Starting Therapy Because You Feel Like It! Reasons Why Counselling is Important: Part 2

Starting Therapy Because You Feel Like It! Reasons Why Counselling is Important: Part 2

This blog post is based on our latest Fiercely Fabulous Life podcast on the topic. “Starting Therapy Because You Feel Like It!” With people taking mental health more seriously, it can be easy to get lost in the specifics of mental health. Below, you can read a digestible summary of the words of Shelly Qualtieri as she gives you key reasons to start therapy, even when you are not in crisis! Working on your mental health is as important as working on your physical health, and it is important to be proactive on this journey. If you’re not sure that therapy is a thing for you, read below for some tips and tricks that will help. 

Investing in Yourself

Therapy is important because:

• You deserve happiness 
• You deserve the best life 
• You deserve to feel better 
• You are worthy of support

Investing in yourself is important even if there's no crisis, just because there's no chaos in your life doesn't mean you're not worthy of getting help and support. 

Having someone listen to you and provide you with ideas and perspectives you may not have been able to come to on your own, along with feeling and sitting in your discomfort isn't necessarily a negative. Sitting in your discomfort and uncertainty can really help develop an understanding of yourself and allows for you to grow. 

Therapy Helps Us

• Ditch bad habits
• Reflect on relationship patterns
• Develop prevention 
• Create understanding

(Why not) invest in your mental health? Would you work with a nutritionist or personal trainer for your physical health or purchase new glasses or hit the dentist when you need to? Of course!

Investing in your mental health and wellness with therapy is about prevention, developing strategies and tools to be the best you can be while becoming a better version of you.

What is the Difference between psychologists, counsellors and psychiatrists?

When we're thinking about mental health support, there are a variety of specialists available to help. 

A psychiatrist is a medically trained doctor who specializes to support you with a mental illness condition or diagnosis, they have very specific and intensive training and education. They can prescribe medications, they hold medical degrees, and are specialized in treating mental illness. It is rare but they may offer some occasional talk therapy.  They are the best option for people who are experiencing severe mental health symptoms and for those individuals that need ongoing medication and medical support. For example, maybe someone who has schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, where the individual may have been hospitalized, had a psychotic episode, or is a danger to themselves or others.

therapists are licensed mental health professionals. The term therapist is really an overarching umbrella that people (mistakenly) interchange. For example, you might talk about seeing a therapist, but the professional may be a psychologist, a social worker or they could be a counsellors. Each of these professional designations hold different licensing and different requirements from our professional bodies, but our overall aim and focus is to help you manage your mental and emotional health, build healthier relationships with others, and first and foremost love and understand yourself.

Types of Therapy

There are a variety of evidence based practices we may use. A couple ofkey modalities you might have heard of or tried could be:

• EMDR - Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a form of psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the 1980s that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories such as post-traumatic stress disorder. - Source Wikipedia
• CBT - Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. - Source Wikipedia

However, there a a great variety of therapies  a mental health professional mayuse in order to support you in your sessions, be sure to ask how they practice and the type of therapy they use before you begin sessions to ensure this is the best fit for you and your challenges 

If you’re looking to learn more let’s chat! We would love to hear from you and our team is ready to support you on your mental health journey. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us. 

The words in this post have been edited to be easily readable and accessible for all, to get the full context of the conversation listen to Shelly Qualtieri’s podcast here and on all platforms, and learn more about us below:

Official website: www.shellyqualtieri.ca

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