and shame that feel overwhelming and seem to have taken you hostage.
• You seem to question your every thought, action, decision and behaviour
• You find yourself harboring extreme anger without understanding why and not able to find ways to express it or you seem to be losing your temper too often
• You notice yourself analysing every text and every sentence of your family or friends or colleagues looking for hints to see if they really love you.
• You find yourself constantly following experts’ and well wishers advice, yet you remain unhappy and unfulfilled.
• Your thoughts are constantly centered on how you are unhappy, unsuccessful, inferior, worthless, lazy, unwise, foolish, addicted or flawed.
• You have persistent physical symptoms like chronic cough, neck/back pain, or gut issues despite repeated normal medical tests.
• You believe you need to visit a therapist but are unable to do so as you find yourself worrying that the therapist might judge or dislike you.
• You feel you cannot take it anymore and something needs to be CHANGED within yourself. 

Note: Image from Freepik.com