How does this work?

Thank you for submitting your question. Talk therapy (also known as psychotherapy) can be really useful in talking through and processing your thoughts, feelings, concerns and issues.  A therapist is there to be objective to your situation and help you identify what is going on while guiding you through on ways to feel better and do things differently.  For instance if you are having a difficult time with motivation, we might suggest using a tool called Behavioral Intervention which helps increase motivation to complete tasks by rating your mood, pleasure and achievement feelings before and after the task.  This has been around for a long time but has been proven to be really useful.  

If you are having a hard time expressing your thoughts and feelings, a therapist can help guide you through on ways to increase your ability to effectively identify and communicate what is going on internally.  Sometimes, you need help identifying the feelings and other times it might be needing help identifying how your emotions impact your thoughts and behaviors and vice versa. If this is the case, we would likely use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (also known as CBT).  There are various tools and interventions to help reduce depressive and anxiety symptoms through using CBT. 

Personally, I like to pull from various theories and practices including CBT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and other person-centered approaches to be able to fully understand where you are coming from, while providing empathy and unconditional positive regard for you as a person.  Overall, we will be supportive of you in working with you to achieve your treatment goals. 

There are also mindfulness and meditation-based techniques which have also been proven (evidence-based) to help reduce stress, depression and anxiety symptoms. These are more experiential in nature rather than talking or processing but can be just as helpful as typical talk therapy.  

The thing about therapy is that it does take time and effort to work. It does not happen right away and that sometimes frustrates people that after a couple of sessions they don't see significant process. Therapy on BetterHelp is usually one time per week for 45 minutes. So, the majority of the work is done outside of the session and if you're doing the homework suggestions and exercises that are given to you, you will be able to see some changes within a few weeks and that can be helpful to motivate you further.  

I hope this has been helpful for you to be able to make a decision for yourself.