Last Updated on July 21, 2023 by cmv
When to get help
So many clients come into therapy late. I don’t mean they arrive to their sessions late but rather they wait to start the therapeutic process because they think things “weren’t bad enough” before. This often means the hole has been dug deeply for a couple or the individual person’s ability to cope has been shot, thus making therapy a lifeline.
So when’s the right time to start therapy?
The simple answer is anytime! Things don’t have to be dire. Think of a pebble in your shoe, it’s irritating but not a huge problem. So you might keep walking around with it in your shoe but you could stop, take it out and no longer be irritated. If you leave it in, it’ll wear away at your foot until it starts to hurt. Why wouldn’t you choose to take it out sooner?
Clients can learn so much about themselves and their relationships by going to therapy at any point, even early on when they have a “pebble”. Instead of putting fires out, we can prevent them, learn what might be causing them, and undo patterns.
What’s the problem with waiting to start therapy?
The problems you’re struggling with can worsen to the point where repair becomes much more difficult and sometimes next to impossible. Sadly, this is often the case for couples who come in as a last ditch effort to fix their relationship. By then, there’s so much broken trust, resentment, contempt, pain, and sadness that it’s difficult for the couple to overcome these and get back to all the good stuff they once had. This doesn’t mean that we can’t “fix” it but the couple has to, at this point, put in a lot of work to get there (which they usually don’t have the energy to do).
For individuals who wait to work on their personal problems, they’re often overwhelmed with where to start. Think, little fires everywhere (or maybe even big fires blending into one). What started out as sadness for example, has now deepened into depression and we know depression robs us of motivation so change becomes increasingly more difficult. This again takes dedication, time, and energy to change.
So why wait?
If you’re thinking about therapy and aren’t sure if now is the right time or don’t know what to expect, try it out. What’s the harm? You can even try a free consultation to get a better idea about what to expect and then go from there. Catch the fire before it blazes into sometime unmanageable and deal with the pebble in your shoe by taping into a service that will help your current and future self and/or relationship.
Written by Erica Beauchamp
