10 signs that tell you when to see a psychologist
If you notice any of these symptoms, it would be a good idea to consider seeing a professional.
Some people think that going to psychological therapy is a symptom of weakness.. However, it is a brave decision that can help you to be a more emotionally intelligent person and prepared to face the situations that arise in your day to day life.
Psychotherapists are trained professionals who provide you with tools to improve your emotional well-being and quality of life.
How does a psychologist help you?
Making the decision to attend psychological therapy can change your life for the better, and gives you the opportunity to grow personally and emotionally. It can also allow you to overcome a past conflict or help you to reestablish balance in your life.
Psychotherapy sessions are confidential, so you can feel comfortable and express your feelings and emotions as well as the experiences or thoughts that concern you.
The benefits of attending psychological therapy are the following:
- It provides you with tools so that you can overcome the conflicts that may appear in your life and reduce their impact and discomfort.
- It helps you to improve your interpersonal relationships and your relationship with your partner
- Improve your emotional health and your mental well-being
- Allows you to overcome problems at work
- Improves your self-knowledge and empowers you to face life
- Allows you to know, test and modify those maladaptive and dysfunctional those maladaptive and dysfunctional beliefs.
- Allows you to overcome the most varied problems: stress, fears, anxiety, depression, etc.
- It allows you to find balance in your life
When to go to psychological therapy
Making the decision to go to psychotherapy is not easy, largely because of the prejudices that exist around this practice. But psychotherapy is a very effective treatment for many of life's problems, and many studies support its use.and there are many studies that support its use.
Unfortunately, too often people let problems overcome them before getting help. Since there are some cases in which it is necessary or highly recommended to seek psychological help, below you can find a list of signs that indicate that you should see a psychologist:
1. The past is constantly with you
The Pain of the death of a loved one, a breakup, etc., are situations that are difficult to overcome and that can affect us for a relatively long period of time. Sometimes we think that these feelings or thoughts will disappear by themselves, but this is not always the case. When this pain and discomfort becomes chronic, it is necessary to seek psychological help..
You can read our article "Grief therapy: psychological help to cope with goodbye" to understand why it is not always easy to overcome these traumatic events.
2. You feel great discomfort, suffering or are sad most of the time.
These traumatic situations can impair the normal functioning of a person's life, and suffering can become something that the individual lives with on a daily basis.. To a certain extent it is normal that, after some negative event, people suffer an enormous feeling of emptiness, pain and confusion, as it is part of the process of adaptation.
However, when these negative reactions last for a prolonged period of time, it can become pathological. Fortunately, this sadness and inability to move forward can be overcome with the help of a psychologist.
3. You do not see the future clearly
While the past can haunt you and cause you suffering, it can also be disheartening not to have a clear future. Lack of self-knowledge and zero expectations for the times ahead affect motivation and overall well-being. and general well-being. Psychologists can provide tools to get to know yourself better and know what your desires, priorities and talents are; and they can offer you the knowledge you need to design and plan your future realistically.
4. Existential crisis
The existential crisis can appear at any time in life. It occurs when a person has mental schemes that no longer serve him/her or are maladaptive, so he/she feels that he/she does not know the path to follow in life, nor can he/she visualize the goals to pursue in order to achieve personal self-realization.
This can cause much suffering and can lead to psychological disorders if the situation is not resolved correctly. Psychologists can help a person find his or her own path in life, restructure expectations, accept himself or herself, and develop more effective and adaptive coping strategies that empower him or her to cope with day-to-day life.
5. You have no control over your life
Perhaps you have been suffering from anxiety for some time and have realized that you have no control over your life: it is affecting you at work, in your relationship with others, when it comes to finding a partner... Maybe you have tried to reverse the situation by practicing physical exercise, reading self-help books or talking to friends, but the situation has not changed.
In these cases you should seek the help of a psychologist so that you can acquire a series of tools that will allow you to find balance in your life again.
6. Constant negative thoughts
If you have been having thoughts that prevent you from living your life normally for a long time.. For example, you are constantly thinking about catastrophic situations, you are obsessed with some idea or you have some kind of fixation, psychological therapy employs very useful techniques to solve this type of problem.
7. You feel a great aggressiveness and anger towards the environment.
You may feel an aggressive impulse or great anger towards someone or towards the environment in general.. In some cases this is a typical reaction to the frustration you feel, and may be a way to avoid taking your share of the blame, for example, for a bad decision you have made. Psychologists can help you to better understand what is happening to you, to be more realistic and to accept yourself and the situations that affect you.
8. You are not well with your partner
Relationships are not always easy, and in many cases they do not go through good times.. It should not be forgotten that, as in any interpersonal relationship, each partner has his or her own vision of the world, tastes, needs and even insecurities.
Unfortunately, few people seek psychological help to solve problems in a love relationship or marriage. The psychologist can help to improve communication, learn to negotiate, to reach agreements and learn tools to overcome difficulties in the relationship, cohabitation and sexual problems.
9. You feel stressed
The stress, especially in the work, is one of the most frequent phenomena of the present time, and can seriously affect the health of your partner.and can seriously affect psychological and physical health. Stress significantly alters our lives and affects our thinking and behavior, causing physiological, physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral reactions.
If you are experiencing stress and notice that it is affecting your day-to-day life, fortunately, psychologists can help you put an end to this problem.
10. You have difficulty sleeping
Unfortunately, psychological disorders associated with inadequate rest are very common. And it is no wonder, because we live in a very different society than in previous decades, where everything goes very fast and technology has burst into our lives considerably. Bad habits, rushing, schedules that do not favor natural rest and other variables can cause us to rest far fewer hours than necessary, which has a negative effect on our lives.
According to data from the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), 25% of the Spanish adult population suffers from insomnia.. However, there are other sleep disorders such as sleepwalking, night terrors or behavioral disorders associated with REM sleep that affect the well-being and health of the sufferer. Thanks to psychological therapy, it is possible to overcome the various sleep disorders.
Seeing a psychological assistance center can help you improve your well-being.
If you feel identified with any of the above points and you have begun to notice that the situation in which you find yourself is too big for you and is affecting your daily life, you should consider the need to go to a specialized center.
There are centers that also have an online psychology service, so you can have therapy sessions from the comfort of your home. These centers specialize in the treatment of all kinds of problems: depression, anxiety, phobias, sleep problems, relationship problems, sexual problems, eating problems, substance abuse, difficulties in coping with motherhood or retirement, schizophrenia and problems associated with aging, among others.
These centers can offer you solutions and can help you with the difficulties you are going through.. However, although the fact of going to a psychologist is usually associated with a serious problem, many people seek psychological help for other reasons: to improve social skills, to learn to know oneself better, to maximize personal development or to improve communication with a partner.
(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)