What prevents you from seeking mental health support e.g. counselling or a psychotherapist?

[Decoupage]

I've been in therapy for three times and each time found it invaluable so I am wondering what the barriers are to seeking mental health support? I think there are some obvious ones like stigma, shame and justifying investment in self over others. Of course that assumes that you are at a stage of knowing it would be good to get the support. Would you share what it is for you?

Money and time. I looked in to it, but was strongly advised by a few therapists that I'd be looking at 18-24 months minimum of at least weekly slots and that it would be a bad idea to do a shorter number of sessions and could actually end up worse.

I can't afford that amount of cash at all! And the idea of a regular afternoon wasted thinking about nasty things for 2 years sounds shitty. I'm grand if I compartmentalise properly and just don't think about certain things. I was up for it when I thought I could just do 10 sessions or so though.

It's a mixed bag, poorly regulated, and harm is caused more often than is commonly discussed, which isn't great for informed consent. Who on this thread discussed possible harms as part of their contract setting?

Depending on your needs, if you have a complex history, it can cost a lot of money to work with a sufficiently skilled person for as long as is needed to unpick this and derive long term benefits. If you can find and fund that person - that is great.

IMHO the quick and dirty 'therapy' that's being pumped out on a formula by low skilled practitioners that asks you to view part of yourself as the 'the problem', including viewing your own distressed response to past trauma as maladaptive, is unlikely to generate long term benefits. The least worst harms are to leave one feeling gas-lit and misunderstood. But there is scope in this scenario for moral injury, loss of trust in services and retraumatisation.

Expense.

I'm having "high intensity" cbt on the nhs at the moment and I don't find it useful at all. It's so formulaic, rather than tailored to me. The therapist is desperate to make me "fit" into her framework and is visibly frustrated when my completely honest answers don't fit in neatly. I want it to work, I desperately wish I could give her the answers she wants that would make it work better. I finish every session and cry because I know that once this set of treatment has finished, there's nothing else on the nhs that I'll be offered.

Generally the cost.

I have had various forms of therapy and counselling. The best was with a hospital psychotherapist. And the other really good one was as part of a trial using a type of therapy called ACT+. Both of those were free.

I had cbt on the NHS and it was pretty useless. It was a young male trainee therapist who I didn't feel anything in common with and I wasn't able to open up at all. He spent a lot of time explaining how cbt worked which I found obvious and patronising . And I hated the actual process of cbt ( I already know my anxiety etc is illogical, but spelling that out to myself just makes me feel stupid, it doesn't make the anxiety go away). I had to work on the cbt stuff late at night as that's the only free time I had, and ended up adding insomnia to my problems.

Finally realised that I would have felt far more benefit spending an hour to myself actually doing something enjoyable.

So there's no way I'd ever want to pay for therapy based on that experience.

Being referred. Getting a GP appointment is bad enough. Then the waiting times once referral has happened.

Having to make endless phonecalls which cause me anxiety. Which then end in lengthy waiting lists.

I've had therapy in the past and it was great for me, but I currently don't have the spoons to access it via all the BS at the moment.

I've tried several therapist in my life and only one was actually any good. The others made me feel worse. One gave 'advice' and recommended a course of action (which they're not really supposed to do AFAIK) that could have caused serious problems at work.

Too many cowboys. The worst one was NHS as well.

So frustrating and saddening to read these responses. CBT, as devised by Aaron Beck, is very straightforward and effective but it does require a LOT of personal input between sessions to make any real difference and that's often not practical. If you're not being asked to complete thought diaries and mood analysis sheets then it's a waste of time.

Issues such as trauma, anxiety (particularly health), pain management, PTSD, phobias, overwhelm and sleep problems do not always need weeks or months of intense and painful therapy. Alternative paths such as EMDR, hypnotherapy and remedial hypnosis have shown good outcomes.

I also know several people who have done therapy and I've secretly thought they should ask for their money back!

Because these people are still messed up, and they think that 'doing therapy' is helpful, but I feel it just keeps them in victimhood rather than helping them to move on. I say this having experienced counselling myself. I'm sure there's some excellent professionals, but they don't have

..sorry phone glitches. *They don't have all the answers.

Bit of a different one, but losing my aviation medical. The one hobby that lifts me up like nothing else (no pun intended). It's why I work so hard on managing my mental health myself.

That, and money.

Mmm. Proponents of CBT have got their act together in terms of pushing an evidence base, and because of the rigidity and superficiality of the modality it lends itself to some forms of evaluation that are much less easy to apply to richer and more nuanced forms of therapy which are considerably harder to standardise and therefore be able to evaluate with a control group who did not receive the same treatment.

CBT appears effective, when delivered in optimal conditions by a sufficiently skilled practitioner, in the short term, for some situations.

But then anyone who has experienced the nagging 'for numbers' at the start or end of CBT sessions, and given any old number to shut the practitioner up and appear compliant, whilst internal seething, 'I am not reducible to a number, why don't you start treating me like a human, and allow me complex and contradictory feelings?' will have cause to reflect on what exactly have these claims of CBT's efficacy been built upon?

I could have written this, but I do take medication for a severe and enduring mental illness.I work part time, socialise, go outside daily, eat well, take supplements and am living a fabulous life.. one that never dreamed possible 20 years ago x

Exactly this.

The cost.

You sound a bit smug.

The free sessions that I've tried have been over the phone which hasn't worked for me.

I'm terrified that it will open the most painful can of worms I'm not strong enough to deal with, so living with surpressed feelings and hiding the truth is easier.

Yesterday however I was seeing the nurse practitioner about something and she completely caught me off guard and starting talking about my anxiety that I've never admitted or want to believe I have. I left with an appointment to speak to the counsellor for an initial assessment but at 30 mins long and over the phone I'm already skeptical and wondering if it's worth it

For those of you worried about opening Pandora's box/a can of worms please bear in mind that when you suppressed those feelings you were most probably far younger and less able to deal with them than you are today. If you were a child/young teen you wouldn't have had the logical capacity to figure out what happened and you made well be working on the same child-like assumptions now (because these things are never truly buried).

Think about Scout's progression in To Kill a Mockingbird. Through most of the story she is deathly afraid of Bo Radley and the Radley house, without knowing why. By the end of the book she can see both the man and the house through more rational, adult eyes and realises that there was no danger.

The problem with your analogy is that lots of people who need therapy do so not because they are irrational and not having sufficiently grown-up thoughts, but because they have been abandoned or harmed by care givers, or assaulted or otherwise abused, lost their jobs or their homes and are living in conditions of insecurity, or live with permanent pain from chronic conditions or are terrified by their cancer diagnoses, or haven't slept through the night for six years due to caring for a disabled child whose needs are overwhelming or are marginalised and stigmatised by the daily experiences of racism etc etc

People need support because they have been subject to abuses of power or had other material experiences in the world that have damaged their sense of self/self identity, because the world can be a savage and brutal place.

Telling these people that their fear is irrational and they need to think in a more grown-up way is invalidating and unhelpful. The person is not the problem. They do not need to come to understand themselves as part of the problem. They generally need to understand what has happened to them and how to come to terms with that material reality.

Surely money is the biggest reason for most.

@Irisginger I agree that people with ongoing mental health issues should be receiving everything that they need to help them cope, either from the State or from specialist (and well funded) charities. Hopefully a change of Govt in the UK will make a difference and quickly.

My post was specifically about those people who are afraid of dealing with the feelings/issues that they have suppressed for many years. I did not use the word irrational.

By the end of the book she can see both the man and the house through more rational, adult eyes and realises that there was no danger.

I think 'less rational' and 'irrational' feel pretty similar in this context?

Lack of trust. I can't imagine wanting to share my thoughts with a total stranger.

The arduous journey of finding a good one and meanwhile paying shit tons of money for ones that are not a good fit

I don't quite trust it. My family has a history of serious mental health conditions and I remember the things that happened to various aunts and uncles, all filtered through a child's eyes (and the little that was said.) ECT, sectioning, various drugs, lack of control.
I know therapists I'd likely see for my own depressive or anxious times would be talk based, but I don't quite believe it would be helpful. I'm better trying to resolve things in my own head and then move on. Or distracting myself.
When I had serious post natal mental health problems I would have been open to it (though I'd have preferred sedation/admission to a ward) but I had literally no time alone ever.

I’ve tried but feel a bit of a fool. It’s a worksheet asking how often you’re anxious, how often you feel about harming yourself etc. then a therapist saying that actually the world isn’t a bad scary place where people are out to get you and going for a walk will make you feel better. I know that but that’s not how I feel.

last time I went I was pregnant and they recommended staying inside and away from people till I felt more confident which even I could see was a recipe for PND. My friend went and it changed her life to learn that everyone was just going about their own life not focussed on her. I thought maybe they should have looked into why she believed that in the first place.

im probably too cynical.