Therapy like CBT & ACT can improve your life by giving you the knowledge, the skills, the structure, the accountability, & the guidance to initiate & maintain lasting change. It allows you the time & the space to put those skills/knowledge into practice, so as to build momentum, & establish new habits of thinking & behaving that will become second nature with time & that will more easily generalize & transfer to your daily life. We often know what we need to do to feel better, but we struggle with implementing it. If changing unhelpful thoughts & behaviors/habits was so simple, self-help books would be enough but they’re often not. In addition to the skills & knowledge that can help improve how we feel, even more importantly, we need the know-how to translate knowledge into actual changes that can affect our emotions.
Therapy can protect your Time & Mental Space
Having scheduled appointments protects your time & provides the mental space to take a step back, to observe your life, & to start reflecting on how you’re feeling, why you’re feeling that way, what isn’t working in your life, & what is needed in your life right now. Let’s face it – life is busy & there are many competing demands on your time. That leaves little time to pause, to reflect, & to course correct. A commitment to therapy is about putting yourself first, setting the intention to make changes, & protecting your time to set yourself up for success. Otherwise, the usual obligations will take over & you will revert back to the same strategies & patterns that haven’t worked, ensuring the same outcome time & again.
Helps you Build Awareness
Once you commit the time, therapy will teach you the skills to bring a greater awareness to the issues that underlie your distress. Negative emotions often keep us focused on the past or the future. We may be ruminating on things we have done in the past or we may be projecting into the future, thinking about various worst case scenarios. In doing so, we miss out on the “now” & we become disconnected from our present experiences which prevents us from finding joy in them. Therapy guides you toward bringing a greater awareness to your current experiences – your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, & behaviors – with the goal of changing those that are not serving you well. Greater awareness also allows you to interrupt the auto-pilot mode & to turn emotional reactions into intentional responses that better align with your long term goals & values.
Helps Normalize Struggles
Suffering from mental health difficulties is too often an isolating experience. Because of the shame, stigma, & lack of understanding of, & knowledge about, mental illness, those who suffer tend to do so in silence. They are reluctant to confide, fearing that others will not understand, that they may judge, that they may feel burdened, & that they may ultimately distance themselves. As a result, people often don’t get a chance to recognize that others can relate to their hardships and that their feelings, thoughts, & experiences are more common than they think. Sharing these experiences with a therapist can help to normalize them. Knowing you are not alone can also lead to relief and reassurance, which in & of itself can be therapeutic.
Can Increase Your Understanding
People struggle to make sense of why they experience difficulties, often blaming themselves and thinking they are doing this to themselves. This is simply untrue. The thoughts & behaviors associated with depression, anxiety, and other mental health difficulties have been shaped by experiences from the past. They make sense given the context/circumstances in which they developed and given the factors that serve to maintain them in the present. In fact, they may have been useful at some point in time. Understanding how & why you have come to think, feel, and react to situations in certain ways & why you have developed certain patterns or coping strategies which are not serving you well in the present can be reassuring, reduce self-blame, and open up new avenues for change.
Provide a Sense of Control
We live a lot of our lives on autopilot – we are constantly reacting to various triggers, situations, & circumstances. It can be a struggle to keep up without feeling overwhelmed. It can feel difficult to pause. By taking the initiative to engage in therapy, you’re acknowledging that there are likely things you can do to change unsatisfying circumstances or how you cope with those circumstances. Once you start therapy, you will learn the skills to manage feelings and circumstances more effectively and to make conscious choices and decisions for your life in a way that can feel empowering.
West Toronto CBT is a psychology practice that delivers evidence-based psychological treatments – Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) – to address mood and anxiety-related difficulties, including depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety, Health Anxiety, Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia, Insomnia, Grief/Loss and more.
The first step towards change is always the hardest – let’s discuss how I can support you on the next steps of your journey forward. Let’s make your mental health a priority. The step you take today will create a ripple effect in your future!