Do I need psychological help? 5 situations in which it is convenient to visit the specialist

In recent years there has been a paradigm shift regarding the importance of taking care of mental health. Faced with the stigma of a few decades ago, going to the psychologist or psychiatrist is no longer frowned upon and, little by little, the fact of seeking professional therapy is normalizing.

However, still there is a lot of confusion and ignorance about the right time to start therapy. Many people, even though they are suffering enormously, let time go by or try to solve their problem on their own, unnecessarily prolonging their discomfort. When is it necessary to seek professional help?

When to seek psychological help

As a guide, I can tell you that when the idea of ​​”maybe I should seek therapy” appears, this means that this is the best time to start a therapeutic process. The situation does not have to be serious. There are situations that are limiting and then it is essential to seek help and others that are not that serious but that They can also affect you on a day-to-day basis. and, also, to the upbringing of your children, if you have them.

If you recognize yourself in one or more of the following situations, don’t waste more time and seek help to start healing as soon as possible. The more time passes, the more discomfort you will accumulate and the more complicated the work will be, since the toxic patterns tend to reinforce themselves more and more.

In all these situations A good professional can help you. Remember that their help should not be based on giving you a list of tasks and advice, but on helping you to understand your own processes and also to find your own solutions.

1. Whenever you feel that something is not right

Obviously, psychological therapy is essential to improve and overcome the problem if you suffer from any of the most common and widespread problems in our society:

2. If you try to change but can’t

We try to change, but we can’t. Although the mind knows what is not right or what we do not want to repeat, we fall back into the same and it is impossible for us to change.

Unconscious automatisms are much more powerful than our rational mind, for this reason it is very difficult to change them only using your head, reading a book or attending a talk. In these cases, a professional accompaniment is necessary to deepen and promote a real change that is maintained over time.

This point is also valid for the problems mentioned above (anxiety, depression, phobia…). It is very difficult to overcome them alone, there is nothing wrong with recognizing it and seeking professional help.

3. If you need to get to know yourself better

It is not necessary to have serious problems to go to psychological therapy. On many occasions, the person does not come for a consultation with a clear and specific objective, but with a general desire to go deeper into herself and learn to know herself better.

Sometimes, these people have the feeling that they understand some situations or reactions that they have had throughout their lives, but others find them more incomprehensible, complicated, or they want to go deeper into them.

In these cases, therapy works as a fantastic path of self-discovery. After all, the more we know about ourselves, the more self-esteem and security we will have in the present.

4. If you repeat harmful patterns

When we detect repeated detrimental patternsFor example: same type of toxic couples, unsatisfactory friendship relationships, submission at work, etc.

Sometimes it happens that a person goes to a consultation to work on a specific situation in their present, but analyzing it in therapy, they realize that they have been repeating that same pattern throughout his life.

For example, Margarita came to my office after suffering a life-threatening collapse from exhaustion. We analyzed his present and, also, all his personal history, and we discovered that he had repeated, throughout his adult life, the same pattern: working until exhaustion, getting sick, having to rest forcibly during his recovery and, again, entering in a stressful job that once again pushed his body to the limit.

Become aware of these repeating patterns is the first step to change them.

5. If you repeat inherited attitudes

I am my father or my mother. if you meet repeating phrases or attitudes that you did not like from your parents when you were little, this may be a sign to seek therapy.

A very clear example of this situation usually occurs when people who want to practice respectful parenting with their children face situations that overwhelm them. In these moments, their rational mind loses control and reactions or automatic phrases that they themselves received from their parents and that they promised not to repeat when they had children may appear.