Thankfully these days talking about mental health is common place. Where once even telling a friend that you were struggling with anxiety or depression could lead to a host of negative reactions. Now people feel comfortable speaking openly about their problems. The work place is perhaps somewhere people still hold back but things are getting better all the time. This has led to people feeling more comfortable about seeking help which can only be a good thing.

However, when people turn to therapists and counsellors for help via their GP or privately it is normally because they are in crisis. Things have got so bad they simply had to ask for help or have been pushed too by a well-meaning partner or friend. This is certainly still a good thing but seeking help before this stage is likely to prevent crisis and seeking help in a more general sense can improve our mental health even if we don’t feel we have a massive issue.

Pre-Crisis

It is a symptom of our growing acceptance about mental health that we are turning to professionals more and more. It shows many of us are able to take a step towards being healthier mentally but as with other illnesses we tend to wait until things are really bad. It may be something to do with being British, but we don’t go to the doctors for a cold, we wait until it gets so bad, we have pneumonia and then go. This makes sense, and a doctor can’t fix a cold anyway but when it comes to mental health things are actually quite different.

Having a relatively manageable issue often prompts us to just carry on. Some people have been suffering low level anxiety for years and just avoid things that set it off for example. But by seeking help when things are manageable, we can address issues more easily and look ahead to dealing with them without the need for a crisis point.

Getting to the root of the issue

Where short term counselling like CBT can help with acute issues psychotherapy is able to address the underlying causes of a huge range of chronic and acute problems. The idea of digging into the real roots of the issue can offer a long-term solution and a true-life altering experience for the good. Seeking out this type of therapy is often harder because there is no crisis point to drive us to need it. It is a personal journey and choice about dealing with something we may have been “coping” with for years, maybe even most of our lives!

No two people are the same and no two mental health issues are the same either. While people may wish to give names to certain feelings every single person has a different experience. To that end there are no cure all’s when it comes to mental health but therapy in a broad sense can and does help. The idea of us all looking at ourselves and feeling able to say “I think I would like to change something” is a very healthy state.

Whether you have been coping with and dealing with anxiety and worry all your live, or you struggle with motivation or feeling in the moment sometimes seeking some therapy really can change everything. You do not have to be in a terrible state to make positive changes and being mentally healthy is like exercise! We don’t wait until we are so unfit, we can barely move before eating healthy and doing some exercise so why do it with our minds?

Visit www.brightonandhovepsychotherapy.com for more information.