The main thing to ask yourself here is What do you want out of therapy? A huge amount of success between a client and a therapist depends on your expectations. Success in therapy can depend on you wanting it to succeed also, what you expect to happen in the therapy and whether those expectations match up to what the therapist can and will do.
Your reasons for going to a therapist can be many and can be a worthwhile experience. Therapy can be good for times when you are feeling low, for dealing with life’s anxieties, interpersonal problems and other things that cause stress in your life.
Going to a therapist can be a worthwhile growing and stabilising experience, good for times when you have specific problems, interpersonal problems, or generally feeling down. You can go to a therapist once, for a few months or embark on long-term therapy–each depends on your different expectations and goals.
It is generally during crisis when most people go to see a therapist. These are times when one can feel in danger, can feel suicidal or having difficulty living your life in a normal or productive way. There are many reasons when crisis can occur and can include; the breakdown of relationships, death of a loved one, in times of depression, life transition or if you have been harmed in some way. The reason people seek therapy at these times is to be able to find stability so that the feeling of threat to their life is reduced. These visits can be short in duration with the therapist providing ‘intervention.’
Other times people go to therapy for more common problems such as, low grades, insomnia, procrastination or feeling low/depressed. Here there is not an immediate threat to one’s life but the person has identified an issue or problem to be worked on.
People can also go to therapy to work on their personal development and growth. Another reason people can go into psychotherapy is so to work on psychological problems. This can range from being abused and having intimacy problems or maybe issues around food.
You don’t need to have a “major” problem to go to a therapist. Just feeling unable to deal with your problem or feeling unhappy makes you a good therapy candidate. Therapy should be viewed as a *tool* which can be used to help you work on problems you consider important to you.