Going to therapy is not a failure: why it's still hard to ask for help

Years ago, when someone mentioned they were going to therapy, they'd usually lower their voice. Even today, although mental health is discussed much more openly, it's still hard to say that sentence as naturally as we'd say we're going to the physiotherapist or the dentist. As a psychologist in Barcelona, it's something I see often in the first session: people who have taken months, sometimes years, to take the step, not because they didn't know they needed help, but because asking for it made them feel ashamed.

Where this stigma comes from

The idea that going to therapy is something only for "people who are really unwell" goes back a long way. For a long time, mental health has been treated as a taboo subject, reserved for extreme cases, while everyday distress — anxiety, stress, insecurity, sustained sadness — was seen as something you had to "put up with" or sort out on your own.

On top of this is the still very widespread belief that asking for help is a sign of weakness or an inability to manage your own life. It's exactly the opposite: recognising that something is difficult for you and seeking professional support for it is an act of responsibility towards yourself.

What asking for help really means

Nobody hesitates to see a professional when they have a persistent physical complaint. However, when the distress is emotional — anxiety that won't ease, sadness that drags on, a relationship that hurts, decisions you can't manage to make — many people wait for it to "pass on its own" before even considering asking for help.

Therapy isn't a resource only for moments of extreme crisis. It's a space to understand what's happening to you, find concrete tools to deal with it and, above all, to not be alone with it. You don't need to hit rock bottom to deserve that support.

Why it's getting easier (although there's still a way to go)

In recent years, mental health has been discussed more openly, especially among younger generations, and that helps normalise asking for psychological help. Even so, the stigma hasn't disappeared entirely: there are still work or family environments where admitting you go to therapy causes some discomfort, or where emotional distress is played down with phrases like "everyone feels like that" or "it'll pass".

Changing this partly comes down to talking about it naturally. Every time someone mentions without fear that they're in therapy, it helps the next person see it as something just as reasonable as booking an appointment with any other health professional.

When to consider asking for help

There's no exact threshold, and you don't need to wait until you hit a breaking point. Some signs that it may be a good time to seek help: when distress persists over time and doesn't improve on its own, when it starts to affect your work, your relationships or your rest, or simply when you notice it would do you good to have your own space to make sense of what you're going through.

Booking an appointment doesn't commit you to anything beyond a first conversation. From there, it's your decision.