Talking about your thoughts and feelings can help you deal with times when you feel troubled about something. If you turn a worry over and over in your mind, the worry can grow.
But talking about it can help you work out what is really bothering you and explore what you could do about it.
Talking is an important part of our relationships. It can strengthen your ties with other people and help you stay in good mental health. And being listened to helps you feel that other people care about you and what you have to say.
We often find it helpful to talk problems through with a friend or family member, but sometimes friends and family cannot help us and we need to talk to a professional therapist.
Talking therapies involve talking to someone who is trained to help you deal with your negative feelings. They can help anyone who is experiencing distress. You do not have to be told by a doctor that you have a mental health problem to be offered or benefit from a talking therapy.
Talking therapies give people the chance to explore their thoughts and feelings and the effect they have on their behaviour and mood. Describing what’s going on in your head and how that makes you feel can help you notice any patterns which it may be helpful to change.
It can help you work out where your negative feelings and ideas come from and why they are there.
Understanding all this can help people make positive changes by thinking or acting differently. Talking therapies can help people to take greater control of their lives and improve their confidence.
There are many different types of talking therapy.
What you told us about talking therapies
“Having someone to talk to who’s not connected to any of it means they can look at things from the outside which helps – you can explore and explain the situation better.”
“A therapist sees and recognises problems and can help you get to the heart of the matter.”
“The therapist was always very positive and tried to help me with positive steps and getting me to recognise what I had achieved in life. I felt less like I was to blame for feeling the way I did.”
Stigma
Lots of people have talking therapies, but you could be forgiven for thinking it’s not very common. People often don’t tell their friends, family or colleagues that they are seeing a therapist.
There’s a stigma attached to mental health problems which means that people feel uncomfortable talking about them. And people having therapy may not want to admit they are getting help.
That may be because they expect other people will think they’re ‘mad’ or tease them about being ‘in therapy’. They may fear it makes them seem weak and unable to sort their problems out for themselves.
But asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s part of taking charge of your wellbeing and doing what’s right for you. Even so, it’s still up to you whether you tell anyone you’re seeing a therapist. Your therapist should not tell anyone, either during the therapy or afterwards.
This is very important – any therapist who is listed on one of the registers of approved professionals will stick to this rule. Find out who to choose a therapist.
Different words
This information uses the words ‘talking therapy’ and ‘therapist’.
Talking therapies may also be referred to as:
These terms can make talking therapies sound like medical procedures, but many people find talking therapies have a very different feel to the treatment you get for physical health problems.
The various terms used to describe talking therapies often mean different things to different people.
Some people use them to describe the level of training of the professional delivering the therapy. But sometimes there is no link between a therapist’s training and the name of the therapy they offer.
There are no set definitions so it’s important to ask about a therapist’s level of training.
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