Why should I try therapy, coaching or counselling?

Photo by youssef naddam

Here’s a common chunk of reasoning I’ve encountered both in others and myself:

“I’m struggling with X, Y, Z and a new letter of the alphabet no one’s ever even heard of. I feel so stressed and out of my depth. No one seems to get it. But I don’t know if therapy or coaching can help me. No one in my family’s ever been to therapy, so why should I need it? I went to counselling once and it didn’t help. It doesn’t seem worth trying. Talking about my problems won’t make them go away.”

I am going to attempt to reframe this (good luck to me).

“I spend a lot of time out in the sun, but I don’t know if I need a hat. My friends don’t wear hats, and they seem just fine. Shopping for a hat sounds time-consuming, and I’m so busy. Come to think of it, I wore a hat once and my arms got sunburnt. It doesn’t help as much as people say it does.”

“I really need a haircut, but I don’t know if I can find the right hairdresser. The one I tried last was disappointing – and expensive! I’ll just let it grow out for a few more years and see how I feel.”

“It would be great if I learned how to drive, but I don’t trust driving instructors. They didn’t exist before, and neither did cars. People used to get by just fine without cars and driving instructors in the past. My grandfather worked his whole life with nothing but a loyal horse! It was rough, but discomfort is a part of life. May as well get used to it.”

“My house is flooded but I don’t think anyone’s available to help me. I don’t want to pay for help either, because it might not be worth it. I’ll just wait for the water to drain and live with the mould. The problem will resolve itself in time. Floods don’t last forever. Time heals all.”

I could go on. And you could go ahead and pick these examples apart. You can call me out on many counts of inaccuracy. I already know that a therapist is not a hairdresser, and a coach is not a car.

However, instead of raging at these little examples, we could use them as reminders of our often-flawed human reasoning.

Your doubts and fears may well be true:
Therapy, counselling or coaching may not help instantly. (They’re not meant to be quick-fixes anyway.) You may indeed know of absolutely no one who’s benefitted from these services. And you’re right – they may not have existed in the past.

But…
- You can’t know if something will help unless you try it – and ‘try’ means more than one solitary session. Growth takes commitment.
- You really don’t know who has tried it and who hasn’t. Most of us don’t stick “Try Therapy” bumper stickers on our car. Maybe we should.
- You’re not all those other people who have or haven’t tried it. Would YOU like to try it?
- And finally – no, it did not exist in the past. Neither did pilots or washing machines or jeans or wheelchairs or dog leads or surgeons or desk lamps or wifi. We happen to be living now. And these beautiful healing services exist now so that we can access them now.

That said, I know first-hand that access may be problematic - I don’t want to dismiss or belittle this reality.
Therapy, counselling or coaching may be expensive. You may be juggling life and familial obligations that don’t allow you a precious slice of time for your wellbeing. You may be struggling just to survive. I’ve been there. And I can say with deep honesty that therapy, counselling and coaching were instrumental in my crawling out (and staying out) of some very dark holes. I can also say that I had some very hard choices to make when it came to accessing and showing up for sessions. Even now, I still have to pick and choose what I can access, but I am careful not to take the services off the table completely. I know their benefits all too well.

Seeking out and committing to a service may be hard, especially if you’re financially tight and standard session costs seem out of reach. Depending on your location and your work, check for subsidies, insurance benefits, free services, and professionals who use varied pricing systems. Inquire about different packages and session frequency. Ask around, if you feel comfortable doing so. Search online and search among your community. You really never know when a door will be graciously opened for you, and I sincerely hope it will be.

If you do have the time and resources to easily access these services, and you’re resistant to giving them a go, then be honest with yourself about your resistance. Question your excuses. Question your fears. Question your hesitancy and shame and whatever else comes up when you hear the words ‘therapy’, ‘counselling’, ‘mental wellness’ and so forth.
Remember, it is infinitely better to face your truth head-on than to spend a lifetime dragging the question “What if?” everywhere you go.

Finally, if you happen to try a service, and you feel the professional isn’t right for you, don’t force yourself to stay – it will just feed your belief that “this won’t help”. Don’t be afraid to keep searching for something that does help.

In the end, whether or not you try one of these services is entirely your call - not your family’s, not the general public’s, and definitely not the past’s.
Just make sure you don’t let your unfounded beliefs stop you from stepping into something that might completely transform your life.