What If I Think My Loved One Needs Therapy?
If you’ve spent any time on mental health social media, you’ve probably seen the meme floating around stating “people in therapy are there to deal with people in their lives who won’t go to therapy”. While I don’t necessarily agree with the tongue in cheek statement, it does bring us to today’s topic- what do I do if I think my loved one needs therapy? This is a tough topic mostly due to the remaining stigma around therapy and mental health treatment and deserves delicate attention.
Jumping right in, most importantly, within this process you must remember that you cannot change anyone. It’s not in your power. It’s not in ANY of our power. We are not saviors. So before you ever consider broaching this topic with your loved one, get your own support around this topic and how their getting or not getting mental health treatment is impacting you. Because, whether they decide to go to therapy, at the end of the day, the only thing that you have actual control over is your own behavior and your own wellness. You can mitigate impact by having support.
Should you have your own support and should your relationship with this loved one allow for it, a place to start when you think your loved one might benefit from therapy would be to share your experiences with therapy. Media portrayals of therapy are notoriously inaccurate. If part of the challenge to receiving support is stigma and the mystery of the process, you sharing your experience can help to demystify it. Speaking openly about personal experiences with therapy, medication, hospitalization, group, and other mental health treatment can do a lot to help destigmatize treatment and may help your loved ones also feel more comfortable exploring their own treatment.
IF they are open to therapy, but feel trapped by not knowing where or how to look for a therapist, YOU, loved one and current therapy goer, can offer to help them with your search. Again, this is in an effort to demystify the process. While they likely cannot be seen by your therapist due to potential conflicts of interest, you can ask for referrals and share resources like therapy den, open path collective, alma, and headway to help your loved one.
Meet your loved one with compassion, gentleness, and curiosity, not judgement, accusation, or belittling. Nothing will turn someone off to therapy more than someone angrily, derisively, fingerpointing-ly tell them that THEY need therapy. Remember your goal. If someone is giving you a hard no, badgering them will not likely change their mind. If you want to maintain any ability to support your loved one and have any level of influence on their wellness, then keep respect at the forefront of this conversation.
Should your loved one not decide to pursue mental health treatment, decide how you can best navigate this relationship in the absence of their getting their own support. It’s okay to set boundaries around how you show up in this relationship to mitigate the impact of their not entering into treatment or getting their own support. I recommend you working with your own provider/s to identify where you could best benefit from the boundary and how to set them with love, care, and gentleness.