The word therapy comes from a Greek word meaning, cure or healing. In the Western World, we have come to use the word therapy as a shorthand for 'talking therapies'. Though it can include many different psychological and psychotherapeutic disciplines.

As children, we can find a wide range of things traumatic, and we lack the consciousness and vocabulary to express it. This can often mean that we think things are fine, until some later point in adulthood when “out of the blue” things start to ”go wrong”. This is very common, and almost always terrifying for people. Coming into therapy and dealing with the effects of past trauma can put some of those feelings into a less overwhelming context.

This is a very personal question, the answer of which I believe can only be truly chosen by the individual him or herself. If you are having difficulty coping with a particular circumstance in your life, if you are experiencing emotional disturbances that you don't understand, if you are having difficult relationships you can't seem to get a handle on, or are having trouble changing an area of your life, no matter how hard you try...therapy may be for you.

I hear this very often from new clients - my issues aren't THAT bad, or ‘this feels utterly indulgent’. One of my favourite writers, Vicktor Frankel puts it this way,

"A man's suffering is similar to the behaviour of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the 'size' of human suffering is absolutely relative." from “Man’s Search for Meaning”

Whatever is causing you pain is real; and in some way, untenable to you. That is where we begin - not with someone else's story. With yours.