Why You Haven't Started Therapy Yet

If you haven’t started therapy yet, this might help you understand what’s actually in the way. Finding a therapist and starting therapy for the first time is harder than it looks, not because of logistics, but because of what it means.

You've thought about it. Maybe for weeks. Maybe for months. You've Googled therapists. You've opened websites and closed them. You've read the "About" pages and thought "maybe" and then done nothing.

You're not avoiding therapy because you don't believe in it. You're avoiding it because starting is its own kind of frightening.

Let me name the reasons you're not saying out loud.

"It's not that bad."

This is the most common reason people don't start. The bar for "bad enough" keeps moving upward. You're functioning. You're not in crisis. You go to work, you eat, you sleep (poorly, but you sleep). You're not the person who needs therapy. You're the person who's having a hard time. There's a difference.

Except there isn't, really. Therapy isn't for people in crisis. It's for people who notice that something is off and want to understand it. The fact that you're functioning doesn't mean you're thriving. And "not that bad" has a way of becoming "actually quite bad" if you wait long enough.

"I don't know what I'd even talk about."

You don't need a prepared agenda. You don't need to know what's wrong. "I don't know what's wrong but something is" is one of the most useful things you can say in a first session, because it's honest and it gives us somewhere to start.

Most people who come to me don't have a clear presenting problem. They have a feeling, a vague wrongness, a persistent flatness, an inability to enjoy things they used to enjoy. That's enough. That's plenty.

"I should be able to figure this out myself."

Maybe. Some people can. But the things that are hardest to see about yourself are hard exactly because you're the one looking. You can't read the label from inside the bottle, as the saying goes.

The value of a therapist isn't that they're smarter than you. It's that they're outside you. They see what you can't see, not because they have special powers but because they're not embedded in your life the way you are.

"It's expensive."

It is. I won't pretend otherwise. Therapy is an investment of money and time and both of those are real constraints. I charge €170 for an individual session. Couples are €170 for 60 minutes. Longer sessions available at pro-rated rates. See couples. For some people, that's manageable. For others, it's not.

What I'll say is this: consider what the alternative costs. Not in dollars, in quality of life. In months of feeling stuck. In relationships that deteriorate because the underlying issues aren't being addressed. In the slow erosion of your sense of self that happens when you carry something too heavy for too long without help.

"What if it doesn't work?"

It might not. Therapy isn't magic and I'm not the right fit for everyone. But not starting because it might not work is like not going to the doctor because the label might be bad. The information is still worth having.

And here's what I can tell you: almost everyone who comes to me finds that something shifts. Not overnight, not dramatically. You don't have to come in with a plan, or say the right things, or have it figured out. That's my job, not yours. But something moves that was stuck, and that alone changes the trajectory.

What actually happens

You schedule a first session. It's real, not a sales call. We talk. By the end you have a sense of whether this feels right. If it does, you pay and we book the next one. If it doesn't, you tell me and there's no charge. You haven't lost anything except the excuse that you haven't tried.

That's it. That's the whole barrier between where you are now and something different. Fifteen minutes.