Therapy has come a long way in recent years, thanks to the rise of telehealth. Gone are the days when you had to take a day off work to drive to your therapist’s office and wait around in their waiting room until they were ready for you. Now you can go through therapy while sitting on your couch in your pajamas or walking around the park. This convenience has reshaped the mental health care industry. It has made it more accessible and provides more options than ever before. It is crucial to know therapy has evolved and some of the benefits it can provide for people with mental illness.
Learning to Be Compassionate
Compassion is a trait that you can learn. It’s something everyone should strive to improve. Therapists often encourage their clients to practice compassion for themselves and others daily.
When you are compassionate toward yourself, you have greater self-esteem and feel better about yourself. You don’t beat yourself up when things go wrong or make mistakes. Instead, you recognize the good qualities in yourself and can accept your flaws as part of who you are. This happens over time and leads to positive mental health results, including reduced stress levels and less anxiety. It lowers depression in certain situations (such as after experiencing loss).
Gaining Perspective
You may wonder how gaining perspective can help your mental health. You might not know what it means or even if you can do so. The good news is that gaining perspective is a skill that can be learned. You can try different apps until you find the best therapy app to evaluate how you are gaining perspective. Once you start practicing the techniques, they will become easier to implement.
First, ask yourself these questions:
- What do I fear?
- What are my strengths?
Then, write down your answers in bullet points (or whatever format works best for you). Now look at the list and identify which skills/strengths are presently more than others; perhaps some areas could use improvement. Next time someone says something about one of those strengths or skills, take a deep breath before responding. You’ll find that this exercise helps keep emotions from getting out of control during difficult conversations.
Fostering Self-Awareness
Awareness is one of the most important life skills. People must live and thrive on their terms. Awareness allows you to understand your motivations and behaviors. It helps you know what kind of relationship you want with others. Awareness also gives us insight into our interactions with other people—how we behave around them and how they respond to our behavior—which further enhances our ability to craft positive relationships that make us feel good about ourselves (and hopefully them too!).
There must be some degree of trust for therapy sessions to be effective at fostering self-awareness. This can take time because it takes time for someone who has been struggling with various mental health issues.
Becoming More Self-Confident
Being able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses is a huge step on the path toward becoming more confident. It’s important to recognize that you are not perfect. Everyone has flaws; this aspect of human nature can’t be changed. However, this doesn’t mean you should stop trying to improve yourself in any way possible. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with you, recognize your strengths and learn how best to utilize them.
The same holds for your limitations. While you might not always like this fact about yourselves, it’s important to accept these limitations. When you accept your limitations, they won’t prevent you from achieving success in life.
Testing Yourself in a Safe Space
Testing yourself in a safe space is an important part of the therapeutic process. The goal of testing yourself is to provide an opportunity to witness your responses and behavior when faced with difficult situations.
When testing yourself, make sure that it is done in a safe environment. Testing yourself may also involve going through activities that evoke strong emotions like fear or anger.
Conclusion
Therapy can be a great option if you’ve been struggling with your mental health and feel like talking to someone might help. Talking with an unbiased third party can help you better understand your feelings. It allows you to take control of them to improve your life.
Author: Mandy Kloppers
Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.
