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Your partner comes home from work and sits on the couch while you are making dinner. You are tired from a long day. Instead of asking them to help you, you find yourself shutting down, keeping your thoughts to yourself. You would like to ask your partner for help but are not confident in your ability to say something in a way that doesn’t start a fight.  

Your boss asks you to take on an additional project at work. Already feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you agree to a project you cannot reasonably afford to take on without cutting into your sleep hours. You are not sure how to share this with your boss. 

 If this sounds familiar and you would like to begin to find your voice and confidence within, this blog post is for you.   

Have you ever wondered what is stopping you from asserting yourself? 

Anger is a protective force inside of us and it functions to look out for our best interests. Though many times when we think of anger, we think of something destructive, in reality, the destructive part is acting out on the anger and not the anger itself.  Anger is a three-part experience inside of us: a thought, a sensation in the body and an urge to do something to assert yourself.  When you learn to allow this experience as information in the body, it is channeled into adaptive actions that are calm and effective.  On the other hand, when you are fearful of anger and avoid it, you will find yourself lacking the confidence, strength and cognitive clarity to assert yourself.   

Anger often makes people anxious, especially when those feelings come up toward someone we care about.  Something about these mixed feelings of loving/caring and anger commonly leads to anxiety.  When we are anxious, our strongest tendency is to avoid the thing that makes us anxious.  Then we avoid the very thing that would help us be confident to speak up for ourselves in a loving way.  Feelings of love say “be loving to the other”, where anger says “be loving to yourself”.  If the feelings information is not avoided, you will do both.  You will speak up for yourself in a loving way.   

There are many ways we avoid experiencing the feelings that would help us assert ourselves.  Here are a few: 

• People pleasing: putting someone else’s wants/needs above your own when you don’t want to and just to avoid the feelings you would have if you didn’t engage in pleasing.  
• Shutting down: going silent
• Self-doubting: questioning one’s own feelings
• Rationalizing: convince ourselves why we should not have the feelings we do

Feelings give us direction, like an internal GPS. Avoiding feelings leaves us lost, driving down the road without a map. 

Therapy can help you reconnect with your internal GPS system, so you can find the power and confidence to assert yourself in your relationships.  

Together, as a collaborative team, you and your therapist can help you become consciously aware of the ways you avoid your feelings, identify how this hurts your confidence and interferes with your ability to assert yourself.  Once you are able to see the ways in which you avoid, you can begin to turn against avoidance and allow your healthy feelings.  Through your work with a therapist, you will align with the healthy voice within you and enjoy confidence in your relationships.  How amazing is it to know we have a GPS system of feelings working to help us resolve our problems? 

During the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it can be difficult to prioritize ourselves. We want to share a few ways you can build resiliency in yourself to have a healthy and satisfying end of this year as you start the next.

Noticing your anxiety, rather than ignoring it will help you feel more connected and prevent burn out. As you prepare for busy days, try to create moments of slowness to connect with your body. Pay attention to physical signs of anxiety, and help yourself soften as you breathe. This reset can help you re-enter a party, work, or travel from a more intentional headspace.  

Stop to ask yourself, “What do I really want for myself this holiday season?”

With so many external demands during the holidays, stopping to think about how you want to spend your time can give you more control to create the experiences you want. Once you have a picture of your wishes, what are actions you can take between now and then to help them come to life?

Spend some time in a group. Connecting with others can be healing for our nervous system. Some ways to connect socially could be: getting a group of friends together, attending an exercise or yoga class, learning a new skill, volunteering, joining a faith-based group, or finding a public event near you. If social groups tend to increase your anxiety, try joining one that doesn’t require as much verbal interaction.

Consider what rituals and traditions you want to keep, change, or create new for yourself this year. What would make the holiday season meaningful for you? What food, activities, clothes, decorations, music, or conversations are important to include this year? Share your ideas with your loved ones and invite them to participate with you.

Keeping to healthy rhythms and routines is stress-reducing. It is normal for our schedules to shift to accommodate new plans and time off, but ensuring that some parts of your typical schedule are prioritized will help you to feel your best, like ensuring you get enough sleep, planning time for exercise, and eating nourishing meals.

If you find self-care during the holidays to be difficult, you don’t have to wait for help. Contact our office to get connected with a therapist who can help. You can reach us at 517-481-2133.

With the election this week, many of us have been carrying an extra level of anxiety recently. Ruminating on these stressful events or venting with others can feel like you’re helping yourself process in the moment, however these behaviors can actually make our anxiety worse. Anxiety creates uncomfortable sensations in the body including muscle tension, headaches, stomach sickness, dizziness, lightheadedness, and can even lead to chronic pain.

If you recognize this in yourself, it can be helpful to take some time to get to know your feelings under your anxiety. When painful things are happening outside of our control, facing feelings toward what has happened will bring our anxiety down. As you spend this time with yourself, you may feel a number of feelings like grief, joy, anger, love, healthy guilt, or healthy shame at the same time. Slowly approach each feeling. How do you experience this inside your body? What information does this feeling give you to help you be good to yourself in the face of this painful and stressful election?

You do not have to face these feelings alone. If you’re already working with a therapist, consider talking this through with them. If you are not yet connected to a therapist, you do not have to wait long – call us today, and we will connect you with a therapist as soon as today. You can reach us at 517-481-2133.

I have a book on pre-order called “What I Couldn’t Tell My Therapist” by Michelle May.  I don’t know specifically the content of the book, but it brings to mind a very important topic.  What do you feel comfortable telling your therapist and what seems completely off limits?  It can be difficult at times to share things openly with anyone about topics that are painful for us.  In a psychotherapy session, it is generally taken for granted that this is a safe place, and a therapy client should be able to be open.  This is often not how it goes though and there are important reasons for this.   

Growing up in our families, we all have to learn to adapt to whatever the emotional environment is. 

We automatically try to adapt because it is part of our internal instinct for survival to remain attached to those who will help us survive by providing food, shelter and care.  It is not something we actively think about as a small child, but we learn early on what kinds of responses we get from caregivers to different emotions we express and things that we do.  We use this knowledge to protect the supply line of survival needs and caring.  If we learn that our tears are upsetting to a parent, we may learn to hide our tears.  If we learn that asking for help with a problem overwhelms a busy parent, we may learn that we should never ask for help with problems.  These two examples are just two of many ways that children learn to adapt that later become a problem for them in adulthood.  A person who hides their feelings may have difficulties knowing what they feel or getting close in relationships.  A person who learned not to ask for help may have difficulty asking for it even in therapy.  The way we learn to adapt early on becomes so automatic, we forget we even adapted that way and the things we learned to do will continue in our relationships in adulthood, usually outside of our awareness.   

When a person finds themself unable to tell a therapist exactly how they feel or what they need help with, it can lead to a poor experience in therapy or getting stuck. 

If you find yourself having difficulty expressing something in your therapy, be gentle with yourself and know there is always a reason for this.  Try sharing with your therapist your dilemma about feelings or asking for help so that you don’t have to be alone with it.  Your therapist can then help you be self-compassionate and begin to understand what you learned to hide or how you adapted so that you can be free to be the real you! 

There can be many reasons a person feels they cannot tell something to their therapist, including factors about the therapist themselves.  Therapist responses can certainly help or hinder a person’s comfort to share. I am looking forward to Michelle’s book to learn more! 

You may be thinking that talking about your depression won’t change anything. If it’s just talking, you’re probably right!  

Therapy is a very specific kind of talking, which uses a scientific approach to help you find out and understand what is happening inside you. Depression has a cause. Sometimes we think the cause is something outside of us, like a job we don’t like or someone else’s behavior.  And while these things can be distressing, they are not the cause of depression in and of themselves but instead a trigger to a reaction inside that is the cause of a depressive episode.  In therapy, we form and test hypotheses together to get to the bottom of what is driving your symptoms.  By doing this, you can learn the exact cause and you can address it and free yourself from the symptoms.  In therapy, you explore both what happened outside you and what happened inside you so you and your therapist can find the way out of darkness.  

Therapists use a scientific approach to help you form a hypothesis and test it: 

1. Look at when your depressive symptoms started and what was happening around that time 
2. Explore your symptoms currently in a specific example so you can get a clear picture of the exact sequence of events inside of you that lead to symptoms and problems 
3. Discover exactly what core feelings get stirred up in the body that lead to feeling anxious and wanting to avoid feelings 
4. Determine what automatic avoidance behaviors come up that take you away from your healthy feeling signals inside so that you can reconnect to them and get good information for yourself. 
5. Using your newly found good information, you take adaptive actions and begin to feel better and better. 

Just talking about something does not magically fix anything. Thankfully, there are scientific ways to find out what is causing your depression. Once the cause is addressed, you can live a life free of depression. 

Leslie Auld LMSW, ACSW 

Your body is remarkable in its ability to “sound the alarm” when you’re in danger. Your muscles tense, your breathing quickens, and your heart pounds. It’s the well-documented cascade of hormonal and physiological changes known as “fight or flight.” This complex response evolved as a survival mechanism, allowing us to quickly react to life-threatening situations, like encountering a hungry bear.

In today’s world, we may not be fighting or fleeing predators in the wilderness, but we may still find ourselves in plenty of situations that are dangerous, stressful, or frightening. Driving behind a car that comes to a sudden stop or walking alone on a dark street, for example, may trigger the fight-or-flight response. It’s your body’s way of helping you protect yourself.

But what happens when you can’t seem to put the brakes on your body’s reaction to what you fear? When routine events, such as meeting with a difficult supervisor or boarding a flight, regularly activate the danger center in your brain, you could be experiencing anxiety. And, since anxiety disorders are the nation’s most common mental health concern, you are certainly not alone.

Anxiety and fear are not one in the same.

Although they are similar, there are ways to distinguish between anxiety and fear. While everyone feels fearful from time to time, fear occurs when there is actual danger present. Anxiety, on the other hand, is when your body reacts as though danger is present. It’s a response to a feeling of perceived danger.

You may not be aware that the root cause of anxiety can be traced back to your childhood attachments. Seeking individual therapy can help you examine the learned behaviors that developed over time and contribute to your anxiety. In order to have an attachment with your caregivers, for instance, you may have learned to hide your feelings as a child. Or, having a separate mind may not have been tolerated by your parents.

As you grow into adulthood, the activation patterns of anxiety are triggered by certain scenarios or memories, or by feelings or impulses you learned when you were young. Those patterns become encoded in your procedural memory the same way brushing your teeth becomes encoded. In other words, you do it without thinking about it until it becomes detrimental to your life.

That could mean that perceived “dangers,” such as sharing your feelings with a romantic partner or speaking up during a staff meeting, may stir up unwelcome impulses originating in childhood and trigger the fight-or-flight response. A good therapist can work with you to identify the anxiety triggers in your life, many of which you may not be aware.

Are you living with the symptoms of anxiety?

Once the physiological activation pattern of anxiety begins in your brain, a host of physical symptoms affect your body. These symptoms, which arise very quickly after your autonomic nervous system sends a distress signal, can include:

• Rapid heartbeat
• Ringing in the ears
• Blurry or tunnel vision
• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Tension headaches or migraines
• Brain fog
• Muscle tension or slackness
• Upset stomach
• Hyperawareness
• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Stomach pains or cramps

Paying attention to these symptoms and becoming familiar with how your body reacts to anxiety can go a long way toward helping you cope.

Effective treatment for anxiety is available.

If you’ve experienced chronic anxiety for many years, you may not realize how it’s affecting your body. You may disregard it, thinking you’re simply a nervous person or one who naturally worries more than others. You may even wonder, “Does anxiety go away if you ignore it?” However, your symptoms should be taken seriously because, left untreated, they almost always worsen over time.

The effects of anxiety on the brain and body can be harmful, often leading to serious stomach problems and a host of other ailments. The good news is that you can live a mostly anxiety-free life when you work with a therapist to address its root causes, whether or not you’re currently taking anxiety medication.

Other helpful tools for alleviating anxiety:

• Try reciting self-affirmations for anxiety, including telling yourself, “I’m safe; I’m not under any threat.”
• Recognize the symptoms and signs that tell you you’re anxious (Do you ruminate? Do you obsess? Do you try to avoid something?).
• Notice the connection between when your anxiety and the actions it causes you to take.
• Show love for yourself by noticing that you’re anxious and not blaming yourself for it.
• Be aware of your triggers and the feelings or impulses that result from them.
• Use breathing techniques, including smooth and easy breathing.
• Check in with your thoughts and avoid predicting bad outcomes.
• Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend experiencing anxiety (go to https://self-compassion.org for more information on self-compassion).
• Go out into nature and tune in to the sights and smells (Notice tiny details, like a particular leaf or the feeling of bark on a tree).
• Talk to a friend about what’s going on in your life.
• Go for a walk or get some other form of exercise.
• Drink plenty of water (Anxiety reduces electrolytes).
• Address and become aware of any internal conflict.

Your therapist can provide you with even more tools for coping with anxiety and calming your mind, so you can be better prepared the next time your fight-of-flight response goes into overdrive.

Freedom from anxiety can begin today.

At Therapy Today, we’ve helped hundreds of people find freedom from debilitating anxiety in a warm, safe, and soothing environment. We take a unique approach to treating anxiety that explores root causes and provides you with lasting solutions. And, with our same-day in-person and online telehealth counseling sessions, we can work with you to start addressing your anxiety today.

Schedule your appointment.

We’ve all had one of those days … the kind of day when pulling the covers over your head and staying in bed sounds like a welcome alternative to putting both feet on the ground. It’s like a dark cloud is hovering over you.

What happens when that “dark cloud” lasts several days, weeks, or even months? 

Your sadness could be a symptom of depression.

If your sadness feels like more than just an off day or a passing case of the blues, it’s important to seek help determining if your sadness is actually a case of depression. If it is, you’re not alone. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 16.2 million U.S. adults have had at least one major depressive episode in a given year.

Try as You Might, You Can’t “Snap Out of It.”

When you experience depression, well-meaning friends and family may tell you to “hang in there” or “keep your chin up.” They may even try to reassure you that “this, too, shall pass.” Often, though, your feelings of sadness, worthlessness and hopelessness persist — despite your best efforts to make them stop. 

Learn How to Recognize the Symptoms of Depression.

We know it can be difficult to explain to others how depression feels – and people experience it in different ways, so your symptoms may be very different than someone else who is also experiencing depression. A good therapist will listen and tune into your symptoms and help you understand how they interfere with your ability to work, sleep, eat, and function in your day-to-day life. 

Symptoms of Depression May Include:

• Ongoing feelings of sadness or excessive guilt for most of the day.
• Inability to sleep, or excessive time spent sleeping.
• Loss of appetite and weight, or overeating and weight gain.
• Loss of interest in things that usually bring pleasure.
• Self-critical thoughts.
• Social isolation.
• Fatigue and loss of energy, or restlessness.
• Difficulty concentrating and indecisiveness.
• Chronic suicide ideation (recurrent thoughts of suicide and death).

Untreated, depression symptoms can get worse over time and/or new symptoms can emerge, so it’s important to address them as early as possible by reaching out to an experienced professional who can help you put together a path forward.

If you’re regularly experiencing any possible symptoms of depression, please seek professional help immediately. If you’re not yet working with a therapist, please reach out to us and we will match you with a qualified professional – often with a same day and/or telehealth appointment.

There are many options available to help treat depression.

With so many affected by depression, many prescription medications exist that help treat symptoms to varying degrees. For many people, though, medications only go so far in mitigating symptoms, and they don’t help mend what caused the depression in the first place. That’s why most doctors and other mental and emotional health professionals encourage adding a form of therapy in addition to medications. 

Seeking individual therapy can help you identify the root cause(s) of your depression and provide you with the coping skills you need to gain a new sense of hope, happiness and control.

Depression is a complex disorder and should be taken seriously.

As professional therapists, we understand that depression is much more than a short-lived case of “the blues.” It’s a complex disorder affecting people in different ways for different reasons. Your depression may stem from trying to manage anger toward yourself or others in unhealthy ways. It could develop after a painful event or be traced back to childhood trauma. 

Whatever the causes and triggers unique to your depression, individual therapy sessions can help you get to the root of the problem and allow you to share what’s on your mind in a safe and comforting environment.

Getting the support to manage your depression

We understand you may wish to withdraw from others when you’re feeling empty, unmotivated and worthless. The very nature of depression can make it difficult to ask for help. However, pulling your support system close to you — even if it’s just one person — and working with a caring therapist can alleviate the pain of depression.

You can rely on your individual therapy sessions to help you work through the moment when things changed for you — the moment that triggered your depression. You can discuss whatever is on your mind and weighing on your heart. And, you can tell your therapist about suicidal thoughts, whether active or passive, and know that you’ll be provided with a safe space to share those thoughts in confidence.

If you or someone you know are having active thoughts about suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline now at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Depression is highly individual — and help is always available.

You don’t have to go through a major crisis to ask for a therapist’s help. Perhaps you’ve been feeling down for multiple days and you don’t know why. Maybe simple things like running errands, spending time with friends, and taking care of yourself or your family have started feeling like daunting tasks. Your therapist can assess these situations and determine how to best help you move forward.

Managing symptoms with medication can certainly help, as can various self-help methods and positive lifestyle changes. However, don’t hesitate to seek additional help when it’s needed. Ignoring lingering problems can just lead to worsening symptoms of depression over time. Getting support from a skilled therapist can fill in the gaps in helping you overcome and move past depression.

Lasting healing for your depression can begin today.

At Therapy Today, the safe and gentle counseling offered by our therapists helps identify the unhealthy thoughts and behaviors, as well as past experiences, that contribute to your depression. Using proven therapeutic approaches, we foster lasting change to prevent depression from returning. Plus, we offer same-day and telehealth appointments to support you whenever and wherever you’re ready.

With each session, the benefits of individual therapy can lift the heavy fog of depression, leaving you happier, more hopeful, and ready for brighter days ahead.

Schedule your appointment.

When you’re blindsided by a crisis, feelings of hopelessness can quickly escalate and take over much of your life. You’re not alone there. However, it’s important to realize that times of crisis can also present opportunities for incredible personal growth. Knowing when to reach out to a professional therapist can mean the difference between realizing that growth and falling further into despair.

Everyone faces crises during their life; it’s how you deal with them that determines your path forward. A good therapist will help guide you through the chaos of personal crises and give you tools to cope so that you can emerge on the other side with a newfound sense of control and self-awareness.

When a Crisis Becomes a Turning Point.

The very definition of “crisis” gives us insight into the opportunity that emerges from such hardships. While Merriam-Webster defines crisis as “an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life,” it also offers an alternative definition: “the turning point for better or worse.”

No matter what type of obstacles you experience — whether related to your relationships, career, finances, health, spirituality, or identity — the common denominator is change. And, while change can be uncomfortable, it can also lead to a powerful turning point in your life.

Whether that turning point steers you towards a positive or negative outcome can depend greatly on if and when you choose to seek professional support. Seeking the help of a qualified therapist will help you better manage and adapt to the difficult situation at hand.

Seeking therapy too long after a crisis is a missed opportunity. The sooner you seek help, the sooner and more able you are to realize complete healing.

Reframe Your Negative Situation into a Positive Outcome.

Crises affect everyone at some point or another – they’re an inevitable, unfortunate part of life we’d certainly all rather avoid.

Or would we? After all, hindsight is 20/20. Many people look back on a painful situation that felt unbearable at the time, only to realize it was that crisis that helped them build something better for themselves.

We get it – in the moment, a crisis feels like the worst thing(s) that could happen. It throws you into unfamiliar territory, takes you out of your comfort zone, and unravels your sense of certainty.

It’s that last part that makes it crucial to seek help. When your emotions and ability to think logically are altered, don’t try to go it alone. Taking on that burden can lead to further debilitating emotional and mental issues and make your path forward harder than it needs to be.

Realize How Fragile Your Internal Emotional State is – and get it the Support it Needs.

A crisis can hit you like a domino effect, amplifying other underlying issues. For example, following the death of a loved one, or during a painful divorce, you may slide into depression or find your social anxiety worsening.

It’s at the onset of a crisis when additional support is needed the most.

Before you can move past a difficult situation, it’s important to work with your therapist to identify any recurring problems that can become bigger issues when ignored. In the moment of experiencing a crisis, your defenses come down, your usual ways of dealing with hurtful situations fail and you’re less able to process your feelings. Your counseling sessions will identify issues that need to be addressed at the crisis’ onset to manage them in a healthy way. These can include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Relationship problems
• Compulsive behaviors
• Anger
• Stress
• Self-esteem
• Work-life balance
• Thoughts of suicide

That’s why this is the exact moment — when a crisis is upon you — to rely on a trusted therapist to help you overcome the emotions that are pulling you down and break destructive patterns in your life.

This is when you need to put in action a solid crisis management plan that provides a path towards a more positive outcome.

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.

Move Beyond Crisis and Foster Growth for Lasting Change.

With the help of therapy, whether in person or through telehealth counseling, you can learn to move beyond the difficulties surrounding a crisis situation, and foster growth for lasting positive change.

Breaking Down Barriers to Healing

Whether or not you’ve previously sought in-person or telehealth therapy, it’s important to find the right fit when seeking counseling during a difficult time. You may be hesitant to contact a therapist due to concerns about cost, availability, cultural barriers or social stigma — but these concerns can cause you to miss your critical window of opportunity and lead to worsening mental health.

Often concerns about insurance or cost can seem like a barrier to starting therapy – it may be helpful to know that many providers will work with you so that you can get the help that you need.

We’re here for you. Schedule your appointment.

At Therapy Today, we pride ourselves on providing accessible, affordable solutions in a warm, safe, and welcoming environment. We’re trained in proven therapeutic approaches and crisis management techniques that get results. We also offer same-day and telehealth appointments, so you can get started sooner and feel better faster.

If you’re experiencing a crisis, our caring staff is ready to help you find your turning point and learn to live well, love well and work well today.

At Therapy Today, we help people live well, love well, and work well.

This is why we are sharing the following resource about why our language matters, how we strive to support our clients and staff, and the importance of using updated, inclusive LGBTQ+ language.

As this guide highlights, the language used on clinical paperwork makes a significant impact toward affirming someone’s identity. This is why we have updated our intake paperwork to include space for pronoun designation, and the option to include a preferred name after noting their legal name. 

We have also included our therapist’s pronouns within their profile bios on our website to normalize this practice, and affirm our own staff’s identities.

Several of our therapists are LGBTQ+ allied, and we conduct yearly LGBTQ+ Inclusion Trainings for our staff, free of charge to them.

We encourage you to review this article so that you too can be informed and intentionally inclusive of those around you. There are several wonderful resources listed at the end of this article, however we have listed them at the end of this page, too.

https://www.premiernursingacademy.org/resources/workplace-lgbtq-inclusive-language

If you are in need of support today or anytime, Therapy Today is here for you. We offer same-day appointments and strive to be a safe, welcoming space for all. You can schedule an appointment at 517-481-2133.

LGBTQ+ Inclusive Language Resources

An Ally’s Guide to Terminology
This extensive piece created by GLAAD and the Movement Advancement Project describes specific ways in which terms should and shouldn’t be used.

CDC—Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health
On this page, you can find all CDC research and recommendations about working with the LGBTQ+ community.

GLAAD
A significant resource for the LGBTQ+ community and allies, this organization provides a wealth of educational and policy resources for the workplace, schools, and everyday life.

Handshake
This is written for recruiters but applies to anyone in a workplace. The article, “70 Language Principles That Will Make You A More Successful Recruiter” details exactly how to appropriately speak in a place of employment. It includes not just LGBTQ+ related topics, but a myriad of others.

Lambda Legal
This LGBTQ+ civil rights organization can answer your policy and legal questions. They even have a section specifically related to healthcare.

PFLAG
PFLAG is the largest organization for LGBTQ+ family members and allies in the United States. They provide a wealth of information you can use as you learn more about helping this community and offer various resources regarding healthcare.

Rider University
This article includes examples of inclusive language for the LGBTQ+ community and other historically marginalized groups.

The Muse
“A Guide to Using Pronouns and Other Gender-Inclusive Language in the Office” is a thorough piece regarding the importance of this topic. It provides specific examples of how this can be done.

The National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center
This organization provides “educational programs, resources, and consultation to health care organizations to optimize quality, cost-effective health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, and all sexual and gender minority (LGBTQIA+) people.” You can earn continuing education credits through this site, and the Center holds conferences you may find helpful.

The ability of therapists or counselors to see clients using video conferencing software, also known as telehealth, is changing the face of the industry and helping therapists reach their patients in new and convenient ways. While the introduction of telehealth has been particularly helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of this new method of delivering counseling will far surpass our current circumstances.

At Therapy Today, we offer online appointments using secure and HIPAA-compliant teleconferencing software.

Learn more about the benefits of teletherapy and find out if it’s right for you.

Telehealth Benefit 1: Ease of Entry

Statistics indicate the average number of in-person sessions attended by clients is: one. Clients attend one appointment and never come back. While the reasoning behind is still a mystery, there are a lot of theories behind why the first therapy appointment could be so stressful that clients choose not to return. Some of those reasons could be:

• Traffic, parking
• Finding the office
• Arriving late
• Stressful or crowded waiting rooms
• The anxiety of leaving the house
• Discomfort being seen at a therapist’s office
• Missing work
• New, unfamiliar settings

Telehealth Benefit 2: Consistency

After that first appointment, consistency is key. When you need to get to an office, regular life obstacles like lack of childcare, working late, illness, or bad weather could lead to a missed appointment. When you’re attending your appointment virtually, many of these factors won’t impact your session. A disturbed routine can make symptoms worse, but with telehealth, you’ll be able to speak to your therapist or counselor and receive care conveniently in your own home.

This consistency can also continue if a client moves to another state or city. Rather than starting over with a new doctor and potentially losing progress, a patient can continue to see the doctor they are comfortable with.

Telehealth Benefit 3: Expanded Reach

Telehealth allows therapists and counselors to reach individuals that may have previously been unreachable:

• Those without transportation
• Those in rural areas where travel to an office is not ideal
• Those who can’t travel due to a physical or mental handicap
• Those who have work schedules that conflict with therapist office hours

With telehealth, therapy does not have to be a luxury for those living close to offices or with personal transportation. Telehealth allows therapists and counselors to help those they could not previously help.

Telehealth Benefit 4: Eliminates the Waiting Room

For those diagnosed with anxiety or any other mental illnesses, the waiting room in any type of office can be a stressor. With increased stimulation like unfamiliar interactions and a new environment; it’s a situation that can exacerbate anxiety symptoms. With the introduction of telehealth, clients can attend an appointment from the comfort of their own home, in an environment that makes them feel safe and allows them to open up comfortably.

Telehealth Benefit 5: Germ-Free Appointments

For many patients with anxiety, their immune systems can be weakened due to constant stress. Being under the weather may prevent them from attending their appointment both to avoid spreading germs and because they may be unable to travel. Telehealth appointments eliminate the possibility of spreading germs and allow clients to receive care, even if they are sick.

These are just a few of the benefits of using telehealth to reach your counselor or therapist. If you are interested in learning more or scheduling an appointment, reach out today and let’s get started!