Is therapy for me?
Everyone can have difficult days and sometimes we are unsure about whether talking to someone else is needed. So, how do we know when it’s a good time to reach out?
Choosing a Therapist
Once you have made the decision to find a therapist it is often best to get a recommendation from someone that knows you.
First Appointment
During the first one to two appointments the therapist will encourage you to share about the current situation or issue you are wanting support with.
Therapy
Therapy work is a process of working with the issues that are most pressing with the therapist and negotiating as you go what goals you are working on.
Review Progress
At different points in the therapy, it’s important to pause to assess how things are going. This will happen at different times throughout the therapy process.
Finish
Deciding when therapy finishes is also a collaborative process. Often it finishes because people are feeling better, and that there has been some resolution to the issue that bought them to therapy in the first place.
Is therapy for me?
Therapy is a process of talking to someone confidentially about aspects of your life that are creating difficulties. The therapist is there to listen, reflect, summarise, to help you look for patterns, and to help make new meanings and create new possibilities in responding to the difficulties faced. Everyone can have difficult days and sometimes we are unsure about whether talking to someone else is needed. So, how do we know when it’s a good time to reach out?
A psychologist can be a resource for us when difficult days turn into difficult ongoing situations that we are finding overwhelming or hard to figure out on our own. It is someone outside our personal network who has knowledge and expertise that can help explore the way we think, feel or relate to others and what may be done in these domains to help us navigate the situations or issues we are wanting to manage. Sometimes we just need help to reconnect with ourselves around transitions or tricky moments in life, and to make sense of things that have become confusing, stuck or painful.
As people have become more aware of the importance of focusing on mental, spiritual and emotional wellbeing, there is more acceptance of the place for adding a therapist into our health and wellbeing plans. If we get this mental health support early and don’t wait until things boil over, we can often settle issues relatively quickly. Sometimes issues or struggles have been around for a long time, and adding this support can help us find new ways to respond or to recover a better state of wellbeing.
Reasons one might seek out a psychologist:
- Managing mental health issues
- Coping with stress
- If you’re struggling to manage or regulate emotions
- To assess, develop and use new coping strategies
- Self and relationship improvement – wanting a better relationship, wanting to feel better about yourself
- Dealing with major life events and transitions – particularly those involving change, loss and grief
- You want help managing a traumatic event from the past or in the present
Choosing a Therapist
Once you have made the decision to find a therapist it is often best to get a recommendation from someone that knows you. For many people it is their doctor, another health professional, or trusted friends or family that may suggest someone they know. This can be helpful as often these people know you well enough to know who may best suit you. Looking online and exploring the webpages of therapists in your area, paying attention to the kinds of issues they deal with and the ways they work can be very helpful. It can also be helpful to look at the webpages of professional bodies who generally offer search options to find qualified people in your area.
Once you have a few names to try we then suggest you contact them directly to discuss what you are looking for, or needing support with, and to get a sense from the therapist whether they may be a good fit for you. Sometimes it may take having the first appointment to get a feel for whether your chosen therapist is the right match for you. If after your first appointment the fit doesn’t feel right, it is absolutely okay to change your mind and choose someone else. Most therapists will check in with you at the end of a first appointment to see how things are feeling and should be open to you letting them know if it is not feeling right. Sometimes this is something you can work on, and it may feel better as you go forward with the therapist, and sometimes it may be that you want a referral to a different therapist. The important thing is that the relationship with your chosen therapist feels right.
Main bodies in New Zealand:
- New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists How do I find a clinical Psychologist | NZCCP
- New Zealand Psychologists Society Find a Psychologist: NZ Psychological Society (psychology.org.nz)
- NZ Association of Psychotherapists Choosing a therapist: New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (nzap.org.nz)
First Appointment(s)
During the first one or two appointments the therapist will encourage you to share about the current situation or issue you are wanting support with. They will explore aspects of your life that may be important in understanding the current issues you face. The important aspects will include for most people, talking about your family/whanau, important childhood experiences and learnings, your schooling and work history, important relationships, drug and alcohol history, difficult transitions or traumas, and also your strengths, achievements and values. At the end of the initial appointment(s) the therapist will offer you their thoughts about how their input might be helpful and will work together with you to establish a shared understanding of the issues you want support with, and what therapy interventions may be useful in addressing them. You then get to consider whether this is what you would like to pursue, and if you do, a plan is made on how therapy sessions will progress.
Therapy
Therapy is a process of working with the issues that are most pressing for you and negotiating as you go what goals you are working on. Each therapist has their own therapeutic style and models that they work from. Most therapists will be transparent about the way they work and should give you an explanation of what therapy model they would like to offer and how they think it may help.
Your therapist should review with you regularly how you feel therapy is going and whether it is helping. It is a collaborative process, and you get to decide whether you think what is being suggested is correct for you.
Therapy can happen over a relatively short period of time (e.g., 1-10 sessions), a medium to longer term time frame (e.g., 24-40 sessions) and occasionally long term therapy is indicated. Whatever the length of time, the focus is always working to understand what is happening and looking at interventions that may help transform the situation or issues you are trying to improve, cope with, or resolve.
Review Progress
At different points in the therapy, it’s important to pause to assess how things are going. This will happen at different times throughout the therapy process. Mostly this is about the therapist and you thinking in a collaborative way about what’s working and what isn’t, and what might need to be added to make it the most effective process possible.
Finish
Deciding when therapy finishes is also a collaborative process. Often it finishes because people are feeling better, and there has been some resolution to the issue that bought them to therapy in the first place. Sometimes people decide to finish therapy earlier than expected because they have obtained a few ideas or tools and want to see how they go with them as they use them in their lives. They may re-engage with therapy later.
You should have points in your therapy where you and your therapist review how you feel things are going. Discussing the finishing of your therapy process is a natural part of reviewing progress and can often be a time of celebration, particularly if things have improved for you.
