How Can Therapy Help with Mental Health

Mental health is important. Unfortunately, awareness regarding it is still pretty lacking. As a result, many are still unsure of how therapy actually works.

For that purpose, I, a clinical psychologist, will break down how therapy can be of benefit to you!

First, let’s see how effective therapy is.

Is Therapy Worth It?

Psychotherapy is a modern treatment option for various mental disorders. Over the years, many therapies have emerged, from psychoanalytic therapy to modern AI-assisted models. Evidence-based therapy has been shown by research to be effective in significantly reducing symptoms of major mental health illnesses. In fact, some psychotherapies (e.g attention training techniques) can actually be effective in treating symptoms of schizophrenia and psychosis in general. Even if someone does not have a mental disorder, they can benefit from learning about psychology.

So, whether the stress is mild or severe, therapy can help you in many ways. You can learn to pinpoint things that make us feel the way that we feel. You can understand why we think and behave the way we do, too. And you can incorporate many of this information into your daily life.

With that out of the way, let’s address the meat of the question.

How can therapy help with mental health?

You Get to Learn and Implement Psychological Techniques to Deal with Issues

Who doesn’t want quick fixes to issues?

Psychotherapy is a relatively short course into the realm of psychological tricks and treats. During this process, you will get to learn how to prime your mind, take control of painful thoughts and emotions, optimize your current set of skills, convince others and develop quick ways of overcoming challenges.

And these are just some of the ways!

Below are short lists of techniques that could help you deal with some common problems you might be facing:

1. Anxiety and Stress

Anxiety, simply put, is worrying about worrying. In essence, when you excessively worry about the possibility that you might face future worrying, you experience anxiety.

Our brain doesn’t like to be uncertain – and that’s when the autonomic nervous system responds by increasing the rate at which your heart beats, quickens your breathing, promptly constructs your blood vessels – leading you to experience the physiological symptoms of anxiety.

This soon becomes a pattern of responding to almost everything that worries you.

Stress, on the other hand, results from a particularly traumatic experience. Trauma in itself signifies damage to bodily tissue. Psychological trauma, however, refers to damage to one’s psychological makeup.

Therapy can help you deal with both of these issues using certain techniques.

Techniques

• Cognitive Restructuring: Reframe negative thoughts using CBT methods (Johnco et al., 2014).
• Mindfulness: Practice being in the present to reduce overthinking and panic (Strohmaier et al., 2020).
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Physically release stored tension (Muhammad Khir et al., 2024).
• Breathing Exercises (Box Breathing): Regulate your nervous system (Jerath et al., 2015).
• Journaling for Anxiety: Process fears and gain clarity (Sohal et al., 2022).

2. Depression

All of us experience low moods.

However, what if this low mood were to be stretched out to almost all of the day – over a period of at least 2 weeks?

Well, that’s what depression is.

Such a persistently low mood causes major changes in behavior. This is so severe of a condition that getting out of depression can seem impossible.

Therapy, however, is a very effective way of dealing with depression comprehensively. Below are some of the techniques commonly used.

Techniques

• Behavioral Activation: Fight inertia by doing enjoyable tasks (Stein et al., 2021).
• Gratitude Journaling: Boost mood by focusing on the positive (Cregg et al., 2020).
• Routine Setting: Structure your day to support emotional balance (Brown, 2022).
• CBT Thought Records: Track and challenge negative thoughts (Pheng et al., 2018).
• Self-Compassion Exercises: Counter harsh inner criticism (Germer et al., 2013).

3. Relationship and Interpersonal Issues

Humans are social beings. We live in societies with some mutually agreed upon rules. These rules extend to the smallest units of social interaction (family, blood relations, friends) to the larger ones (nationals, citizens, followers of religion etc.).

However, everyone is unique. As a result, our interests, beliefs and behaviors can often clash with others. This can be in the context of age gaps in relationships, beliefs about gender, religion, divorce, loss of a loved one, parenting – and many others.

Leaving these issues to deepen resentment is not really helpful. Just bearing bullying or relationship problems isn’t really good for you either.

But you’ve also tried to fight for yourself. And you have experienced that not only is that difficult, but sometimes we can go overboard with our reactions.

And this only complicates social matters even more.

Here, therapy can be immensely useful. Below are just some of the techniques that you can learn to deal with these issues.

Techniques

• Active Listening: Show empathy and reduce misunderstandings (Tennant et al., 2023).
• Nonviolent Communication (NVC): Express needs without conflict (Adriani et al., 2024).
• Emotion-Focused Therapy Tools: Deepen emotional bonding (Wiebe et al., 2017).
• Boundary Setting Worksheets: Learn to say no and protect your energy (Lopez, 2024).
• Attachment Theory Practices: Understand how your past affects your current relationships (Snyder et al., 2012).

4. Addiction and Compulsive Behaviors

Keep on doing something for longer periods of time and you can either get attached to it or you can get burnt out.

But what if that actually causes chemical dependence? So that even

What if that behavior is just too rewarding?

What if it is addictive? And no matter what you do, you can’t get yourself to go off it.

Persisting unhealthy habits often show up as addictions and compulsions. For example, you could have a habit of consistently doomscrolling through your phone. Or it could be a chemical problem of substance abuse. Usually, these unhealthy behaviors have roots in psychological trauma and distress.

Therapy thus treats these issues by helping you heal and correct your present behaviors through a variety of techniques. Some of the ones are given below.

Techniques

• Motivational Interviewing: Build internal motivation to change (Schwenker et al., 2023).
• Urge Surfing: Learn to delay and resist cravings (Harris et al., 2017).
• Contingency Management: Use rewards to reinforce sobriety (Ainscough et al., 2017).
• Coping Skills Training: Replace harmful habits with healthy ones (Ahmadpanah et al., 2013).
• 12-Step Program Support: Join peer-led recovery groups (Lookatch et a., 2019).

5. Low Self-Esteem and Identity Issues

We all have an idea of who we are.

Some of us feel pretty good about ourselves. Some don’t. Some actually feel pretty bad about who they are.

For example, a narcissist views themselves as intrinsically superior to others. They get into conflicts with others based on this air of superiority. However, their view of who they are also gets some admiration – which reinforces their narcissism through certain cognitive biases (e.g confirmation bias).

Identity related issues can also lead to self-loathing, pathological lying, problematic attachment styles, dissociative identity disorders and personality issues, among many others. Many psychological techniques that therapists use can prove to be quite helpful.

Techniques

• Dual/Self-Affirmation Practices: Strengthen your core values (Celeste et al., 2021).
• Narrative Therapy Exercises: Rewrite your personal story (Ricks et al., 2014).
• Strengths-Based Counseling: Focus on what’s right with you (Silverman et al., 2023).
• Inner Child Healing: Reconnect with lost parts of yourself (Carr et al., 2017).
• Schema Therapy: Unlearn toxic beliefs formed in childhood (Bachrach et al., 2023).

The entire range of psychological techniques cannot be covered in just one article. However, this is a comparatively surface level understanding of psychotherapy.

Now, let’s go a few levels deeper into how therapy might just help us all!

Learning About Yourself and Others

We are psychologically deep creatures.

We tend to keep memories of past events. Our experiences tend to shape our thoughts, emotions and behaviors. As a result, what is stressful for one person might be traumatic for another. In fact, some people might derive excitement from the same thing that stresses us out.

This is what ends up making us different in our personalities, coping mechanisms, behaviors and what not.

But how can learning about us help our mental health?

Well, much like how any orthopedic can need X-rays to diagnose an issue or an architect needs to know which materials they have to work with, a psychologist needs to know about your psychological makeup.

Through this examination, they can let you know where the contributors to your problems are and how they all combine to make your experience stressful. Without proper expert help, we might just end up shooting arrows in the dark.

And how long will we keep doing this, before we end up causing further damage to ourselves? Or to things or people we consider important?

So, you need to know about yourself so that you could be reasonably realistic.

You Get to Learn Why We Think the Way We Do

As I noted earlier, humans are highly intelligent creatures. This, in some ways, blesses us with the ability to think about ourselves. Not only that, but we also think about others. And we also think about the world.

This tri-directional axiom of beliefs is the cognitive triad.

As we go through life, we take in new information from our surroundings.

This information gets automatically incorporated into three broad classifications:

• Beliefs about oneself
• Beliefs about others
• Beliefs about the world

In psychotherapy we learn how we gather this information through a biased lens.

So, we need to be careful while forming conclusions about ourselves, others or the world. Why?

Well, because we accumulate information based on experiences during our early years and our social and psychobiological (e.g sexual attraction, personality patterns, etc.) preferences.

Our beliefs don’t capture the entire reality. Rather, they are interpretations of reality.

Because of this, there is a very real chance that we can be wrong.

And how do we know when we our wrong?

Therapy Helps Differentiate between Rational and Irrational Beliefs

Simply put, beliefs allow us to make sense of new, old and predictive information. Based on them, we place expectations on ourselves, others and the world.

In most cases, our beliefs help us function well in the social world. We develop healthy strategies to overcome challenges, socialize with others and deal with work, family, etc. Our expectations are reasonable and shared with many functional people around us.

These functional beliefs are rational beliefs.

However, sometimes, the same challenges can seem overly complicated and unsolvable. As a result, we can feel incredible stress. If left unaddressed, this stress leads to long-term issues, usually seen in mental health disorders.

What makes these challenges seem unsolvable, the experience unbearable and life utterly unreasonable, are thoughts originating from irrational beliefs. These beliefs are associated with mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. An example of an irrational belief is that something must happen, no matter what. Albert Ellis called this musturbation (creative term tbh).

But how do we know which of our beliefs are rational or irrational?

Well, we often don’t understand the context in which we’re thinking. I’ve dedicated an entire storybook here on Psychologus.net on such cases of individuals living through psychological disorders.

Many of them do not know how their thoughts are problematic.

Here therapy can help you out. A therapist is trained to classify rational and irrational beliefs. Therapists have also been trained to identify cognitive biases that cloud our judgments.

So, in therapy you will learn how to see your situation clearly and develop healthy ways of thinking. A healthy way of thinking will be realistic.

Different Psychotherapies Have Different Ways of Approaching Beliefs and Thought

Here is a short table to help you understood the approaches that different therapies often take.

Therapy	How It Works with Beliefs	Main Technique	Primary Goal
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)	Identifies and restructures distorted thinking	Cognitive restructuring, thought records	Realistic and adaptive thinking
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)	Challenges irrational “shoulds” and “musts”	ABCDE model (Activating event → Belief → Consequence → Disputation → Effect)	Rational beliefs and emotional resilience
Psychodynamic Therapy	Explores unconscious beliefs formed in early relationships	Free association, interpretation, transference analysis	Insight and resolution of inner conflict
Humanistic Therapy (Person-Centered)	Encourages clients to find their own meaning and truth	Unconditional positive regard, empathetic listening	Self-acceptance and authentic self-beliefs
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)	Accepts thoughts without trying to change them	Cognitive defusion, mindfulness, values clarification	Psychological flexibility and value-driven behavior
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)	Combines acceptance and change; validates while challenging beliefs	Mindfulness, emotion regulation, dialectics	Balance emotional intensity and rigid thinking
Metacognitive Therapy (MCT)	Examines beliefs about thinking itself (e.g., “worrying is helpful”)	Detached mindfulness, attention training	Modify unhelpful meta-beliefs and reduce rumination
Schema Therapy	Identifies deep-rooted negative beliefs (schemas) from childhood	Schema modes, imagery rescripting, limited reparenting	Heal early maladaptive beliefs and unmet needs
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)	Addresses self-critical and shame-based beliefs	Compassion imagery, soothing rhythm breathing	Cultivate self-kindness and emotional safety
Internal Family Systems (IFS)	Treats the mind as made up of “parts” with different beliefs	Parts mapping, unblending, Self-leadership	Integrate and heal internal belief conflicts
Narrative Therapy	Rewrites dominant stories and beliefs that shape identity	Externalizing problems, re-authoring conversations	Empower new, strength-based self-narratives
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) (used for trauma)	Challenges distorted trauma-related beliefs	Socratic questioning, stuck points worksheet	Restructure core trauma beliefs (e.g., safety, trust)
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)	Combines CBT with mindfulness to observe beliefs non-judgmentally	Body scan, mindful breathing, thought-labeling	Reduce relapse into negative thinking cycles

While an important part of psychotherapy deals with thought processes, that’s not the only way it helps our mental health.

Let’s explore some further ways therapy can help us!

You Get to Learn Why Humans Behave the Way They Do

Behavior is any observable action that one does. If you’ve ever noticed anyone engaging in pathological lying – well, that is a behavior too!

Often, our behaviors are guided by our thoughts and emotions. Conversely, they can further affect our thoughts and emotions as well.

The law of effect is one of the most important principles of psychology (see its application). This principle when added with operant conditioning can explain a wide range of behavior. While one can certainly read up on it, actually applying it to our own life is another ball game.

However, once you do understand its application, it can really help you sort out why people behave the way they do.

In fact, understanding the behavioral origins of fear and stress response can help you deal with psychological issues like obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), stress disorders (including PTSD and ASD), personality disorders and many others.

Plus, psychotherapy makes use of many other behavioral principles. There are principles of classical conditioning, observational learning and behavioral scheduling as well. All of these will help you learn why we behave in certain ways.

Therapy would also involve your therapist using these principles to help correct your behavior. These sessions will help you practice these principles too!

You Get to Learn Why Humans Feel Emotions the Way They Do

Over the years, psychologists have described various theories of emotions. Many of the most influential psychologists have thus made it easier for us to understand emotions. Neuropsychologists like Aleksandr Luria in particular emphasized how important emotions are in the context of someone being able to think.

While there have been different conceptualizations of emotions, their link to thought and behavior has been unanimously agreed upon. Knowing about how they factor into your daily life can help you in identifying patterns.

For example, do you get angry when you’re being roasted by one of your friends? Or does that not bother you at all? Or does that bother you, just a little, or in certain settings?

Or do you get angry more when you face this in front of your family?

Emotions can vary amongst different contexts. Similarly, some emotions can be more problematic if they are too extreme. Or they could be more problematic in particular situations.

Sometimes, it can also be a very real possibility that we confuse negative and positive emotions with each other (e.g rumination and introspection). The problem with this is that

Here, therapists could not only help you with painful emotions but also build emotional intelligence and resilience.

Differences in Psychotherapies in How They Approach Emotions

Therapy	How It Works with Emotions	Main Technique	Primary Goal
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)	Emotions are influenced by thoughts; change thoughts to regulate emotions	Cognitive restructuring, behavioral experiments	Reduce distress by changing thinking patterns
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)	Emotions result from irrational beliefs	ABCDE model, disputing beliefs	Healthier emotional reactions via rational thinking
Psychodynamic Therapy	Emotions reflect unconscious conflicts and unresolved past experiences	Free association, interpretation, exploring transference	Emotional insight and resolution of repressed feelings
Humanistic Therapy (Person-Centered)	Emotions are valid expressions of the self	Empathetic reflection, unconditional positive regard	Emotional self-acceptance and congruence
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)	Emotions are natural and should be accepted, not avoided	Mindfulness, emotional acceptance, defusion	Increase emotional tolerance and value-based action
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)	Emotions can be intense and unstable; they need both validation and regulation	Emotion regulation skills, distress tolerance, mindfulness	Manage emotional reactivity while accepting emotional truth
Metacognitive Therapy (MCT)	Emotional distress is maintained by worry and rumination about emotions	Detached mindfulness, attention training	Reduce unhelpful emotional cycles by changing meta-awareness
Schema Therapy	Early experiences create emotional schemas that drive current reactions	Imagery rescripting, limited reparenting, m

You Get to Learn About Your Personality

There are qualities you have that make you unique.

Psychologists have found that these qualities are shaped by both environment and genetics.

Psychologists can offer differ on how they conceptualize personality. For example, Jungian psychologists would (perhaps) try to explain personality through something like the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI). On the other hand, those following the trait theory think of personality consisting of separate traits (e.g the Five-Factor Model of personality).

However most psychologists agree on the following definition of personality.

Personality is a collection of an individual’s integrated longstanding and enduring patterns of attitudes and behaviors.

Therapists are trained to assess personality along multiple theories. Knowing about your personality can help you make more informed decisions. Moreover, you get to come face to face with your strengths and weaknesses.

For example, if it turns out you’re quite low in agreeableness and high in extraversion (two traits of personality as per the five-factor model), you tend to do better in busy and competitive environments (law firms, philosophical societies etc.). On the other hand, if you are high in both agreeableness and extraversion, you tend to do better in less competitive and more cooperative environments.

Similarly, if you are an INTJ (a personality type as per the MBTI) you are likely going to enjoy a non-public position that involves deep thought and analytical thinking. More public and manual labor are probably going to drain you more.

The point is that the more you understand yourself, the better you’ll be able to deal with challenges. And so, the better your mental health will turn out to be.

Developing a Healthier Philosophy of Life

Everyone has a certain moral code they try to live by.

Everyone has certain political, religious and social views.

All of these beliefs combine to form a general philosophy of life. Shockingly, as Eric Fromm would put it, many people (if not most) do not know what they truly want.

Thus, many people either do not know their philosophy of life or they do not know where they are deviating from their beliefs, or they find themselves in a prison where their philosophy of life seems to be in a clash with their circumstances and environment.

Gaining Insights into Problems

All therapists, in some way or form, attempt to understand your philosophy of life.

Obviously, they understand in the environments you have been in, both in the past and the present. And as they begin to understand the things you want, or hold dear or principles you follow, the process of therapy helps you gain insight. Some therapies are more direct in helping you gain insight (e.g Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy). But others help you out with this indirectly (e.g Psychoanalytic Therapy).

Gaining insight is important because it helps you integrate information usefully. In particular, it aids you to understand

• the problematic circumstances you face, and the roles played by you and others (as explained earlier in the article).
• the nature of expectations (both of yours and of others) in accordance with the relationships you share with others and the problem itself

Based on this understanding, you can

• formulate reasonable and realistic strategies
• evaluate strategies to implement
• manage expectations, behaviors and emotions

Dealing with Cognitive Dissonance

While gaining insight is important, our mind can resist changes in beliefs. When we come upon a new way of thinking which our previous beliefs are in conflict with, we can face intense discomfort, uncertainty, anxiety and even despair.

This is known as cognitive dissonance.

Therapy helps us deal with cognitive dissonance. It smoothens the transition to newer, healthier beliefs. It does this through increasing your insight into both older and newer beliefs along with helping you out through psychological techniques.

Dealing with cognitive dissonance this way is healthy because it allows you to be more psychologically flexible. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an example of a therapy which helps you do with cognitive dissonance by accepting the entirety of the belief, the change of belief and going through with the change.

Putting the Philosophy to Practice

However, gaining insight is not enough. There has to be a strategic attempt to approach problems more effectively. Gaining insight can help you identify how your attempts are not effective. However, many of these strategies are often deeply rooted to older and almost concrete beliefs and behaviors.

So, you still have to replace or uproot these patterns with more effective and healthier thoughts and behaviors.

Through therapy you can explore these strategies.

Improving Neurological and Physical Health

Psychiatric disorders can often lead to neurological disturbances. Trauma in particular has been known to affect various parts of the brain, both functionally and structurally. The key areas that are disturbed are related to executive functioning (e.g prefrontal cortex) and emotional regulation (e.g amygdala).

Therapy has been shown by research to positively affect the brain’s neurological functioning through two basic ways:

• Normalization of abnormal neurological activity
• Activation of some key areas of the brain.

Moreover, psychotherapies (in particular, biofeedback and cognitive therapies) are moderately effective for neurological disorders such as pain disorder. In fact, one study showed that for lower back pain in individuals who had undergone surgery for disc herniation, cognitive intervention was about as effective as further surgical procedures.

There are yet other studies that show that psychotherapy also can increase grey matter in the brain. These are promising findings, to say the least. Thus, in essence, therapy can be very helpful for the brain and nervous system’s functioning and even its structure as well!

In a nutshell…

Going to therapy can be a challenging prospect, especially with stigma that still sticks around mental health. However, the benefits that it can give far outweigh this stigma. Besides, we have entered an age where more and more people are actually concerned about mental health.

If you are struggling with some of these issues – do not hesitate to seek help. After all, it is your life that matters here.

So, that’s all for now!

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