When is the right time to seek therapy? (And what does it have to do with the gym?)

Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog.

So, when is the right time to seek therapy?*

Of course, this is completely individual and there’s no definitive answer. Sorry!

BUT, I think there are a couple of different ways to look at it, and I’d like to use the metaphor of the gym to explain it. I actually came up with this whilst in the gym – on the treadmill to be precise.

I was thinking about how going to the gym can be like this.

You’re not feeling great about yourself, perhaps you’re unhappy with your weight or not feeling very strong. So, what do you do? You decide to start going to the gym. You go for a few weeks, maybe a bit longer, just enough to shift a few pounds or put on a bit of muscle. Then you stop going because you feel like you’ve achieved what you wanted to in the short time – maybe for an event or holiday (which you should by no means feel obligated to do, just to be clear, but it’s something many people do). That’s absolutely fine. You did what you needed to do at that time, and you feel better.

How is this like therapy?

Well, in the same way you might start going to the gym because you’re not feeling good about yourself physically, you might choose to see a counsellor because you’re not feeling good about yourself mentally. Maybe you’re going through something like a break-up or having a stressful time at work. Right now, you just want to feel better. You don’t want to completely change your eating habits or start signing up for marathons. Or in this case, you don’t want to delve into your past or make drastic life changes. And that’s okay. You can have four, six, eight sessions with a therapist and come away with some clarity or perhaps some coping strategies that work for you. Great!

Then there’s the other time you might start going to the gym.

There might not be a specific reason – you might be in fairly good shape. But you want to be better: stronger, fitter, faster, healthier. So, you decide to start going to the gym on a regular basis and you continue going, perhaps even investing in a personal trainer, or seeing a nutritionist.

Now, how is this like therapy?

Say you’re pretty happy with your life, everything is ticking along nicely. But you just have an urge to discover more about yourself. You feel like you could be more self-aware, maybe even happier. So even though there’s nothing ‘wrong’, you seek counselling because you want someone who can see things from an outside perspective and share that with you. You might want to dig into your past and figure out why you do some of the things you do and decide whether you want to continue doing those things, or if you want to make a change. Also great!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you have to go to therapy for years, like you might do with the gym. What I’m saying is that you can choose to seek therapy simply because you want to. You don’t have to be at crisis point. You don’t have to have a particular issue you want to work on. It’s a space for you to talk about what matters to you.

I hope this made some sense and gave you some clarity if you were struggling to decide if now is the right time for you to start therapy. Ultimately, the decision is yours.

Until next time, take care.

*Please note, I use the terms counselling and therapy interchangeably.