Might seeing a psychotherapist be helpful to me?

Deciding to enter psychotherapy is a difficult step for most of us. Even when we have the sense that talking to a mental health professional might help us resolve whatever we are struggling with, we are often reluctant or perhaps even afraid to take that step. Not uncommonly, we fear

• not being able to find the right therapist
• not being able to afford counseling
• somehow becoming trapped and having to stay in psychotherapy forever
• being too embarrassed to talk to the therapist
• not knowing what to say
• being stigmatized as “crazy” by others (or by ourselves)
• becoming too dependent on the therpaist
• being seen as weak by others (or, again, by ourselves) because we can’t seem to handle our own problems
• having our problem ridiculed by the therapist as not being worth bothering with
• having to see aspects of our present lives or our past in ways that might affect
  significant relationships

And the list could go on

What is important to remember is that if we find ourselves going around and around in the same circle, wearing a furrow deeper and deeper in the same path, and on each turn butting our foreheads into the same brick wall, then it’s time to consider asking for help in sorting through whatever issue is bothering us. Sometimes the act of seeking help can itself begin to shift our thinking.