When to seek individual therapy?
When you feel distress, anxiety, depression, stress, psychosomatic symptoms, obsessive thoughts, irritability, fears, apathy, confusion, or a variety of psychological problems. Psychotherapy can help you alleviate and overcome these symptoms, understanding how they began and what they mean, learning how to manage them, and dealing with the conflicts, needs, emotions or life crises that might be the core conflicts.
When you are in a life crisis as a result of a loss or significant change (divorce or emotional breakup, illness, grief over the death of a loved one, migration, losing or changing jobs, etc.). Psychotherapy can help you gain a better understanding of these life events, feel accompanied, and build up your own resources to cope with transitions and better adapt to a new life stage.
When the present distress is related to painful or traumatic experiences that have a lasting emotional impact: physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect suffered in your family or origin or other significant relationships (intimate partner violence, workplace harassment), or suffering injustice or discrimination, such as racism, sexism or homophobia. Psychotherapy is helpful in dealing with the pain and sorrow caused by such experiences, overcoming the consequences of trauma, and integrating these experiences into a new life narrative open to new possibilities, feelings and ways of relating.
When you have the willingness to improve your relationships (couple, family, workplace, friends), addressing conflicts, insecurities or fears. Psychotherapy provides a “mirroring experience” of your relationship style and the impact it has on other people, and it is also helpful to break free from the “vicious cycles” that can keep relationships “stuck”.
When you feel like things are not that bad… but there is much room for improvement. A psychotherapy process can be very helpful even if there is not a clearly defined problem. Often times the motivation for change stems from a feeling that something isn´t quite right (even though you cannot say exactly what it is), a sense of anguish or emotional distress that takes away energy and motivation, or a desire to live more fully or to reach certain goals that had been postponed.
