11 Benefits of Mental Health Counseling


With mental health becoming more openly discussed, it’s no wonder that online mental health counseling is becoming increasingly popular.

Remember when therapy was something you thought of for “crazy” people? For me, this memory stems from watching Looney Tunes on Saturday mornings.

Some character would be having a mental breakdown and acting “crazy”.

They’d be laying on a couch in the “shrink’s” office with their hands folded across their stomach. Maybe they’d burst out in manic babblings or maybe they’d just lay there twitching every so often.

Either way, they were typically portrayed as unreasonably insane.

mental health counseling

Obviously, it wasn’t a true representation of what it’s like to receive mental health counseling. And as a child, it made me think there must be something undesirable or “weird” about someone if they went to therapy.

Needless to say, that picture is painted with outdated paint, by an outdated artist.

The days of only diagnosed patients seeking treatment are over – and I’m glad they are! We’re all struggling with something and could benefit from therapy.

Today, getting the help we deserve is easy and can be done with many different online therapy services.

Instead of generally talking about how amazing you’ll feel after giving therapy a try, I thought I’d share specific benefits.

I’ve provided examples and suggestions but it’s important to try it for yourself if you’re struggling in any way.

After all, no one is a “one-size fits all” when it comes to their mental health.

Before we get into the 11 benefits I have, let’s talk about what might qualify someone to see a therapist.

The answer – anything at all.

Aside from relationship/marriage counseling (a bit unrelated), mental health counseling is a major necessity for many people.

Perhaps you have a hard time focusing at work? You may have a lot going on in your personal life and it’s starting to take a serious toll on your focus.

You could also experience anxiety and/or depression (commonly diagnosed together) and would like help managing that.

Maybe you’ve experienced a loss of a family member or friend and you can’t seem to shake the devastation after a long period of time.

mental health counseling

Whatever the reason, online mental health counseling can be a powerful tool to help you take control of your life and improve yourself for a better future.

You also qualify just because you want the extra help.

Unfortunately, feelings of overwhelm and stress are a daily part of most people’s lives. In fact, I don’t think I know one adult who has not seemed stressed out at one time or another.

If not addressed, you could find yourself slipping into depression. Especially if you experience stress on a regular basis (as most of us do).

If you struggle to manage your daily stress, online mental health counseling could be for you!

Spending time with a therapist in personalized counseling is not a luxury only for those with severe mental health or personality disorders.

(If you’d like to start online therapy with a certified therapist (plus a full toolbox including extra supportive activities) you can get 20% off your first full month with my special discount link! ) *linked below as well

Aside from generally relieving stress, there are plenty of other benefits when you’re in mental health counseling.

Let’s get into them!

1. You Get to Know Yourself Better

Whether you’re new to Mind and Body Lifestyle or not, you might know that mental health and personal development are all the rage over here.

While we’re all about working on yourself in your own personal practice, getting help from a mental health counselor accelerates your growth and success.

Personally, I’ve been to therapy before and while it was a relatively brief experience, it taught me so much about my own expectations and how I can assume too much of people.

There are some things you could go your whole life not knowing or understanding about yourself.

Mental health counseling is a great way to get a professional, outside opinion on the areas in your life that you want improvement on.

Not only will you get to know yourself better, but you discover root causes that unravel in events that tend to sequence throughout your life.

It’s so amazing when you learn “what makes you tick”. It’s like you’ve known that about yourself all along without really seeing it or noticing how much of an impact it has on you.

Getting to know yourself better is a great way to achieve your goals too. The goal is to thrive, not just survive, right!?

2. Relieve Your Anxiety

How many of you struggling with anxiety are able to pinpoint the reason why you suffer with it?

I bet even fewer know how to control it in a way where you’re not as seriously affected as often. This is where talking to a mental health counselor can help.

Talking to a counselor can help you form habits that will alleviate negative aspects of your life that could be triggering your anxiety.

mental health counselor

Living with anxiety is tough. Especially when the anxiety is stemming from emotions such as shame, guilt or simply not feeling like you’re “good enough”.

At a first glance, those types of emotions can seem impossible to control – let alone eliminate.

Working with a therapist can help you figure out how to work through your anxiety in a way that will not just have you surviving through it, but will empower you to do the necessary work to reach a better state of mind.

3. Ease Depression

A therapist can help show you the causes behind your depression.

It can seem daunting to try to get to the bottom of your distress.

A therapist can provide you with different perspectives and suggest reasonable approaches to battle depression.

Each case of depression is unique given causes, experiences and previously existing conditions. The methods to break down what triggers you as an individual, can usually be pinpointed though.

Certain interactions, state of emotion, limiting beliefs, negative thought patterns and other things may contribute to your triggers. By understanding your “triggers” you can work toward disproving them or avoiding situations that may cause you to experience depression or scenarios that make it worse.

A therapist may also decide to recommend a prescription to help regulate chemicals in your brain in order to help you treat depression, although this is not always the case. 

Whatever your personalized treatment plan looks like, having a mental health counselor to help you achieve a better quality of life by managing depression is worth the investment in yourself!

4. Discovering (and debunking) Your Limiting Beliefs 

Imagine you knew the problems in your life each had a cause. What if you had the tools you needed to figure out the cause to work toward changing your current situation!?

Sounds impossible? That could be because you’ve never questioned the thoughts and beliefs in your mind.

A therapist could help you achieve this (a life coach could in this case as well)!

Depending on your situation, a mental health counselor might be a better option than a life coach.

For example, I’ve discovered a few limiting beliefs myself and most of them are triggering in other mental health areas.

Working with a therapist to achieve a healthier state of mind in these areas will help you reach your mental health goals! This will then help you achieve any other goal you may have.

Hey – real quick! Do you like free self-care printables? Here is one that I think you might like! Click the image to check grab yours!

free self-care tips

5. Improve Your Self-Esteem

If you’re the type of person who read number 5 and thought “Yeah…like I’m going to spend the time talking to someone and about improving my self-esteem when there are so many other things I could be doing” then you might be the perfect candidate to!

Are you always putting yourself last?

Do you feel like you never have enough time for yourself? Maybe there’s a more in depth reason why you insist on putting yourself last.

From a woman’s point of view, I know we tend to instinctively put others’ needs before our own.

But there is a fine line between that and avoiding caring for yourself because you might believe you’re not worthy of the time/effort or don’t deserve it. 

In addition, talking to someone who doesn’t have the same negative thought patterns as you, can help you see your self-worth in a way you hadn’t before.

mental health counseling

When your self esteem is improved, you feel more empowered.

When you feel more empowered, you’re able to give more energy to everything else in your life.

I believe that caring for your self-esteem is one of the building blocks to everything else you want for your life.

6. Create/Maintain Better Relationships 

Understanding others starts with understanding yourself. A mental health counselor can help you understand your mental/emotional struggles in order to improve them.

If you let any kind of mental/emotional problem go untreated, you could find yourself projecting the pain onto others.

This can not only damage relationships, but it can also end them. 

Personally, I know a couple of people who did not acknowledge their mental/emotional health issues.

Not only did they project their pain onto others around them but they divorced after being together for decades because of it!

I believe that years of pain and the result of divorce could have been avoided if both people were willing to dig into their issues and work toward resolving it.

It’s devastating when mental health struggles affect your life this way.

There is not a doubt in my mind that so much of this type of pain can be avoided by talking to a mental health counselor.

If you’re not willing to do it for you, do it for your loved ones. You’ll save (and improve) valuable relationships while simultaneously improving your life! It’s a win/win.

7. Eliminate Addiction

Like many other mental health struggles, addiction has components of thought patterns and chemicals in your brain that you’ve become dependent on.

While I do believe that some people are more susceptible to addiction than others, life circumstances absolutely play a key role when addiction is developed.

Common types of addiction can include the abuse of drugs or alcohol, or addiction to food or sex. 

By talking about addiction with your therapist, you’re boldly facing the underlying pain that lead to your addiction.

This might not feel good at first but eventually you’ll feel empowered to understand and care for yourself in ways you never have before.

When you work toward eliminating addiction, you’re telling yourself (and everyone else) that you’re strong enough to do what’s best for you, no matter what circumstance you’re in.

That’s real strength! As if eliminating addiction wasn’t amazing on it’s own, you’ll also receive other benefits because of that.

The first 6 previous benefits we discussed are known to follow when one works toward eliminating addiction.

8. Learn How to Depend on Yourself

By taking the step to talk to a mental health counselor you’ve shown yourself that you’re in control.

Realizing that you have the power to change your life will open your eyes to so many other amazing things.

When you consistently choose what’s best for you, you’ll learn that you can depend on yourself. This is an amazing quality to have.

Not only will you be empowered every single day, but you’ll encourage others to improve their lives as well!

Learning to depend on yourself is hard work. I’ve been on my own journey with this for quite some time.

It gets easier the longer you practice it, but when you’re first starting to make better choices it can seem daunting!

Having a professional will help you immediately learn the positive effects you’ll experience which will be very helpful in the beginning.

It will also help you stay on track toward your goals. Remember, therapists are there to help you reach your goals and achieve a healthier state of mind.

mental health counseling

Everything they do will be tailored toward your success. Having that kind of momentum from the beginning will boost your confidence and make it a little easier to become self-dependent.

9. Emotional Management

As I mentioned in benefit #6 getting control of your emotional and mental state can be beneficial on it’s own.

If you need help with anger management, implementing the strategies you’ll learn in therapy can help you achieve a more calm mind.

Learning to control yourself is key.

This should not be mistaken with simply sweeping your emotions under the rug and ignoring them. Obviously, that just makes things worse.

Controlling your intense emotions means learning what triggers you and managing that.

You can’t control what happens externally, but you can control your reactions and how you let it affect you.

When you’ve mastered self-control as it relates to your emotions, you’ll enjoy a more even mood and more joy throughout your day.

These results will then automatically improve other areas of your life!

10. Improved Communication

When you’re going through your own mental health journey with a professional counselor, you’ll start to understand terms for things you may have been unfamiliar with before.

Having a “name to the face” of an issue you’ve been dealing with will have you be able to address your struggles directly.

When you feel like you understand your own feelings better, you are able to communicate with others in a more efficient way.

For example, if you’re frustrated about something and are overwhelmed by several feelings, you may lash out and not do a good job of communicating in that situation.

By breaking down your emotions in a way that makes sense to you, you’ll be able to relay your feelings much better with communication.

Improving your communication skills is an important part of having healthy relationships.

Personally, this year alone I’ve experienced a lot of growth in this area. It’s not always easy for me to effectively communicate my feelings, especially in the heat of the moment.

Taking a step back and working through my feelings has helped me significantly!

Not only do I understand where my frustrations are coming from, but I’ve been able to have detailed conversations about my perspective. The initial gap in communication that my husband and I were experiencing.

We both understand each other much better. Additionally, knowing his side of things, I was able to clear up negative thoughts/beliefs relating to those types of situations. 

Communication gaps come in all shapes and sizes. If you’re experiencing frustrations on a daily basis, talking to someone can help sort it out!

11. Develop Your Social Skills

Developing your social skills starts with…you guessed it! Understanding yourself.

If you don’t understand how and why you behave the way you do, you certainly won’t be able to connect with others that well either.

By getting mental health counseling, you can get expert advice on a variety of social situations.

You’ll genuinely improve your self-esteem (point #5) which will encourage better social interactions and sharpen your skills.

If you long for better social interactions, perhaps there is something you can work on developing in yourself.

Maybe you’d love to be outgoing enough to be the first one to introduce themselves instead of wishing someone else would break the ice.

Or maybe you want a better dating experience and need to refine your skills to showcase the amazing person you know you are!

Whatever the case may be, talking to a therapist is sure to show you areas of improvement you perhaps never even considered!

mental health counseling

As previously mentioned, here is my discount link to sign up for OnlineTherpay (plus the “extras” toolbox) at 20% off! GET HELP ONLINE 20% OFF

Thank you so much for checking out this article on the benefits of mental health counseling! I hope it helps you or someone you know. Feel free to leave a comment or EMAIL ME with YOUR mental health struggles and I’ll create an article just for you!

If you’d like to read more on this topic check out this help article over at Montare Behavioral Health

(Referenced: https://positivepsychology.com)

mblblogger

Hi, I'm Marissa! I'm passionate about mental and emotional health and want to share what I've learned over the years with others! I've seen first hand how mental health struggles can cause serious issues within relationships, work life, daily productivity, self-worth and more! I truly believe that we owe it to ourselves to bring more awareness to these life changing topics. Start your mental/emotional health journey by learning more today!

Recent Posts