Life has ups and downs and, although on many occasions we are able to solve problems on our own, on other occasions we need a little help to move forward because, otherwise, we will suffer and suffer until the problem that is hurting us goes away. if he ever does it. In these cases, going to a psychologist is the most appropriate thing to do.
But although it is recommended to go to the psychologist if you suffer from an emotional problem, this does not mean that we should wait for some stressful event or major life change to happen to us to go to the psychologist. Prevention is better than cure and, therefore, we should go to the psychologist even if we do not believe that there is anything bad that is happening to us.
There are many things in our daily lives that are minor today, but could be serious tomorrow. Next we will discover the main reasons for going to psychotherapy, of different severity and emergencies.
Going to a psychologist is nothing shameful nor is it synonymous with having serious psychopathology. Many people turn to mental health professionals to regain control of their lives, progress in them, and know themselves.
Psychotherapy does not consist of sitting in an armchair (or a couch) talking at length to the psychologist so that he or she can give us “advice.” No, what the psychologist does is not that, but rather he applies scientifically proven techniques and teaches us strategies to improve our lives.
Other people seem to be aware of what a psychologist does, and respect them as the professional that they are, but they consider that going to one while being perfectly “right in the head” is unnecessary. Having the belief that many of the problems of daily life are solved on their own or with little effort, many people see it as an unnecessary expense to go to a psychologist to be told what they should do. Because they think they have an idea of what the solution is, most people see this step as excessive.
However, Investing in our mental health is not an unnecessary expense, but a prevention measure. On many occasions, an emotional problem that was originally perfectly controllable evolves, crystallizes and becomes chronic, becoming a true mental disorder, a disorder that could have been avoided if the affected person had gone to psychotherapy in the first place. It may also happen that it is not a mental disorder that arises, but rather a relationship, family, work or study problem that, having not known how to handle it, now explodes in the affected person’s entire face.
Given all this and with the intention of motivating the reader to go to a psychologist and, thus, improve their life or, at least, prevent it from getting worse, below we are going to see several reasons why to go to psychotherapy, both If there is as if there is no clear and serious problem that limits our lives.
1. Healthy overcoming grief
Death is an inevitable part of life and we have all experienced the death of a loved one, or will experience it in the future. Although it is something normal and that we must accept, it is also an event that is not easy to face, especially if the mourning is for the loss of a very loved one and his death has been very sudden.
Grief is a normal part of life, pathological grief is not. It may happen that we do not know how to manage it, that we get stuck in it and spend months and months feeling deep discomfort due to the departure of our loved one. It’s as if we had died in life.
For this reason, in order to avoid this, it is a very good idea to resort to psychotherapy. We may end up overcoming grief on our own, but it never hurts to make sure that we actually overcome it with the best possible psychological strategies.
2. Manage major life changes
Life is all about ups and downs, and even at the peaks, they can be lived quite stressfully. For example, motherhood, moving to a new city, starting a university degree or starting a new and good job are happy events, but they also awaken uncertainty and fear.
To ensure that everything goes smoothly, going to a psychologist during these major life changes is one of the best options. It will help us manage the stress, fears and discomfort that may appear on the path to achieving our successes. making us face our vital challenges in the most efficient way possible.
3. Manage disruptive emotions
People feel positive emotions and negative emotions, all of them with adaptive functions if they manifest at euthymic levels. Nevertheless, Even if they are perfectly normal and far from psychopathology, there are negative emotions that can overwhelm us.
They do not have to be major negative emotions, such as a momentary misfortune or a serious annoyance. Daily pressures such as work, family or the global political and economic situation are small annoyances that, accumulated, end up taking their toll.
Do not let this happen! Going to a psychologist will help you identify these pressures and learn how to channel the tension that it produces in us to release it into productive and satisfying activities.
Many people may not even realize it but, in reality, they have phobias, fears and fears of all kinds. They may not be phobias at a clinical level as serious as those that are normally diagnosed, since they allow them to lead a relatively normal daily life, but at the end of the day These are problems that, if they get worse, will limit the affected person.
These phobias can be towards an object or animal, and they can also be towards implausible catastrophic situations that, despite the fact that there is little chance of them happening, do not leave our minds.
Whether towards something or a situation, psychotherapy can help us overcome a fear and dare to try new things or carry out activities in which the phobic object was involved.
5. Regain motivation
There are people who simply lose motivation. No, they are not depressed, but it is as if they have suddenly lost interest in hobbies that previously fulfilled them and, if they are neglected, they are walking step by step towards a mood disorder. This can happen to all of us and, fortunately, it has a solution.
The psychologist can help us regain motivation, detecting the underlying problem that makes us feel this way and looking for strategies to deal with it. True that It may not be something very serious, but there is no doubt that what worries us is interfering in our lives. and, in the long run, it will be very harmful.
6. Avoid and overcome addictions
Without euphemisms or half measures: drug use is not justifiable. Neither alcohol nor tobacco, much less cocaine or marijuana, have a justified use. Many people are fully aware of this, but that does not mean they stop taking them or are totally protected from their consumption.
Some life situations can be so extreme on an emotional level that, despite being perfectly aware of how bad they are, we end up taking drugs as a way to deal with the discomfort that the situation in question produces. But what happens here is not that we eliminate the problem that causes us discomfort, but that we camouflage it with an unhealthy habit.
Psychotherapy helps us avoid substance use and relapses since it provides us with effective strategies against the problems that may arise, whether serious or minor, but all of them manageable in one way or another.
7. Improve our romantic relationship
Many couples say they are happy, but when it comes down to it There are many problems of coexistence that make both lovers feel dissatisfied. with the direction the relationship is taking.
Relationships require a lot of care and hard work, which we don’t always do. In this case, psychotherapy can help both members of the couple learn effective communication strategies, learn to be more assertive in the relationship or show more explicitly how much both lovers love each other. You can also acquire tools to resolve the small frictions of coexistence in a peaceful and functional way.
Many people suffer from sleeping problems and don’t really know why it is. They have tried sleeping pills, reducing the amount of caffeine, going to bed earlier every day… and they have achieved nothing, absolutely nothing.
Sometimes our mind is very stupid. While lying down, they begin to wake up and remember things that prevent us from sleeping. This “runrún” keeps us awake and, even though we have tried everything above, we cannot sleep. It can also happen that we are so stressed that we don’t even realize how tense we are in bed.
Although there are few cases in which trying these strategies does not work at all, it should be said that one of the ways to find out what is really happening is to go to a psychologist. He or she will find out if the insomnia is really due to a psychological problem or is due to another cause.
9. Eliminate body pain
Many times, emotional problems manifest themselves in the form of pain throughout the body. Our head hurts, our stomach hurts, we feel cramps, we get dizzy… annoying sensations that apparently have no medical explanation.
They may actually be manifestations of a high level of stress that, even if we downplay its importance, is still problematic. If we don’t do something, these psychosomatic discomforts will get worse, and could lead to problems such as gastrointestinal diseases or constant headaches.
10. Nothing we have tried has worked
Finally, one of the reasons for going to psychotherapy is that, although apparently controllable, we have arisen problems that we have not been able to control. Everything we have tried has failed. They are not problems that pose a risk to our lives or physical or mental integrity, but they are annoying and begin to lower our self-esteem and our desire.
We may be trying to pass our studies and we are not succeeding in any way, or we may be doing terrible at work even though we do everything possible to be punctual in delivering the reports. Maybe, even though we try to be in a good mood, sooner or later we argue with our family.
Whatever it may be, all these situations are examples of warning signs to turn to a psychologist, since there may really be a problem of anger control, generalized demotivation, symptoms of silent depression and other psychological conditions that, if not controlled , they can destroy our lives.
