I'm not mentally ill. Should I go to therapy?

If you’re reading this, you’ve at least considered therapy. 

Maybe you feel unhappy even though you don’t see any reason why. Maybe you struggle with anxiety and can’t seem to stop worrying about things. Maybe you aren’t sure how to handle certain conflicts or disagreements.

Though going to therapy has become a lot more common in our society, most people still associate it with mental illness. Why would a functional person go to therapy? How is complaining about stuff supposed to help? 

If you’re unhappy, it matters. 

Just because you’re managing doesn’t mean you’re living the life you want. You might feel:

• Disconnected from your purpose 

• Disconnected from friends and loved ones

• Chronically tired or unmotivated

• Trapped in patterns you don’t know how to change

  
  

What if you could feel:

• Connected to a feeling of purpose and excitement about life?

• Closer to your loved ones and less overwhelmed by their quirks?

• Energized because you are motivated to do the things you need to do?

• Capable of changing the unhealthy patterns that you don’t like but keep repeating?

  
  

For many of you, the response that comes to mind would be “Yeah right! How’s that going to happen!?”

How therapy can help

A trained therapist’s approach is based on clinical research and therapeutic techniques that have been proven to work. It’s not ‘just talking.’

Before jumping in with a solution, as your well-meaning friends or even your own mind might do, your therapist would guide you in slowing down so that you can truly understand what is going on inside of you. 

The journalist Johann Hari, who himself struggled with depression, wrote about an experience he had when he became very ill with food poisoning. In his misery, he asked the doctor who was treating him to give him something for the nausea. Instead, the doctor said, “You need your nausea. It is a message. It will tell us what is wrong with you.”

When you are feeling unhappy, anxious, or irritable all the time, it’s tempting to jump straight to finding a way to just make it stop. This is why people often try to silence their emotional pain through distractions, substances, or even practical self-help techniques. Those things can help – to some point. But, if those painful feelings are still nagging at you in the background, you’ll know that that’s not enough. 

That’s the time when the best thing you can do for yourself is to seek therapy. In therapy, we start by gently welcoming the feelings. They are a message. They will tell us what is wrong. A therapist will always approach you with “unconditional positive regard.” That means that the therapy room is a safe place, where all parts of you are welcome.

Being in a place where all parts of you are welcome, you will learn to show that same compassion to yourself. We all struggle with self-compassion at times; people can’t help but internalize the judgment that’s been placed on them from the world, and especially from loved ones. If your family members judge and reject who you are, how could you fully like yourself? In therapy you’ll learn just how to do that. And you’ll realize how important accepting all parts of yourself is to your mental wellbeing.

The last line of Johann Hari’s book is both insightful and empowering. “It is only when we listen to our pain that we can follow it back to its source—and only then, when we can see its true causes, can we begin to overcome it.”

Developing self-compassion will allow you to look at yourself – truly look at yourself, even parts that you see as shameful or unacceptable. Even the most unhealthy behaviors have a purpose. The author and philosopher G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.” Our unhealthy behaviors are fences that protect us. Yet, many of us feel shame and guilt about doing things that we know are "wrong." Other people also shame us, even though usually the intent is to help. How often do people say that someone deserves negative consequences because "it's their own fault," or "they never learn"?

The therapy room is that safe space where "it's your own fault" is set aside and compassionate inquiry is there instead. What function is that unhealthy behavior serving? Why was that "fence" put up? Only when you truly understand your own behavior, will you have the choice and ability to change.

In Summary, 

If you are not living your best life, it truly does not have to be that way.  As Gabor Mate points out, “It is sobering to realize that many of the personality traits we have come to believe are us, ...actually bear the scars of where we lost connection to ourselves, way back when.” 

Through therapy, you will truly build a connection to yourself so that when a feeling arises, you will see it as a message and you will listen to it. You will learn to listen with no judgment and no fear. When you can do that, the self-knowledge and self-compassion will empower you to face each of the stressors mentioned above.

• If you felt disconnected from your purpose, you will have learned to look inside without fear and ask yourself what’s missing. What need is not being met?

• If you felt disconnected from friends and loved ones, you’ll be able to look at walls you might have put up that create distance between you and them. You’ll also have learned how to put your feelings and needs into words, including letting people know when they've hurt you without attacking them.

• If you felt chronically tired or unmotivated, you’d be able to notice what’s weighing you down. Suppressing your feelings takes a lot of mental and emotional energy. Once you learn to welcome your feelings, you won’t have to exhaust yourself by hiding from them.

• You won’t be trapped by the inability to change because you’ll know what’s stopping that change in the first place.