The Stigma of Psychology and Avoiding Seeking Treatment
Despite the fact that many effective treatments exist, seeking assistance with a mental health issue, relationship problem, or other life change is sometimes viewed differently compared to a visit to your family doctor. Unfortunately, this stigma can mean that many individuals delay treatment, sometimes for years, or even never seek assistance, suffering needlessly.
This can be especially so when individuals find the issues they are seeking help with to be embarrassing (as can be the case of intrusive thoughts about taboo topics; repetitive behaviours such as checking, washing, skin picking or hair pulling; cutting and other self harm; or purging behaviours). Sometimes the nature of the psychological struggle itself can make it difficult to seek treatment, such as the case of social anxiety, or fear of panic attacks making it hard to go to unfamiliar places, or feeling so low it’s difficult to find the energy to start something new. It can be scary for some individuals to seek psychological treatment because it feels threatening to speak or think about negative past experiences, such as in the case of trauma. Sometimes individuals feel conflicted about seeking treatment because they fear they may lose something of value to them (as can sometimes be the case in misuse of substances or restricted eating). Sometimes individuals avoid treatment as they fear that a psychological treatment provider will try to change their personality. Sometimes people delay seeking treatment because they worry that their problem isn’t severe enough, or they worry it’s too severe. Unfortunately, some people also delay seeking treatment because they’ve had negative past experiences with health care providers.
There are effective treatments available for many psychological issues. If you’re wondering if The Toronto OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center is a good fit for you, I encourage you to contact us.