How Counseling Can Help: Thoughts From A Houston Therapist
It’s 2025, we’ve got all kinds of telehealth companies marketing everywhere about the benefits of therapy. It’s almost seen as the trendy thing to do nowadays! There’s some good in that, considering there has always been a lot of stigma around mental health and counseling in the past, so perhaps we are moving in the right direction. With all this advertising and acknowledgement that therapy works,
How exactly can therapy help me?
Therapy can be a private, confidential space where you can share with someone who is not your friend or family member. I know this one can be a bit controversial to some, I mean, who doesn’t love their friends or family who are on their side, giving support and advice? Why would I need therapy when I have friends? I always like to say that it is a space where you don’t have to worry about your aunt calling your cousin through the family grapevine and divulging some information that you probably didn’t want to share with all of them in the first place.
Therapy can help you recognize more clearly how you respond to stress, and what thoughts fuel your reactions,
for example, “I’m not good enough”, and other irrational thoughts that like to occupy your mind.
Therapy can be a place to discuss what you can do about it.
I often hear clients describe a specific scenario where they would have reacted differently before starting therapy, but since our sessions, they tell me that maybe they paused for a little longer before reacting, they were more aware, they remembered our discussions, and it bought them some time to choose a different response.
Did it happen overnight? No, it was slow, small events that made them go hmm…that was different. That’s kind of how it goes, baby steps, one foot in front of the other, sometimes feeling like we are moving forward, and then maybe sometimes…oops, we just tripped and fell back a little, and that’s okay too.
So, if you’ve been feeling anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed, and you’re tired of Aunt Sally sharing all your business with your cousins, consider someone outside of the circle, like a therapist or counselor in Texas. (We might need to work on some boundaries, too.) Feel free to reach out to me, Alejandra Machado, LPC, in Houston at 281-858-3325.
