If your relationship is on the rocks, breaking up isn’t the only option: couples counseling can salvage a struggling marriage — or even improve a good marriage. Just ask rocker P!nk, who has attended couples counseling with her husband, Carey Hart, for most of their 17-year relationship. She told Today host Carson Daly that couples counseling saved her marriage. “It’s the only reason we’re still together,” she said. Continue reading 5 Reasons Couple’s Counseling Is Not Just for Crisis
I don’t always believe in fate, but there are times when I feel fated; it hits me like an asteroid.
I had been looking for a new therapist for awhile. Truth is, I was a notorious “therapist hopper” — always finding some reason I needed to find someone new. As “luck” may have it, I was therapist shopping during the time I was getting a lump on my breast checked out. These two things were not cause and effect. This is what some call a plain old coincidence — this time, I called it fate.
The first words I uttered to my new therapist as I sat down frantically looking for the tissue box was “I will start by saying that I might have breast cancer, and I am not the type of person that will be able to handle something like this.” Continue reading Why Therapy Was Vital Following My Cancer Diagnosis
You’ve accepted that you need to go to therapy — but getting yourself out of the door and into the office feels like an insurmountable challenge. After all, most of us aren’t familiar with therapy. We don’t know what we’re going to say. Should we actually lie on the couch like they do in movies, or is it okay to just sit? (Sitting, by the way, is fine and often preferred.)
Overcoming your fear of therapy is the only way to reap the benefits that it can provide. Here are five common reasons people avoid getting treatment. Do any ring true for you? Continue reading 5 Reasons People Avoid Mental Health Treatment
Therapy is hard work — sometimes the hardest part is just getting started. Therefore, it can be tough to stop before you’re ready, but sometimes life happens that way. Your therapist understands that you’re busy and things come up when least expected. Fortunately, if you have to stop or pause therapy, there are ways to make the process less painful. Continue reading Pausing Therapy: Reasons Why and What You Should Consider
Therapy creates funny feelings — you tell this person your most intimate thoughts and feelings, but when it comes to asking questions, you might feel nervous or intimidated. It can be tough not to put therapists on a pedestal or occasionally feel anxious with them.
However, therapy is a service you purchase; the therapeutic relationship is also a business relationship. As a customer, you have the right to ask questions about your service, just as you would if you were buying a car or hiring someone to fix your shower. Continue reading Essential Questions For Your Therapist That Go Unasked
Therapy is a long and winding road. There are peaks, feeling mentally strong and achieving your goals, and valleys where you don’t feel like you’re making as much progress as you’d like. Sometimes, as clients progress along this road, they take two steps forward and one step back, and at other times they may even feel like they are taking two steps forward and three steps back.
Don’t get discouraged, it’s likely that you’re making more progress than you think. Here are 5 reasons why you may feel like you’re not achieving much in therapy even though you actually are. Continue reading Why It Doesn’t Always Feel Like You’re Making Progress in Therapy
“I’m sorry for what you have been through.”
This is the very first thing my therapist said to me. Before we talked about working together. Before she explained how therapy could help. Before she offered any advice.
I will never forget that moment because it was the first time I truly felt “seen.” Up until that point, everyone with whom I shared my story responded with either a) shock or b) solutions. Neither of which felt great. Finding someone who understood how to hold space for my pain, guide me through my healing, and empower me to reclaim my joy would prove more life-changing than I ever imagined. Continue reading 6 Misconceptions About Starting Therapy
Talking about mental health isn’t easy — but that’s starting to change.
More employers are investing in mental health programs, increasing access to care, and helping to decrease stigma in the process. Governments are beginning to approach mental health as a public health issue. Celebrities like Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Pete Davidson, and Lady Gaga (among many others) are coming forward about their mental health journeys to raise awareness. The tides are turning.
One afternoon last August, I had just had the absolute worst day ever: I had come down with a painful summer cold, I was exhausted from working the last two weekends in a row, and my beloved bike had been stolen while I was at work. I arrived at my therapist’s office ready to vent when she greeted me in the waiting room and told me that she had forgotten that we had switched my appointment time, and so had double-booked herself. She could not, she apologized, see me that day.
“That’s okay,” I told her, “I’ll see you next week,” but I seethed on my way out of the building. How could she have forgotten about my session? Was it just a careless mistake, or did she really care so little about me?
In our next session she could tell that something was wrong just by my demeanor: I was more closed off, more distant, more confrontational, but I was afraid to tell her that I was upset with her. After all, I thought, she’s a person just like me, and all people forget things or make mistakes. My therapist confronted me about it, and I eventually told her what was bothering me. Continue reading Why Your Therapist Wants You to Get Angry with Them
May is Mental Health Month — a time to come together to raise awareness about mental health issues, work to expand access to care, and support those who are struggling. This month we’re speaking to experts in the field about their therapeutic work, as well as their own experience and challenges with mental health.
When Lori Gottlieb was a new therapist beginning her practice in Los Angeles, seeing clients dealing with a host of issues, she hadn’t expected this to be the time she experienced a crisis of her own. She began seeing a therapist, a seasoned veteran of the field named Wendell.
Continue reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: An Interview with Author Lori Gottlieb