Two reasons why you should consider counselling
By Stephanie
Counseling offers several benefits for people who are struggling with a number of difficulties, mental health issues, or life obstacles. With regular counseling, you can find effective ways to cope with mental illness, even if certain medications haven’t worked for you before. Only about 40% of people with mental health issues get the help they need.
This can be detrimental in the long run, since untreated psychological issues can lead to the inability to function at work or school, strained relationships, hospital admission, other health issues, and unfortunately, in some cases, suicide.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. for individuals between the ages of 10 and 34. Sadly, 90% of suicide victims suffering from some type of mental illness.
If you’re facing a challenge in life, want to know the next steps you should take in your career, or need assistance achieving and maintaining a healthy relationship, counseling can be helpful. While there are several reasons why counseling can be effective, here are two of the reasons you may want to book an appointment with a counselor.
Counseling Can Help You Achieve Your Goals
If you are afraid or apprehensive about achieving life goals like finishing school, embarking on your dream career, losing weight, or getting married, counseling sessions can give you the confidence you need to make these goals a reality. You may be paralyzed by a fear of success, or you may be so afraid to fail that you won’t take the necessary steps to make your dreams come true.
This fear of success or failure could come from past events in your life that had a profoundly negative effect on you. Or, you may be grieving the loss of a loved one or a failed relationship, which has stunted your emotional growth and prevented you from moving forward in life.
Your inability to create the best life possible for yourself can also come from your family dynamic since people are conditioned to play roles in their families that shape their personalities and shows up in the way they interact with others in the world.
A counselor can help you discover what your issues are and sort through them so you can come up with a healthy plan to make your goals more attainable.
Counseling Can Help You Understand Your Mental State
Since so many people don’t get help for their mental issues, it is difficult to tell how severe a person’s mental illness is if they are not receiving consistent treatment. Some people are not even aware that they may be suffering from conditions like depression, anxiety, or PTSD, and the assistance of a counselor could help them recognize these issues and come up with a customized treatment plan to make life more manageable and enjoyable.
In some instances, individuals who are taking medication for mental illness can add counseling to their treatment plan to learn stress management techniques and get important information about managing the possible side effects of medication.
A counselor may implement several exercises, such as talk therapy, journal writing, and role-playing, to help a client understand what their triggers are and how they can respond to these triggers in a healthy way.
Group therapy is also effective for some individuals who need to speak with people they have something in common with so they won’t feel alone.
If you live in Canada and think counseling may be beneficial for you, depression counselling in Canada is available.
If you’re thinking about whether or not you should go to counseling, consider how the issues you’re facing have impacted your life. If you find that you’re consumed with thinking about a particular problem for the majority of the day, or the issue has affected your work or academic performance, professional counseling could help you cope.
You should also think about your quality of life and the things you want to improve in your life. If you know that you can’t make these improvements on your own, you can seek the professional assistance of a therapist or counselor to help you make peace with the things you can’t control and learn ways to take hold of the parts of your life you have the ability to change.
Author Bio
Stephanie Snyder is an author and internet writer, born and raised in Panama City. She enjoys writing, painting, dancing and swimming with her fiance and beloved dog, Pluto
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy. Any links on this page does not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.
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