There is no right or wrong time to start treatment with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, but the holiday season can be a particularly beneficial time to seek mental health treatment. Holiday responsibilities, family gatherings, and thoughts about the end of another year create stress and make the holidays a time of dread and anxiety for many people.
Starting treatment now allows you to face the holiday season with the support and expertise of a skilled Licensed Clinical Psychologist. From navigating symptoms of an Addiction Disorder to learning stress management techniques, treatment is one of the best gifts you can give yourself during this time of year. Explore the key reasons to start treatment during the holidays.
Get a Head Start on Your Therapeutic Relationship
A strong patient-therapist relationship requires a foundation of communication and trust. When you start seeing a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, you have a responsibility to prioritize treatment compliance and follow the instructions and advice of your psychologist. By doing so, you make the most of your time in treatment and achieve the greatest results from your treatment plan.
The earliest stages of treatment are spent building a solid patient-therapist foundation that sets the tone for the rest of your treatment. The sooner you start seeing a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, the sooner you can establish an effective relationship and routine with them. From there, you will begin to experience the real benefits of professional mental health treatment.
Work Through Holiday Challenges
There are a lot of good things about the holidays, but not everyone has a positive experience throughout this time of year. For some people, the season of giving serves as a reminder of things they have lost.
Holiday parties typically serve alcohol and a plethora of food and desserts, which puts strain on those recovering from Alcohol Addiction and Eating Disorders. Family gatherings might force you to see people who have hurt you in the past. Hosting events, shopping for loved ones, or meeting seasonal quotas at work create added stress and exacerbate the existing mental health disorders and the challenges you already face in your day-to-day life.
You can’t always escape the stress the holidays bring, but you can equip yourself with the guidance, knowledge, and expertise you will need to overcome your stress this holiday season. A Licensed Clinical Psychologist works with you to analyze the root cause of your thoughts, feelings, and reactions you have toward specific holiday challenges. In doing this, your trained Licensed Psychologist evaluates the underlying causes of the issues and help you overcome the mental health disorders and illnesses you face during this time of year.
Consider a few common holiday-related challenges that a Licensed Clinical Psychologist can help you overcome.
Family-Related Stress
From insecure attachments to genetic predispositions to various Mental Health Disorders, families are often a source of mental health illnesses. As a result, seeing family again during the holidays can bring up a lot of repressed or unprocessed thoughts, traumas, flashbacks, and raw emotions. Even if your family doesn’t affect your life throughout the rest of the year, seeing them at a large annual gathering can feel like taking a step back in your personal development.
If family-related stress arises during the holiday season, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist can help you work through your reactions and address the issues in a healthy, constructive manner. The reappearance of childhood struggles and emotional insecurities can turn into a period of growth rather than regression.
Feelings of Loneliness and Isolation
Loneliness is both a symptom and a risk factor of many Mental Health Disorders. You can feel lonely or isolated at any point in the year, but those feelings often worsen during the holidays. From friends to Christmas specials on TV, many have stories about falling in love, reconnecting with old friends, and gathering for warm, wholesome family fun. This isn’t everyone’s reality, though.
If you find yourself alone during the holidays, it can hurt a lot more than it would any other time of year. Your Licensed Clinical Psychologist can provide you with treatment models that will enable you to exist peacefully with others without turning to harmful behaviors like substance abuse, eating disorders, addictive behaviors, or toxic relationships.
The Possibility of Relapse
From alcohol at parties to feelings of regression from being back in your childhood home, the holidays are full of chances for relapse. Social, professional, and personal stressors exacerbate mental health symptoms and increase impulsivity to turn to unhealthy and addictive coping mechanisms which are harmful and dysfunctional.
Professional mental health treatment helps you overcome challenges, obstacles, and maladaptive patterns so you can prevail in all circumstances. By replacing unhealthy habits—such as substance abuse, eating disorders, gambling, shopping sprees, traveling excessively, porn addiction, social media addiction, or self-isolation—with constructive patterns that are functional and allow you to live a fulfilling and satisfying life going forward. You can enjoy the holidays and avoid the temptation and impulsivity to relapse into harmful behaviors.
Year-End Spirals
The end of the year is a time of reflection. While looking back on the past 12 months can help you take stock of your achievements and make new goals for the future, it can also lead to a lot of anxiety and shame. If year-end reflections tend to create feelings of dread, frustration, or worthlessness, this is the perfect time to start working with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
A seasoned Psychologist uncovers the root of the anxiety and panic attacks that causes you to spiral into negative thinking around the holidays. Overcoming these negative thoughts and emotions during treatment is the first step toward healing and successful treatment.
Working with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist allows you to lay out the anxieties you have and build actionable goals. As a result, you can turn your regrets from the past year and your hopes for the new year into an effective plan to accomplish your mental health goals and build a healthier, happier future.
Know That Licensed Clinical Psychologists Are in High Demand Come January
Another key reason to start treatment during the holidays is availability. Many people pick up new healthy habits at the start of a new year. Just as everyone rushes to the gym for their resolutions, they also book up therapist appointments. Starting treatment before or during the holidays puts you ahead of the crowd and makes it easier to start meeting with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
Get the Treatment You Deserve Today
When it comes to finding the help you need, there’s no time like the present. Make the holidays easier on yourself when you take the first step toward healing with an experienced Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Visit Blair Wellness Group to make an appointment with a depression therapist in Newport Beach. With expert treatment models and effective treatment plans, our mental health services give you the environment you need to accomplish your clinical objectives and live a healthier life throughout and beyond the holiday season.
