By Bonnie Harken, Founder and CEO, Crossroads Programs for Women
Regardless of your personality type, your age, your social or economic status, your educational background, or your professional success, if you are struggling through life, or a difficult period, you need support. Friends can offer suggestions but they are often influenced by their own beliefs (or misbeliefs) without the benefit of formal training and knowledge of human behavior and are sometimes prejudiced by their personal relationship with you. You can also be a fervent reader of self-help books and articles but we aren’t generally wise when evaluating our own issues and behaviors objectively. Even regularly attending 12 Step groups, while it supports abstinence, cannot supplant the significance of examining our root issues and dysfunctional behaviors with a trained mental health professional.
Neglecting mental health treatment can result in more serious problems down the road. For decades, researchers have been studying why some people don’t get treatment. Their findings suggest it is a complex set of reasons behind this reluctance to seek out mental health treatment. One of the top ten reasons that individuals didn’t seek help was that people didn’t understand or had limited knowledge about mental health services.
The purpose of this article is to help you understand the process and assess your need and readiness for mental health services. Choosing a therapist that shares your philosophical and spiritual beliefs is extremely important. In an earlier article I defined what all the initials after a mental health professional’s name mean. This article is still available at www.crossroadsprogramsforwomen.com. Most therapists will graciously answer any questions you may have about their education, experience, specialized credentials, and therapeutic philosophy during an initial interview.
Aside from any of the destructive ways you may be compensating for your pain (alcohol abuse, medication abuse, eating disorders, compulsive behaviors etc.), the five basic feelings and self-thoughts that negatively influence your behavior and indicate that you may benefit from therapy are:
- A persistent sense of loneliness and disconnection
- Chronic fear, anxiety or panic
- Deep sense of inappropriate guilt
- Feeling inadequate or inferior
- Pervasive, constant resentments and easily provoked to anger
Any one of these five, when pervasive, can be life altering. Addressing these areas with patience, dedication to discovery, and persistence would be a highly effective treatment strategy. But the success or failure of therapy is always conditioned upon our ability to surrender certain things to the process, to be honest in self-assessment, have a willingness to look at the past and evaluate the effect of the past on the present, and the desire for a better future with willingness and courage to change.
Answering the following questions will assist you and your therapist in addressing and prioritizing your therapeutic needs.
- What do you most dislike about yourself? Why?
- Do you consider yourself to be inferior or inadequate when compared to others?
- Do you remember the first time you felt shameful, guilty and in pain? Has it become a pattern of incidences? Please explain.
- How does anxiety or panic or fearfulness limit your daily activities? What situations do you avoid because of them? Do you remember when these feelings started?
- Do you get angry easily? Why?
- Are there people (organizations, principles) with whom you are angry? How long have you been angry with them?
- Describe how you to relate to others. (From fear, inadequacy, loneliness, anger or rage, neediness, as a victim or martyr)
- Do you believe that a spiritual approach to recovery can help you? Why and how?
- Do you believe that you have the courage to change the things you can change?
- Can you accept that there are people and situations over which you have no control and you must at some point learn to let go?
After you answer these questions, re-number them in the order in which you believe they impact your life and your behaviors with No. 1 being the most significant and 10 being the least significant. If you work thoughtfully and carefully through these questions and share the work with your therapist, it will be very helpful in developing your treatment plan, assessing where you need the most input and therapeutic support, and facilitating a more effective and rapid treatment process. Your therapist is your partner in discovery, understanding, and change.
Our thoughts become our words and our words become our actions. Our thoughts affect not only our individual lives but also the totality of life around us. If your thoughts are based in negativity and limitations, you create a very different life than if your thoughts are rooted in abundance and love. A qualified mental health professional will help you discover your triggers and implement new strategies and practical methods to begin to transform your thinking and your life.
Bonnie Harken, founder and CEO of Crossroads Programs for Women, has spent the last 30 years assisting individuals begin their journey of healing. Look for upcoming programs at Crossroads Programs for Women. Begin your journey of finding renewal, hope, joy, direction, and passion. Each program is a blend of lectures, group discussion, and therapeutic exercises offering a healing curriculum. We explore the spiritual components of healing from a non-denominational Christian perspective. Why continue to struggle? Tomorrow does not have to be like today. We can help you. Visit www.crossroadsprogramsforwomen.com or call 1-800-348-0937.
References Available Upon Request