Is Psychotherapy Right for Me?
Understanding When Psychotherapy is Helpful and What You Need to Know Before You Start
Written By: Volha Shelepava
What is Psychotherapy?
It's important to prepare people for the therapeutic process, so they know what to expect and don't romanticize or, conversely, demonize therapy.
Psychotherapy is essentially an undertaking that helps you get along with yourself. Self-love is, of course, amazing, but sometimes it's a very distant and abstract goal. Therefore, it is sometimes easier to aim for a warm attitude and compassion towards yourself, to begin with.
Why do some people need psychotherapy and how does it work?
The feeling of living with someone you don't love can range from discomfort to deep disgust, and if this unloved person is yourself, it complicates everything to another level. In such a situation, you cannot get a divorce from yourself, you cannot move out, and you cannot even leave yourself anywhere for a while. So if you can’t leave and you can’t run away, what do you do?
So how does psychotherapy work here? Remember a movie with an unpleasant character who initially does not evoke any sympathy? Then the plot unfolds, and we see what the person had to go through; we see their pain, losses, and failures, and we start feeling warmth inside, sympathy appears. The character no longer seems so unpleasant; we begin to empathize with them, wish them well, and hope that they succeed.
Psychotherapy works in a similar way. When we look at the “unpleasant” character (i.e., ourselves) closer and in more detail, the attitude towards ourselves inevitably improves and warms up. From an abstract “loser and lazybones” or “superhuman who cannot be wrong”, we become a living, breathing human of flesh and blood who deserves sympathy, compassion, and love.
So how do I know if I should start?
If reading through this article made you feel an urge to take action, that's probably a sign that you're ready to start psychotherapy. Of course every person has a unique relationship with themselves and is at a different point in their self-love exploration, so you need to go at your own pace and make sure you feel comfortable. Psychotherapy can be really hard, and it takes effort to truly see meaningful change. Wherever you are on your journey, the more you know, the better you are, so we hope this article was helpful!