It can be scary to seek mental health treatment, and it’s even scarier if you take this step and don’t see the results that you were hoping for. If you have experienced this, you are not alone. In fact, 30 to 40 percent of people felt that they did not benefit from mental health counseling the first time they attended treatment. In a recent article written by Jelena Kecmanovic Ph.D., it is explained why it’s important for you to understand that therapy can help, even if it did not positively impact you the first time you tried it.
Not every therapist is meant for every patient. When a course of psychotherapy or counseling is not working for you, it is important for your therapist to discuss what could be standing in the way of significant improvement. Sometimes it is just simply that the approach being used is not working for you. Everyone is different and there is nothing wrong with that, but occasionally it is beneficial to try another therapist all together. It can feel discouraging if you find that this is the case for you, but it will be beneficial in the long run to have a counselor that is a better fit for your specific needs or your personality. Finding the right therapist is like buying a car. You should consider your first session(s) a “test drive” to see if the therapist and their style are a good fit for you. This might be hard to tell from your very first meeting, as typically the first session is an initial evaluation where the therapist gathers information about your history. This evaluation is often very different from therapy itself. Still, after getting to know the therapist and their style, if you don’t find that they are a right fit for you, we encourage you to keep on searching.
It can be nerve-wracking to seek therapy after you have tried to get help for anxiety or depression and it didn’t work for you. It might seem easiest to just never try again and ignore the remaining problems. However, there are so many reasons why medications or therapy did not work for a person at a particular time. If you did not respond well to mental health treatments, it does not mean that you failed or that you can’t be helped. It may just mean that you need to try again with a different therapist or a different therapy style. Mental health experts often say that there is no treatment that works for every patient, and this is important to keep in mind if you are feeling discouraged. There are so many different therapeutic approaches, it might take a few tries before you understand exactly what you need to better yourself mentally.
When seeking further mental health treatments, make sure to do your research and find options that sound the most applicable to your particular situation. If you haven’t found immediate success in the past, check in with multiple therapists and see if you can set up a consultation with them. Research shows that patients who use this method before setting on a therapist do better overall. Ask all the questions you feel are necessary and pay attention to how you feel when talking to each therapist. Bettering your mental health is not always easy, but odds are you will find success when you find a therapist that works best for you.