How Therapy Can Help

Deciding to seek therapy is not always easy.

If you’ve never been, you may wonder how individual therapy or group therapy will help you. Perhaps, you’ve tried therapy in the past, but did not find that it helped.

Talking to a stranger about your honest thoughts and feelings makes you nervous and hesitant.

Your partner wants to go to therapy, but you don’t out of concern that they will gang up on you. Alternatively, you believe that you and your partner need therapy, but they won’t go.

The family needs counseling, but not all members want to attend.

Therapy can be nerve-wracking and relieving at the same time.

Beginning group or individual therapy can bring up both fear and relief simultaneously – and worries about what you will uncover or experience but relief for embarking on a process that can bring some resolution to what’s impeding your happiness.

Therapy with Heart and Mind Counseling works to help you with the conversation in your head (we refer to them as thoughts) that you cannot fully reveal without potentially adverse reactions by others in your life.

Your therapist is a licensed and trained professional who can evaluate your situation from your perspective. Your sessions occur in a safe, secure space for you to reveal what is going on in your head without being fearful of punitive consequences.

Our sessions start with where you are at that moment. We first address what is most pressing to you and is bothering you the most… when we identify that, we move to other important subjects.

Your therapist will ask you questions, make suggestions, as well as sit with you while you explore your feelings and share your vulnerabilities. However, we will only explore as much as you can bear at that specific time. If a topic becomes too sensitive, we back off and look at it later as we make progress.

The right relationship enhances progress.

The most important thing to us at Heart and Mind Counseling is the “relationship” you have with your therapist.

We want to make sure you feel a “connection”– that you have the comfort in knowing this person can relate to your experiences, and you feel supported.

Even if you get upset with your therapist, we want you to feel safe to express those feelings so the two of you can work through them together on your journey towards healing.

The “trust” you have with your therapist is of the utmost importance to us because that enables you to experience progress.

My partner and I do not see “eye to eye” on this counseling “thing.”

Your marriage and family therapist is skilled at being a neutral party between you and your partner; neither partner will be “ganged up on” during a session.

Your therapist’s goal is to help you and your partner resolve the issues, so both parties feel heard and respected, enabling the relationship to be enjoyable for both of you.

If one partner in the relationship does not want to attend counseling, we recommend that the one who wants to seek therapy participates by themselves.

When one party examines the dynamic between the two parties and can make healthy changes, it can still positively impact the relationship.

Most of “the family” is on board, but we have a “holdout.”

We encourage the family members who are willing to attend counseling to start. During the session, we will explore the relationships within the family unit and work to improve them.

Once the person who is hesitant to attend sees some changes, they may decide to attend. Even if the individual does not ever want to attend sessions, the family will still learn to interact more healthily while understanding and accepting the member who does not wish to participate.

Make the right decision – counseling meets many needs.

Individuals, partners, and families benefit from counseling, and this makes life better for everyone.

Heart and Mind Counseling is here to listen to your concerns and questions about beginning counseling; please reach out to us today to discuss your specific needs.