“You need therapy.”
This is a phrase used far too often as an insult, a punishment, or even a bad joke. We say it to the partner we are mad at (or dumping), to the politician or anonymous person on Twitter we disagree with, or to the friend we feel is in the wrong yet doesn’t understand why.
As a psychiatrist, I cringe when I hear therapy discussed like this. Not only is this the wrong way to think about when we should be going to therapy, but it’s also a deeply stigmatizing view. Instead, we should be thinking of therapy’s many potential benefits to, well, really any of our lives.
Because we so often talk like this, I’ve noticed that many people don’t actually know the various reasons you might consider going to therapy in the first place. They may be skeptical of it, see it as self-indulgent, or not think they need it at all because they have loved ones to talk to or believe it’s reserved for only extreme circumstances.
To help clear up these misconceptions, I asked therapists what signs they think about when they recommend therapy to people and why. Here are 13 very good reasons you might consider going to therapy—none of which are an indictment of you as a person.