Some reasons for seeking therapy

[Into The Light]

What's On Your Mind?

There are many different reasons why someone may be thinking about therapy. In this section, you can learn more about some of the reasons why people seek therapy and find links to more information.

Some reasons for seeking therapy ...

• Depression or anxiety that doesn't go away in a reasonable time
• Panic attacks, phobias and severe fears that interfere with daily living
• Stress at work, home or school that feels overwhelming
• Trouble getting to or staying asleep
• Relationship and partner issues
• Eating disorders and weight management
• Trouble with drugs, alcohol or other addictive behaviour
• Feeling chronically lonely or sad
• Chronic worry, preoccupation, confusion or disorientation
• Excessive anger, frustration or problems with physical abuse
• Self-destructive or self-defeating behaviours
• Suicidal thoughts and self-harm
• Trouble communicating with others
• Trouble making or keeping satisfying relationships
• Problems that follow traumatic events or abuse
• Job and career issues
• Domestic violence and other forms of abuse
• Issues arising due to sexuality, sexual identity or sexual orientation
• Dealing with difficult life issues: e.g. death, divorce, birth of a child, etc
• Family issues: e.g. parent-child communication, problems with teenagers, etc
• Children's educational and emotional problems
• Coping with life threatening illnesses
• Life-cycle challenges: e.g. ageing parents, changed sexual needs, retirement, etc
• Personal growth: e.g. career changes, dissatisfaction with life
• Men's Communication and Lifestyle Issues
• Women's Issues
• Social or cultural issues
• Personality disorders and mental illness
• Intellectual,educational and learning assessments

[ladybug note: all of the above bullets are actual hyperlinks in the original webpage; follow the link to be able to select each of these points for more information and how therapy can help with the specific issue.]

 

[Mari]

H! That is absolutely fascinating and so easy to follow. I wish every doctor in Canada had that list and that mental health was considered as important as physical health. Actually, I think that mental health is physical health because as far as I know the brain is part of the body. Why are doctors in Canada always in such a rush? Do we need more doctors? More nurses? I rarely watch television but when I do I constantly see ads to see your doctor about this, that, and the other but when I do go to the doctor I wait and wait and then I am lucky if the doctor will talk with me for two minutes. Recently I was at a specialist's office and there were actually signs that said not to mention more than one problem per visit. Mari

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Why are doctors in Canada always in such a rush? Do we need more doctors? More nurses?

Yes. More of both. You can thank 12 years of mismanagement by the Jean Chretien and Paul Martin liberals for that. They cut back on health care expenditures, downloaded the costs to the provinces, and the provinces slashed budgets, closed hospitals, and fired nurses and doctors. Here in Ontario, we had the Mike Harris government laying off nurses and five years later trying to bribe them to come back from the US. Doctors left Canada and now the ones remaining are so overworked they're beginning to physically collapse uner the strain.

This isn't a problem with the medical profession. This is absolutely and entirely a situation created by short-sighted opportunistic politicians whose sole interest was in window-dressing ("look how much money we've been able to save!") and getting their sorry asses re-elected. Now in Ontario we can look forward to mass retirements of our existing nurses over the next five years or so - the governments are very aware this is coming but is anyone actually planning ahead and trying to do something to fill the futurwe shortages? Of course not. That would require vision and a modicum of intelligence, something almost universally lacking in our politicians. :rant:

when I do go to the doctor I wait and wait and then I am lucky if the doctor will talk with me for two minutes. Recently I was at a specialist's office and there were actually signs that said not to mention more than one problem per visit

I also have seen those signs. Again, this is a function of unacceptable overwork of our existing doctors and an OHIP fee schedule that doesn't even begin to keep pace with inflation. (Psychologists don't bill OHIP, by the way, so this isn't a personal axe I'm grinding.) We hear about physicians making enormous salaries but these are not our family physicians or GPs - those are specialists, surgeons, etc. The family doctor is a disappearing breed on the verge of extinction unless somebody somewhere acts to reduce the appalling stress - emotionally, phsyically, and financially - placed on their shoulders by our unbelievably stupid and toally self-serving politicians.