The Benefits of Therapy
The Benefits to Therapy and Why It Is Important to Seek out Help
Research has shown over the years how beneficial seeking help from a mental health professional can be when facing challenges life may bring. Society is breaking the stigma of seeking out help no matter how big or small a life challenge may be. Some of the shown benefits to receiving mental health treatment, include expanding your support network, enhancing problem solving and critical thinking, enhancing coping skills to alleviate symptoms impacting functioning, improving meta-cognition, allowing self to have assistance in making behavior adaptations, and accountability.
When seeking out a mental health professional, there are important considerations to evaluate to make sure you are finding the right fit for you. Some of these considerations are, does their schedule fit with your schedule? Do you have a preference between a male vs. female professional? Do you prefer an in person vs. telehealth appointment? Do you have a preference with the age of your mental health professional? Is the mental health professional in network with your insurance or is this professional private pay and will this impact a financial strain? Are they specialized or informed in the area you are seeking out assistance with? After you have been seen and working with a mental health professional, do you feel heard and understood in your sessions? If you are not feeling heard or understood, do you feel comfortable expressing this to your mental health professional? Do you feel like you can be open and honest with your mental health professional? If you do not feel like you can, this may impact your treatment and is an important conversation to have with your mental health professional.
When deciding to start counseling for the first time, it can be nerve wracking and uncomfortable.These are normal emotions that can be felt starting this process.To help this process and ease some of these emotions, it can be useful to have an idea of what to expect starting to work with a mental health professional. At Lexington Counseling and Psychiatry, after making contact with our office, administration will help assist you take the first steps to finding a provider with open availability meeting your needs.There then will be initial paperwork to be filled out by you through a HIPPA compliant portal for the provider to review prior to your first appointment. Being as detailed and honest as you can with this initial paperwork can help give the provider the ability to be best prepared for your first session. Your first session is for you and your provider to get to know more about you, as well start to build the therapeutic relationship between you and the provider. This session usually will last 55 minutes. You may also explore treatment goals and make a decision on how often you and the provider will meet depending on your needs. This can look weekly, bi-weekly, or every few weeks. The length of how long treatment with a provider will need to be dependent on the goals and time needed in treatment. This can be less than 6 months, longer than 6 months, and can also fluctuate throughout life.
Therapy is looked at as a tool in your life tool box and can be utilized whenever felt like it is needed. If you are ready to add therapy to your ‘life’ toolbox, call our office at 859.338.0466 to schedule an appointment to work with one of our providers. Our current offices are located in Lexington, Frankfort, and Richmond, KY. We have been trusted mental health professionals in Central Kentucky for nearly 25 years!
Resources:
https://mhanational.org/resources/therapy/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/psychotherapies
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/psychotherapy
