Get the facts about Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy may entail exploring past events that may be impacting your life. 

However, in some instances, your psychologist may forgo delving into your past to focus on the current issue that brought you into treatment. You’ll learn to use techniques to change your current thoughts or behaviors contributing to your problem.

Psychotherapy often begins by you describing the issue that led you to seek help. But you will also talk about your background, the history of your problems and life, and how you tried to address the concerns.

Psychotherapy is typically an interactive, collaborative process based on dialogue and the patient's active engagement in joint goal setting and problem-solving with the psychologist. 

Many try and fail to solve their problems alone before starting psychotherapy, but many issues need specialized training or have biological components that a normal individual can’t handle on their own.

Psychotherapy is not like talking to a friend. Although important, support from loved ones doesn’t offer the same benefits a professional with specialized education, training and experience does. 

Psychologists can recognize behavior or thought patterns more objectively and advise better than those close to you. Plus, you can be completely honest with your psychologist on the certainty of their confidentiality. 

Whatever the reason, anyone can benefit from psychotherapy and become a better problem solver.

The stigma connected to going to psychotherapy used to stop many from seeking help. But that has been changing as researchers continue to find evidence that emotional issues can generate physical symptoms and that physical issues may lead to emotional issues.