Is therapy worthwhile?

flyoverthis@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 140 points –

Hello,

Lately I have been overwhelmed with my schedule, finances and social life. I am always trying to improve my mental health. With all of this stress I am considering therapy, mainly for someone to talk, to process all my thoughts, and maybe help me develop ideas or come up with strategies to cope better. I have ADHD, Autism, and some other things if that helps anyone relate.

I have three main questions:

Has therapy helped you enough to be worth the time?

Is it very difficult to find a therapist you mesh with?

How do I find a therapist? From a doctor's referral? Online service? Through insurance? (I live in the United States.)

Any experience or advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: I just wanted to thank everyone for your help and support! I hope everyone is doing well and has seen positive changes. And I hope all these replies help other people besides myself. I'm feeling more positive and hopeful toward finding the right therapist. Your kindness is appreciated!

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Is it very difficult to find a therapist you mesh with?

I went through nine therapists until I found one who's actually been helpful.

Did you use the same resource for finding a new therapist each time? I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed by the search.

It can definitely be overwhelming. Sometimes the therapist was just the first one chosen after I got a referral from my doctor, another time I found the website of a local therapy private practice and found the therapists profiles on there and chose one, another time I made a list of potential therapists from psychology today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists) and emailed all of them, and some times I got put in some mental health program and just had one assigned to me.

The only advice I can give is just start seeing a therapist, don't get discouraged if it doesn't go great, just think about what they do that you like and what you dislike and try another one, maybe even starting off with a new therapist by discussing this.

Over the years I've learned about a bunch of different types of therapy (CBT, ACT, DBT, psychosomatic, etc) and I know exactly what works best for me. It was a long and painful journey to get there though, best of luck.