When you think about therapy, what comes to mind first? For a lot of people, the vision of therapy is laying down on a lounge chair with a box of tissues digging through the deepest depths of the mind.
Pop culture teaches us that therapy is about saving people from the brink or bringing people back from a mental breakdown. That is, of course, an element of some therapies but also falls well short of the whole picture of what mental healthcare truly looks like.
Everyone knows “sad” people go to therapy, but what the general public needs to understand better is this: happy people to therapy, too. People go to therapy for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the reasons below.
To Improve Workplace Relationships, Morale, and Promote Dynamic Professional Growth
The who, the what, and the why of going to therapy is something I recently discussed with Spotlight Branding Editorial Director John Hinson on their Center Stage podcast. For full disclosure, and with the permission of John and his colleagues, John is my patient. I provide in-house workplace mental health services to members of the Spotlight team.
Workplaces benefit greatly from peeling back the stigmas surrounding mental health and directly addressing the mental health needs of employees. Therapy and counseling can foster better workplace relationships which, in turn, improves morale and promotes a more dynamic and diverse team. After all, people are wired to talk about work and the number one therapy technique is talk!
When your employees have access to personal growth then this growth can greatly influence the hard work being done in the office each and every day.
To Find Answers
Therapy can also be about exploring the unknown. People often think “this thing is happening to me, but I don’t know why” or “I had this experience in the past and don’t know why it’s still having a major impact on me today.” Therapy can help you find those answers.
Integrating different practices of therapy helps a patient find what works for them. Some people spend endless days, weeks, and months trying to find answers for themselves but a trained professional can walk with you on the journey for unbiased answers.
Answers don’t have to be just about understanding yourself, either. Sometimes the answers you are seeking are more about someone else and can help you explain why they acted the way they did towards you and your loved ones.
For Personal Growth
Most people want to go into therapy and get something out of it. At a very stripped-down level, therapy is a transaction. You are paying for a service in the hopes that you come out on the other side with a perspective that allows you to grow as a person.
You don’t have to hit the proverbial wall in life and just stand behind it. You can walk around it, you can build a door and walk through it – you can overcome the wall. This can often be done just by talking to a therapist but it can also be done through breathwork, meditation, and movement.
Some people seek therapy because they need a companion on the journey to personal growth. For many, there is an “end” to therapy where they find the level of personal growth they always hoped for. For others, the journey continues even when they have reached the point they hoped for.
So They Can Reinforce Progress and Success Already Found
I said it above and I will say it again: happy people go to therapy. You can be on a path of success and enjoy where life has taken you and still go the therapy.
Therapists are trained to handle the biggest lows in your life, but they are also trained to handle the heights, too. Sometimes success can be hard to define and there are questions you want to answer surrounding how you can repeat that success or how you can apply this newfound success to your future.
We shouldn’t just be concerned with combatting the negative but also reinforcing the positive. We don’t intend to simply fix your problems and walk away – your journey doesn’t end the day you feel comfortable but continues every day you have breath in your lungs.
No one group of people can be defined as needing therapy because all parts of our lives can benefit from some form of therapy. At Integrated Therapies, we pull from experience with a diverse range of therapies to treat the whole person. Whatever your reason, we’re here to help.