Why Seek Psychotherapy?

Hear me out!!! I know, I know, I KNOW! Getting therapy sounds like something is wrong. And for the most part, we do use therapy to fix what is wrong. Think about physical therapy. Your knee hurts—maybe your foot, or your back? You go to see a therapist. What do you usually do in therapy? You fix or address the part that hurts by WORKING IT! Do we do that in psychotherapy? Absolutely!!! Are you afraid of the itsy-bitsy spider? Research has shown time and again that EXPOSURE with response prevention is the best way to address this fear! Are you depressed, do you think everyone hates you? You better believe we will challenge some of those thoughts…

Here is a however. What happens when you do not have a “symptom”? What if you do not think or feel you have an issue that needs to be fixed, but you still crave someone objective, knowledgeable, and impartial to talk to? Now, that is what most people nowadays use psychotherapy for! Let me explain. Psychotherapy is a relatively new concept that originated in the mind of Sigmund Freud and his contemporaries. However, as relatively recent as this idea is, the original concept of psychotherapy being treatment exclusively reserved for the mentally ill is outdated. Life back then differed significantly from the lives we live today. For one, there was no globalization, industrialization, or separation (from other members of the human population)! There was no social media, social comparison, overstimulation, or multitasking.

What does this mean, exactly? This means that people had much more time and energy to connect to one another! This means that if you experienced a breakup, for example, or a job loss, you likely had a friend or a family member readily available to listen to you and help you cope. In addition, lack of internet, TV, or even electricity meant that people were not bombarded by stimuli all the time.

Now, they were the same people as you and I—at least anatomically. Their brains were built the exact same way, their nervous systems were the same, etc. However, their surroundings were waaaay different. They did not have the internet to rely on—they had one another! They did not have a ton of items on their “to-do” lists, but maybe several. Ultimately, they were not affected by (or were affected much less than we are by) multiple stimuli at the same time—which actively creates an issue in deciding which stimulus to pay attention to.

However, here is the real shocker: Their bodies were created EXACTLY the same as ours. Their nervous systems functioned EXACTLY the same way as ours. So, why are we surprised that nowadays—when we are bombarded with sooo many more stimuli, and at the same time isolated from our peers—we are in more need of someone to listen to us and help us sort our thoughts and potential conflicts?

I am taking it upon myself to address this! No, you do not need to have a serious problem in order to reach out to me (and find our work together helpful)! Can you (and should you) reach out to me if you do think you have a problem? ABSOLUTELY! (Please see the “About Us” section to discover a list of issues we can successfully help you with.) However, you can also reach out to us if you are just fed up! Maybe you are rightfully fearful, or sad, or hopeless, or you simply cannot adjust to a certain situation. We are here. We are here to listen attentively. We are here to provide support—and maybe help you come to solutions—without judgment and while holding space for whatever it means to be YOU.