Many Who Need Psychological Help, Don't Get It

Most significant emotional problems, however, remain untreated. The surgeon general's report noted that only one third of people with a diagnosable condition were getting any sort of help with it, and just over half of these were in treatment with a specialist such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. You may be in serious distress; you've done what you can to make things better, and it hasn't been enough. Your work, family life, or friendships are somewhat the worse for wear. Yet you hold back. You just can't take the next step toward getting help.

Why does this happen so often? For one thing, there's a persistent notion that we should be able to do it on our own, that it's shameful to need help. Some people fear that they'll give up control of their lives by submitting to the influence of someone with a sophisticated knowledge of human nature, or coerced into taking drugs. Or that they'll be "homogenized" by therapy, lose their individuality, become some sort of processed clone. They think that therapy must be a lengthy process that inevitably requires rehashing all of childhood and opening up a Pandora's box of repressed impulses. Or that nothing will really help-their problems are so hopeless that they are beyond therapy.

And there's stigma. Although much progress has been made in recent years, a lot of baggage still attaches to mental health problems-the idea that anyone who seeks therapy is "crazy" or "disturbed," somehow damaged or less than whole.

Many such attitudes come from images of therapy and therapists promoted in our culture. We laugh at endless analysis a la Woody Allen and set box office records to see movies featuring a Hannibal Lecter-type psychiatrist who is as expertly manipulative as he is malevolent. (Some psychiatrists have described the Lecter portrayal in The Silence of the Lambs as "devastating to the profession," and expressed concern that such images may prevent potential patients from getting the help they need.)

The best way past these obstacles is information. Learning, for example, that an explicit goal of good therapy is to help you become more individual and creative, not less so. That many effective kinds of therapy focus on the present and pay little attention to ancient history. That the "nothing will help" feeling is itself a symptom of emotional trouble (specifically, depression), not a realistic appraisal.

One last barrier to seeking therapy is simply not knowing how. What do you do to find a therapist? How can you ensure that he is competent, qualified . . . right for you? Is there reason to believe his approach is likely to be helpful? The aim of this book is to assist you in this quest. (purchase: How to Go To Therapy)

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