7 Common Worries About Starting Therapy
Deciding to talk to a therapist about whatever is going on for you is a huge step, and if you’ve never had therapy before, it’s likely that you’ll have some worries about it. Portrayals of therapy in books, films and TV shows are often inaccurate and feed into the myths about what it will be like (usually that the therapist doesn’t have any boundaries and ends up sleeping with their clients!).
In this post, I’ll address some of the most common worries that clients have about starting therapy. I’ve written a separate post covering what to expect from an initial consultation, which you can find here, and there’s also a page dedicated to de-bunking some of the common myths about therapy here if you’re interested.
Worry 1: “I’m not ‘unwell enough’ for therapy”
There’s an unfortunate stereotype that therapy can only be accessed when you’re in crisis or have reached “breaking point”, rather than it being a service that can enhance personal development, growth and change.
Let me be clear: there is no such thing as not being “unwell enough” for therapy. There’s no scale to measure your relative wellness against, because that’s not the point of therapy. Yes, some people access therapy when they are very unwell and feel desperate, but this isn’t the case for everyone.
For me, therapy is about meeting people where they are at in that moment, and helping them to reconnect with themselves and within their relationships, as well as having an opportunity to explore ways for them to grow and change.
Yes, you can absolutely have therapy when things feel bleak and hopeless, and you feel like you’re stuck in a rut.
But you can also have therapy when things are generally okay, and you’d like to understand yourself better and gain some clarity about where you’d like to go in life.
Worry 2: “Other people have bigger problems, so I’m wasting the therapist’s time”
Please, please know that you’re not wasting a therapist’s time, even if your problems seem smaller than someone else’s. If it matters to you, it matters because you matter, and you are just as worthy of support. Different issues and experiences impact each individual differently, which means that what might feel huge to one person might not be so big to another, and vice-versa.
Some people put off seeking support for a long time, and by the time they get help, their issues have spiralled into a crisis. This means that their recovery will likely end up taking a lot longer, and that the therapeutic process will feel a lot more demanding.
I think the old phrase, “Prevention is better than cure” is a useful way of thinking about it. If you address the problem when it’s relatively small, this will make a huge difference in the long-run. You can build your resilience and develop new coping strategies in therapy, which can help any future obstacles to feel more manageable.
Worry 3: “I don’t know exactly what I need support with”
It can feel incredibly frustrating when you don’t know exactly why you feel you need support, but it really is okay not to know. People often come to therapy because something “just feels off” and they can’t work out why this is.
When your intuition (“spidey senses”, if you will) is alerted to something that doesn’t seem right, you might notice that you feel low in mood, or even a kind of “numbness”. Other people describe feeling “stuck”, and this might be in the sense of a job or relationship that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, or in a feeling, such as anxiety that doesn’t seem to switch off.
Talking through the “stuckness” and / or uncertainty with a therapist can help you to identify the root of the feeling, which can help you to understand and shift it. Not knowing what it’s about right away is still enough of a reason to have therapy.
Worry 4: “What if therapy opens a can of worms that’s too much for me?”
There’s no guarantee that the therapy process won’t bring difficult issues to the surface, but here’s the thing: even if that happens, you’ve already survived them. I’m a big believer that things we need to deal with are brought into our awareness when we’re ready to deal with them, even if it feels like we’ll never be ready.
Therapists are trained to hold and contain our clients, which means that we will be with you all the way, however difficult it is for you. We aim to hold a careful balance between supporting clients to process their feelings and experiences enough to move through them, and not pushing too much that we risk causing harm.
Growth and change always requires a period of discomfort, and this can feel overwhelming and scary at first. It’s a bit like the process a caterpillar goes through to change into a butterfly: it has to become a gloopy mess to be able to evolve into a butterfly!
The discomfort usually serves as a kind of catalyst for the change; it won’t last forever, and you’ll emerge from the other side of it in a much healthier place.
Worry 5: “I’ll scare off the therapist with my issues”
It’s understandable that if you feel overwhelmed by your “stuff” that you’ll worry others will be overwhelmed too if you tell them about it. Talking about whatever is going on for you with a therapist is very different to “offloading” to a partner, relative, friend, or colleague.
Therapists are trained to work with whatever comes up during a session, and these things may be uncomfortable and frightening for the client. It’s important to remember that it isn’t the client’s job to manage the therapist’s feelings and responses; the therapist is responsible for managing this themselves while attending to what the client needs.
As a side note, I for one am not going to be shocked or scared off by what my clients bring to sessions. In fact, I encourage my clients to talk about the dark, murky, uncomfortable stuff, as well as the lighter things. After all, if you feel like you can’t talk about it in therapy, that probably says more about the therapist than it does about you!
Worry 6: “I’ve had therapy before and it didn’t work for me, so I’m worried it won’t work this time either”
It’s understandable that you’d be worried about having therapy again if it hasn’t been effective for you in the past, but don’t let that put you off from trying again completely. There are lots of reasons why therapy might not have worked for you before, but that doesn’t mean it won’t ever work.
It may be that you weren’t as ready then as you are now, or that you didn’t gel with the therapist or their approach. I would suggest contacting several therapists and having a chat with them to see if you’re a good fit. If you find it easy to talk to them and feel like they’re really listening to you, that’s a great sign that working with them will help.
When discussing what you’d like from therapy with a prospective therapist, it’s important to be honest and realistic about your goals and expectations. A great example is when a potential client tells me that they “don’t ever want to feel anxious again”. Unfortunately, some anxiety is a natural part of being human, so it wouldn’t be realistic to set a goal of “never feeling anxious again”.
Instead, something like, “I’d like to have a toolkit of useful strategies that help me to manage my anxiety more effectively” is a lot more realistic and attainable. When goals and expectations are realistic and reviewed regularly, it’s easier to track your progress and what is and isn’t working for you. This reduces the pressure that you might feel under for therapy to “work”, and can help everyone to stay on track.
Worry 7: “I’ve found a therapist I like but I can’t afford their fees”
Therapy is a significant investment, both financially and personally, but the return on the investment can be life-changing. If worries about cost is the thing that’s stopping you from getting support, I would encourage you to have a conversation with the therapist you’d like to work with about this. They may not be able to reduce their fee, but they may be able to suggest some options to make it more manageable.
Some therapists allocate a few spaces in their practice at a reduced fee as standard, others may do so on a case-by-case basis at their discretion, and some aren’t in a position to offer any spaces at a reduced fee. If they do offer spaces at a reduced fee, it may be that the spaces are available to anyone on little-to-no income, or they might be available to people in specific circumstances.
There’s no guarantee that the therapist can or will be able to provide sessions at a reduced fee, but it’s worth asking, and if they can’t do so themselves, they may be able to refer you to another therapist or service that does.
I hope that this post has alleviated some worries you might have about starting therapy. If you have any other worries that I haven’t covered here, please feel free to contact me and I’ll do my best to help you.
And as ever, if you’re struggling with your mental health and think I might be the therapist for you, you can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram @emmapooleytherapy, via email to emma@emmapooleytherapy.com, or by using the contact form below.