Reasons people don't go to counselling or therapy

Resistance to therapy, building mountains out of worries

How can I do it? so much to think about.

I've seen some interesting reasons mentioned in a recent article:

"There’s nothing wrong with me"

"I don't have time"

"It's too expensive"

"Therapy is for weak people, and I'm not weak"

"I can talk to my friends"

"I can just talk to my partner"

"A therapist can't fix me"

"They will judge me"

"I don't like to complain"

"I don't feel right talking to a stranger about my private stuff"

"I went to a therapist once, it didn't help"

These were just a few of the reasons people put forward for not attending to their emotional and mental wellness.

I feel I need to put a gentle challenge out to the people who made the statements above. We go to doctors to tend to our physical health, a chiropractor or physiotherapist to heal our body or keep it moving well, a dentist to fix our teeth. What about the part that runs all of this external system? Pushing through relationship issues, crises of confidence or identity, managing loss, grief, anxiety or depression, severe mental health while "simply" trying to get on in life is something that people do every day. What would happen if you could "plug in" and "download" all of the extra stress, mental load, the internal anguish, arguments, voices, memories, trauma, fears... everything. What if you could let go and breathe, without worrying that it will all come crashing down around you?

Would it be more peaceful?

Would it all be more manageable?

Would you have space to breathe?

Could the money spent on self-medication - drink, prescription/non-prescription meds, tobacco, drugs - be put towards something more fulfilling if the problems simply weren't there?

That's what going to counselling or therapy can do. Counsellors, social workers and therapists are trained to be non-judgemental, empathic, understanding and - hopefully - empathic. They learn about human development, the way the brain works and how thoughts impact on behaviours, the subconscious and its ties to the present, human attachment and relationships, the whys and the wherefores. They learn how to keep their own "stuff" out of the room so that they can focus on your "stuff", how to remain impartial and objective, how to be supportive for you and where the limits lie in that support.

All this means that the space they facilitate for you, when you engage with them, is a protected and safe space. It's confidential to the limits of the law, which means they can't share your information with anyone unless it's an emergency and they need to keep you or someone else safe. If they need to share your information, they do so with your consent and knowledge of who it will be shared with. The primary focus of a counsellor, social worker or therapist who works with vulnerable, sometimes fragile people is to try to make the situation better, not worse. And so they contract with you so that you know what you'll be working on and towards.

You share only what you want to share, and when you want to share it. There aren't any shackles in the room, either physical ones or metaphoric ones - no-one is "out to get you". A supportive therapeutic environment works best where there's trust, and it often takes time to build this trust before a person "bares their soul", so to speak. Sharing inner thoughts about the present, the past, things that have often caused hurt, shame, blame, guilt and those other feelings that are heavy, often barbed and kept hidden. They're part of the "ugly" thoughts and feelings that EVERY SINGLE HUMAN EVER has experienced, whether or not we are able to express or own them. So being able to share this stuff needs safety, kindness and trust.

That is another area that counsellors, therapists, social workers do a lot of study and research in - so that they can be purposeful, useful and objective in their role with you. If they did not study, become qualified, research the best evidence-based practice to abide by and use in their professions, they could cause harm and this goes against the ethical standing of these professions. There is always someone, somewhere in the world, that finds new ways to get better outcomes in communicating, treating, understanding, healing. This is why these professionals keep doing continuing professional development, to keep their clients and themselves safe, their work effective and their knowledge up-to-date.

Speaking about spending money, yes, I know that life costs a lot these days. Between the cost of basic goods, transport, rent, insurances and mortgages, it's hard to make ends meet for a lot of people. I wonder if being able to control what we spend our money on is one of the easiest ways to feel in control of our lives. Without this we can feel very vulnerable, out of control, naked. And that can take us to a place of feeling helpless when we can't manage or cope, when we feel "lesser", "broken", "a failure". Especially if we have very strict and solid beliefs about how the world should be, and how we don't measure up it we are not exactly in sync with this worldview. And then, sometimes, it takes us to a place of feeling hopeless, of being a burden on our world and our loved ones, which becomes risky for us. Trying to balance everything on the head of a pin, hoping nothing else comes into our lives to nudge it all into oblivion.

So I understand when people say they can't afford to see a counsellor, therapist or social worker.

But I also ask, can you afford not to?

What would your life look like if you had more control, not less?

Would your outlook improve?

And what could you accomplish then?