Eight Ways Everyone Can Benefit From Therapy
Posted: February 19, 2021
Why is therapy so important and how can it help?
Oftentimes, people come to therapy when negative life experiences become too much to handle. Others find themselves in counseling to address challenges in their relationship. And others want to explore their lives in a very general way. Regardless of the reason, therapy is beneficial for all of us to help understand negative patterns happening, how we can improve it, and ways in which we can grow. I also recommend to all to please not wait until things get so bad before you start therapy. When we wait for things to get so bad, it becomes harder and takes more to work on improving and resolving the issue. This is also my feedback to couples. Please do not wait until things get so bad before you see a therapist. If we wait and resentment and pain continue to build, it's very hard to chip away at that wall.Here are some of the benefits of starting therapy:
- Therapy positive effects persist long term. A huge benefit of talk therapy is that its effects are long-lasting. This is because you're not only working through stuff, but you're also developing the tools to help you deal with future stuff.
- Physical Symptoms get treated. Going to therapy isn't just about the thoughts we have, it's also related to how we physically feel. Unfortunately when we stuff our emotions inside, our bodies tend to react and feel the negative impacts. Have you noticed that there's tension in your upper back, or butterflies in your stomach? Our bodies feel our emotional pain as well. And therapy also targets how we physically feel when we address the emotions behind the somatic experiences.
- Repressed emotions will come back to haunt you later on. The most serious drawback of not talking about things may be that unexpressed feelings and traumas can pile up and explode later. Even if you don't have a full-on breakdown later on, not fully processing events and emotions often creates negative thought patterns that can inform every area in your life - your relationships with your spouse, parents, kids, coworkers, and even yourself. So learning how to process them can change how you maneuver in many different ways.
- Therapy will give you a whole new perspective on other people. An awesome benefit of therapy is that it not only helps you understand yourself better but it helps you understand other people.
- Therapy helps you deal with future curveballs. Since big and small problems are going to come up from time to time, knowing how to deal with them in a healthy way is an essential skill.
- We know we're not alone. Seeing a therapist can be a huge relief since you know you're taking action against what hurts you. It is also comforting to know that you have a built-in support system that you can go to once a week.
- It will rewire your brain. One of the coolest things about therapy is that it can bring about change at the level of the brain. We think of medication as changing the depressed brain, but there's very compelling evidence that talk therapy does the same. The brain has something called neuroplasticity and what that means is that new neural networks can develop overtime with healthier habits and persistence. Therapy is an active way of developing new neural networks to create healthier thought patterns and healthier coping skills.
- It enables you to teach the next generation a better way. The best thing about dealing with your own stuff is that, if you have kids, it helps you teach them a better way. For those who grew up in households where stuff just wasn't talked about, look how many decades later we're still dealing with the fallout of that method.