The mental health of an individual is essential. Having healthy mental health leads to having a healthy well being. Mental health plays a vital role in the life of an individual, and it matters in their whole lifetime. It has a significant impact on how they think, act, and feel towards themselves and society. Taking care of your mental health is the same as taking care of your physical body. It helps you function in a normal and productive way. Taking care of your mental health is doing something you like such as spending time with people who make you happy, going on a trip, reading a book, and seeking help when you feel like you need it. There are many ways to seek help when you are having trouble with your mental health. You can visit a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, attend therapeutic activities like yoga, or attend a counseling session. Counseling is the process of assisting and guiding an individual to resolve conflicts in their life. The following are some of the reasons why individuals go to counseling.
Misbehavior
Guidance counseling in school is a way of resolving misbehaviors from a student. It is one of the reasons why students go to counseling. In the educational setting, they use it to help students who are in conflict with the school rules. It usually involves students who hurt their classmates, skip classes, steal objects, or fight with their classmates. Through counseling, they process what happened with the student and come up with ways to fix their behavior. Furthermore, it is also used to help students who are disturbed. Students who have problems at home or personal problems often seek help through counseling. They find comfort in counseling which enables them to talk about their problems. Through this, the guidance counselor analyzes the problem and comes up with ways to solve it.
Life crisis
Some individuals like adults struggle with their life. They experience an identity crisis, misuse of drugs, loss of a loved one, or loss of reason to live. Identity crisis exists when an individual does not know his or her role in life. It often happens after a sudden change in life such as graduating med school but failing the boards 4 times. This scenario can make an individual question his identity. Furthermore, misuse of drugs is also a life crisis because it affects the relationship of the user to the society. Loss of a loved one or reason to live is also a life crisis faced by adults. When they experience this, they feel lost and do not know what to do. Therefore, this is where working with an expert who knows how to help you is important. Big and serious problems such as a life crisis need immediate help from an expert. Through going to counseling, they will be able to analyze the problem and come up with different ways to overcome it. The counseling process will let them understand the importance of other therapeutic solutions such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, person-centered therapy, and more.
Mental Health Problem
Depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and other types of mental health disorders are one of the reasons why individuals go to counseling. Counseling serves as one of their support systems in the battle they are facing. Counseling enables them to work on their self-worth and self-love. Through counseling, they are doing self-care. It helps them to overcome their mental health problem. However, there are instances wherein individuals with mental health problems do not want to go to a counseling session. Some of the reasons are, they are in denial that they need counseling, they think that the people around them will treat them differently, and some also feel that going in a counseling session makes them weak. This is a reason why it is important to advocate mental health awareness. Mental health awareness will enable the society that their emotional health should also be given attention just like their physical health. Through this, going in the counseling session would just be as normal as going to the gym.
The following reasons presented to why people go to counseling proves that counseling should not be a taboo subject. Instead, it should be a way of raising mental health awareness in society. Going to a counseling session does not mean that a person is not normal. It does not make them different from others and it is definitely not something to be ashamed of. Going to counseling sessions means that you care for your mental health and the benefits it brings to you, makes you a better person.
