Different reasons to see a psychologist and how it can be helpful

​Life is complex and we can all sometimes find ourselves feeling trapped, confused, or overwhelmed by change. These situations can be difficult to resolve alone. Well-meaning advice from friends or family can be biased or unhelpful, so it can be beneficial to seek professional advice. Just as you would pay a dentist to fix your teeth, or a doctor for a physical health issue, seeking the support of a psychologist can enable you to work through a difficult situation and find effective solutions. Here are some examples:

• Mental health – commonly experienced difficulties include anxiety, depression, intense anger, or issues arising from past trauma. These can get in the way of living the life you want, as you might find yourself avoiding people or having low energy and motivation. It can be useful to talk to a psychologist to get more understanding about your mental health and to develop strategies that can help.

• Stress management – being overly stressed can feel awful. You might experience exhaustion, low motivation, and irritability. Although it is difficult to eliminate stress completely, it is possible to develop stress management strategies. A psychologist can work with you to figure out some tactics for increasing your stress resilience as well as developing some in-the-moment strategies during intense times of stress.

• Increasing life satisfaction - sometimes people can feel aimless and lacking in purpose and meaning. A psychologist can help you to gain clarity of what is truly important and help you to take steps towards creating a meaningful and satisfying life. It can be useful to work together to identify goals in different life areas as well as develop strategies that can overcome any potential barriers to goal achievement.

• Relationship issues – relationships are complex and it can be hard to figure out what to do with a difficult interpersonal situation. Working with a psychologist can be helpful to gain an objective view of the situation and potential ideas on how to tackle it. This might include developing problem-solving strategies, such as learning how to develop and maintain boundaries with others.

• Problem solving – sometimes people face big decisions about life changes, for example ending a relationship, changing a job, or having children. A psychologist can support you to put together a plan regarding the situation. This can include consideration of the available options and weighing up the pros and cons to each and as well as evaluating the benefits or disadvantages of making the change.

• Developing emotional intelligence – mood swings or intense emotions can feel uncomfortable. Talking to a psychologist will help you to get more understanding of emotions and can help you figure out things to do to lessen the impact.

• Understanding behaviours – sometimes you might find yourself doing something unhealthy even though you know it is bad for you.  Examples are over-eating, over-spending, or letting people treat you badly.  A psychologist can help you to develop self-awareness and support you to work out some of the possible reasons for the behaviour. From there, you can work together to develop strategies to address the underlying reason and figure out more effective ways of coping with it.

 
Regardless of your reason for engaging in therapy, it is important to make sure you are seeing someone you feel comfortable with, can trust, and can build a good rapport with. If you have any reservations, say so.  A good psychologist will understand and be able to provide you with some alternative options.