The Coach SpaceMental illness is surprisingly common. According to the World Health Organization, it’s are impacting almost 280 million individuals across the globe, while anxiety disorders are impacting about 301 million. Mental illness is not a personality flaw nor a character flaw, but a real medical condition that is extremely treatable.
In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health has consistently shown that most people who have a mental condition see a significant improvement once they get the proper treatment. Then why don’t more people seek out help?
Alas, there is still stigma around mental illness in many social circles. Some others fear being labelled or judged. Others have already tried therapy with unsure outcomes and feel it just does not work for them. So, to help everyone understand the purpose of counselling, here’s a complete rundown of how it changes lives.
That First Phone Call
Picking up the phone and making the initial call is typically the most difficult aspect of the entire therapeutic process. It requires an awareness that you need help, something that goes against every compulsion depression and anxiety have instilled in anyone under its sway.
But for those who did, when they do finally make that call, it’s somehow normal. The initial consultation is really all about getting familiar with you, and you getting familiar with the therapist.
Your mental health worker is going to ask you about your symptoms, and they’re also going to want to know about your life. What’s your support network like? Have you had therapy in the past? Are you on any medication? How’s a normal day like for you these days?
This screening will help them know the complete picture so that they can develop a proper treatment plan.
Another thing that surprises many first-time therapy clients is how different this initial session can be depending on whom you’re seeing. Some therapists are very formal, some are very loosey-goosey. Some will spend a great deal of time talking about your childhood, while others are less interested in what’s happening now.
This is why it’s so crucial to find the right counseling professional. You might have to visit a few different practitioners before you discover one that feels like home.
Building Your Treatment Plan
Once your therapist gets a sense of what you’re dealing with, the real work begins. And by work, I don’t mean lying on a couch discussing your life. Modern therapy is much more interactive and collaborative than people typically imagine. Here are your options:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Your treatment plan may include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is now a type of gold standard for depression and anxiety treatment. CBT makes you notice the connections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and then gradually change the patterns that are not good for you. It is useful and skills-based, which resonates with those who desire real-world tools to use in their lives.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Others do well with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which does not focus so much on changing your thoughts but on changing your relationship with them. Dr. Steven Hayes, ACT’s founder, talks about psychological flexibility. It’s being present and engaged with your values despite painful emotions surfacing. This method involves mindfulness exercise and allows individuals to develop what is known as “contact with the present moment.”
Others react better to these other approaches:
- Psychodynamic therapy – focuses on how earlier experiences influence current habits of behaviour.
- Interpersonal psychotherapy – treats communication and interpersonal competence.
- Trauma-focused psychotherapies – particularly effective in individuals where depression or anxiety is a product of specific traumatic events.
What is fascinating about this process is how personalized it becomes. Two people with the same symptoms may have two very different treatment protocols because their situations, personalities, and goals differ. Your therapist might integrate concepts from a variety of schools of thought or change direction as you progress through treatment.
What Actually Happens in Therapy
If you’ve never been to therapy before, you might have no sense at all of what people do in those 50-minute sessions. Truthfully, it’s a mix of many things, but there are some common themes.
At first, there’s a lot of history-telling. You’re teaching your therapist about your life, your relationships, your growth points, and your habits. And as you progress, the sessions become more active. You can practice skills for defusing panic attacks, complete cognitive exercises to debunk negative thought structures, or engage in role-playing difficult conversations.
Several therapists also incorporate mindfulness exercise, activation of behaviour, or even exposure therapy for specific phobias or anxiety triggers.
One of the most valuable aspects of therapy is becoming capable of observing yourself in wonder rather than judgment. Instead of beating yourself up for being anxious, you start catching yourself thinking that old familiar tightening sensation in your chest, and your mind is going a mile a minute. That transition from self-blame to awareness is gigantic.
It is the therapeutic relationship that cures. Many of those suffering from depression and anxiety have learned to hide their problems and put on a brave face to others. To have a safe environment where you can be completely honest about how you feel without worrying about burdening someone or being judged is a welcome relief.
Some sessions are all about concrete problem-solving. Perhaps you’re having issues with work stress, so you and your therapist get together to brainstorm practical solutions for setting limits or speaking more assertively with your supervisor. Other sessions will delve into affective work, having you examine and work through emotions that you’ve been wanting to avoid.
When Progress Doesn’t Feel Linear
Therapy is rarely a steady progress. One week you may leave feeling as if you’ve had a tremendous breakthrough, and the next week you’ll feel as though you’re back where you started. This is entirely normal, but it can be aggravating if you don’t expect it.
Many people bump into walls around six to eight weeks in treatment. They’ve been feeling better, sleeping more, crying less, and being able to drink their morning coffee again. Then they have a bad day at work, then panic, then three days of the dark cloud descending again. The temptation is to conclude that therapy isn’t working.
But good therapists help clients to look at setbacks in a different way. Instead of evidence that you’re not improving, difficult periods are data on your triggers and habits. They are opportunities to figure out specific situations that tend to overburden you and practice concrete ways of handling them in the future.
That’s where progress monitoring is as good as gold. When you’re amid a low point, it’s difficult to recall how far you’ve travelled. Therapists use some standardized measures, mood monitoring exercises, or even just plain old check-ins to help clients recognize patterns and changes that don’t always seem apparent on a day-to-day basis.
When Therapy Teams Up With Other Treatments
Although, in certain situations, therapy alone is adequate, it works best as part of a treatment program that incorporates other elements. These can include medication management, attendance in support groups, or partnering with your primary care physician to address physical health problems that impact mental health.
The topic of medication may be taboo for some. There is still stigma for antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, with some viewing them as indicative of weakness or inadequacy.
Practically speaking, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, and other medications might be of great assistance, as others find them. It may help level mood and may reduce anxiety symptoms enough that people can engage more successfully in therapy.
Your healthcare provider might also discuss other treatment options depending on your specific situation. For severe depression that hasn’t responded to other treatments, approaches like transcranial magnetic stimulation might be considered. For certain anxiety disorders, beta blockers can help manage physical symptoms.
Support groups are another highly worthwhile part of the equation. There’s immense value in talking to individuals who really have an idea of what you’re going through firsthand. It’s also validating to talk to someone who understands you on a fundamental level. Just be willing to do a combination treatment if that’s what’s going to be best for your situation.
How Change Actually Happens
The transformation that therapy can bring is not usually sudden or extreme. The beginnings are typically small and subtle. Maybe you are humming in the shower one day after a several-month silence.
You start looking forward to your weekly therapy sessions instead of dragging yourself to do it. You resume calling friends again because you genuinely want to hang out with them.
The changes usually come through in the manner in which you handle stress differently. Instead of catastrophic thinking running away with you, you catch it earlier and bring to bear the skills you’ve learned. Instead of working around what makes you anxious, you start confronting them gradually with new coping strategies and increased confidence.
Most people report developing a new relationship with their feelings and thoughts. Instead of being bossed around by each worried thought or depressed episode, they become able to observe these experiences with some detachment and compassion.
The shift, from being bossed around by difficult emotions to being able to perceive and work with them, is a fundamental change in how you move through life.
How Individual Healing Spreads
When an individual is successful in overcoming their mental health issues, the benefits ripple well beyond that individual.
Husbands and wives feel less as if they are walking on eggshells. Children feel more relaxed and present when their parent is no longer constantly struggling with depression or anxiety. Friendships become stronger when a person is more emotionally available and communicative.
There is scientific proof for the ways that one individual’s mental health impacts their entire social network. When an individual becomes educated on better coping skills and communication, they will naturally instill these behaviours in others. Kids particularly benefit when parents are proactive about addressing their mental health and modelling emotional regulation and resilience.
The company you work with benefits as well. Employees who’ve faced their mental health challenges report they feel better concentration, improved working relationships, and greater job satisfaction. They’re less likely to quietly let their needs slide, set good boundaries, and provide solid contributions to team projects.
This is a strong argument for seeking assistance for your own sake and for the sake of all the people who care about you. Having the courage to address mental health challenges is a gift that keeps giving, leading to healthier habits that can make a difference in relationships and communities for decades to come.
Building Your Long-Term Toolkit
Effective therapy gives you skills that you will apply for your entire lifetime. It may be cognitive techniques to challenge negative thoughts, mindfulness training to stay present in the here and now, behavioural techniques to manage situations that bring on anxiety, or stress management techniques that prevent symptoms from spiralling out of control.
Different therapies deliver different interventions. If you’ve been trained by somebody who employs mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, you might learn meditation skills that were developed by authors like Jon Kabat-Zinn. People who have trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy become skilled in doing exercises in psychological flexibility and values clarification.
Your therapist will collaborate with you on a maintenance plan as you get ready to decrease the number of sessions or stop regular therapy. This will give you enough confidence and ability to be your own coach on most days, with periodic tune-ups available if you need them.
Most find themselves stronger when confronted with problems in the future because of what they have learned in therapy. They know how to identify their warning signals, how to recognize their triggers, and how to use coping techniques before a problem has a chance to overwhelm them. They’ve also gained a kinder relationship with themselves, one that acts as protection against future mental illness.
Final Thoughts
If you’re reading this and seeing yourself in these words, you’re already ahead of the game than you may even know. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you may need professional help.
The mental health professionals out there became professionals because they desire to assist individuals through exactly what you are experiencing. They are not there to judge you, to analyse you, to make you feel worse about yourself. They are there to accompany you as you work through how to feel better and live more intensely.
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