With this being a podcast for mainly psychology students and psychology professionals, I want to do this topic because it’s useful to know when our clients, our friends or family or even us might want to start therapy. This is very important for psychology students professionals because we all experience levels of stress and experience things that might cause us to develop a mental health condition. Hence why we need to look at these signs (there are more than 5 but there are some of the most important).
This episode has been sponsored by Formulation In Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it.
Note: as always none of this is any sort of professional or official advice.
Clinical Psychology: The 5 Signs
Considered It Multiple Times:
It is perfectly natural for all of us to think about something multiple times and each time we dismiss it. I have done this a lot recently with a learning opportunity, but I gave in in the end.
Now this is important to mention because if you’ve thought about it multiple times then it means you want to do it but something is holding you back.
For me and this learning opportunity, I wanted to do it because it would be great fun, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth the money.
In terms of psychotherapy, if you want to try you, give it a go.
At least if you do try it, you will finally know if it will help instead of forever wondering if it will work or not.
You Want Support After A Stressful Life Event:
Some people experience a stressful life event that they want support for, but they can’t or don’t feel like they want to talk about it with their social network. There are a lot of different reasons for this, but in this case, those reasons aren’t important, or maybe they are.
Therefore, going to therapy could be a great option as it allows these people to find professional support for their stressful life event whilst the therapist teaches them ways to deal, cope and move on with the event.
Some examples of these stressful life signs could use:
· Death of a loved one.
· Fertility struggles.
· Experiencing a traumatic event
Stress Is Interfering With Sleep
As I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, depression, rumination and anxiety can all affect a person’s sleep. Then this can have a knock-on effect with the rest of the life, possibly leading to decreased life satisfaction.
As well as all of these potential explanations for why theirs or your sleep is bad is a reason to explore therapy. As the therapy could allow you to find out the cause of your sleeplessness, treat it and your sleep could return to healthy levels.
Basic Life Tasks Are Hard:
As we know from previous episodes on depression and other clinical psychology topics, a wide range of mental health conditions can make basic life tasks seem impossible. These tasks include things showering, getting out of bed and getting dressed.
Therefore, if you’re struggling to do these “simple” tasks then a therapist might be able to help you figure out what’s going on.
Wondering If You’re “Messed”?
Finally, as much as I hate the term “messed” because it is wrong as no one is messed up. People have mental health difficulties that are maladaptive coping mechanisms. The term “messed” up is what lay people think and even some psychology students and professionals, so the term is sadly appropriate here.
So some people might start thinking about their own behaviour and start to think something is “wrong” with them or they’re simply “messed” up.
This could be behaviours normally associated with autism, ADHD and depression or it could be habits that the person is starting to question. For example, they could be concerned about their level of exercise, smoking or alcohol use.
As a result, therapy is one option because the therapist could do one of two things for you.
1) The therapist could allow you to understand there is nothing to be concerned about and they could help you to accept yourself for you are.
2) They could do the same as above but show you better, less damaging and more effective coping mechanisms because they discovered that you do have a mental health condition.
Just something to think about.
Conclusion:
I suppose the real point of this podcast episode was to remind you that as psychology students and psychology professionals, we need to take care of ourselves too. This includes looking out for signs that we need therapy as well.
Since as I always like to say (and this is more aimed towards psychology professionals), we can’t help anyone if we can’t help ourselves.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
Formulation In Psychotherapy. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it.
I truly hope that you’re enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page.
However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.
Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!
Click https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-bit of support.
Click www.paypal.me/connorwhiteley1 to go to PayPal.
Clinical Psychology Reference
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/202111/20-signs-it-might-be-time-try-therapy