5 Ways Individual Therapy Can Transform Your Life

I’m really excited to talk about this topic, which is five ways therapy can transform your life. At Peterson Family Therapy, we provide individual therapy in Salt Lake City, and I’ve witnessed these transformations countless times in my practice.

Why Is This Even an Important Question?

First, let’s address the elephant in the room: why do therapy? Come on, it’s expensive. It takes time. I know that I have been in therapy for years and years, which by the way, every therapist should be. Every therapist should be in therapy because therapy is a very hard thing to do.

But it’s important to ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Why am I spending this money? Why am I spending this effort? Is there transformation? Meaning, am I changing? Am I getting something out of it? Am I not just sitting there for an hour just kind of talking and then nothing changes?

So I love this topic. Here are the five ways individual therapy can transform your life:

1. Lower key emotional pain from anxiety and depression
2. Get more optimistic and hopeful
3. Therapy serves as a mirror so you don’t walk around blind
4. Your relationships will get better
5. You’ll have a better chance to achieve your goals and get the life you want

1. Lowering Anxiety and Depression

One of the most key ways that therapy can be transformational is it helps us either get rid of or lower our anxiety or our depression. Anxiety is fear of what could happen; depression is sadness or regret about what has happened in the past.

Good therapy, if it’s done well with a strong, well-trained therapist, will absolutely help you lower your anxiety and your depression. At Peterson Family Therapy in Salt Lake City, that is a big part of what we do—help people through and with their anxiety and their depression. My wife and partner, Candace Peterson, is also an amazing therapist when it comes to dealing with anxiety and depression.

2. Therapy Helps You Get More Optimistic and Hopeful

Good therapy helps people understand this idea: there’s really, most of the time, nothing really wrong. Now, if we’re in a true emergency—a life-threatening emergency—sure, then something’s really wrong. But most of our problems in life that we go to therapy for, in the moment, they’re not life and death.

Good therapy will help you get a little more optimistic about it, a little more hopeful. Like, “Oh yeah, this is really hard. Yeah, I’m going through divorce. This is really, really hard, but I have hope for the future.” Or “Yes, I know that I’ve struggled with OCD and I get stuck in things and I have a hard time thinking correctly. But this therapy has given me a little bit more hope that things can get better.”

3. Therapy Can Be a Mirror So We Don’t Walk Around Blind

Good therapy and good therapists will reflect and validate what you’re saying. They will repeat back a lot of what you’re saying so you can hear yourself.

For instance, if I am the client in therapy and I’m saying something like, “Wow, I really am just upset because last week I got in a huge fight with my mother-in-law and I’m so mad at her, but I’m mad at myself.” Well, a good therapist would then say, “Okay, Ed, what I’m hearing you say is there’s some real anger and you’re really frustrated with your mother-in-law.”

See, it helps. The way that we do therapy at Peterson Family Therapy in Salt Lake City is we are a mirror for our clients. We want to help them see and hear what they’re saying and also how they’re coming across.

What it does is, in a way psychologically, you aren’t as blind. You won’t be as shocked by how people react to you. You won’t be so blindsided like, “Why did that person leave me? Why did I lose that job? Why this? Why that?” Good therapy helps you have a better understanding of who I am in that mirror.

4. Your Relationships Will Get Better

Good therapy is all about relationships. It starts out often with a relationship with yourself—working with your anxiety, your depression, and working on self-care and those things. But as you’re more healthy, as you have more optimism, as your anxiety and depression have gone down, as you have more optimism and hope, as you’re understanding better who you are through that mirror—all those things will apply to your relationships.

In my relationship, in my marriage with Candace, whenever I’m engaging in my individual therapy, it always helps the relationship. A lot of it is because it helps me get clear on what I want and what I need to do—like do more chores, help out more, be more thoughtful, think of my kids and my partner, my wife, maybe be a little bit better for me, or plan more dates, or whatever.

Again, good therapy can transform your life because it can transform your relationships.

5. Goals and Achieving the Life That You Want

At Peterson Family Therapy in Salt Lake City, we are passionate about helping people achieve their goals. What I’ll say to people a lot when they come in is, “Tell me about your goals.” If we had a magic wand here and in two or four or six months your life was better, why? What would it look like? And then, what are you really passionate about?

Maybe what’s that hobby that you’ve been putting off? You want to write that novel, but you’ve been putting it off for years. Why? Well, good therapy can help you achieve your goals. A lot of it is helping us take action and having someone to be accountable to.

The Bottom Line

Those are five ways that therapy can transform your life. And I tell you, for me, Ed Peterson, therapy has been and continues to be a radically important part of my life. And I hope, really hope, that therapy can help you also.

Ready to experience transformation through individual therapy? At Peterson Family Therapy in Salt Lake City, we’re passionate about helping people create meaningful change in their lives. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and discover how individual therapy can help you achieve your goals and live the life you want.

Peterson Family Therapy offers individual therapy, couples therapy, and family therapy services in Salt Lake City, Utah.