Benefits of Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, and Group Therapy
Research has shown that going to therapy to address emotional problems can
result in the decrease of future medical expenses. This is because unaddressed
emotional and mental issues can cause long-term health issues such as heart
disease, cancer, asthma, ulcers, high blood pressure, and strokes. Several
studies have demonstrated that just the reduction alone in overall medical costs
for health care issues during the five years after psychotherapy is more than
sufficient to pay for the cost of therapy.
Therapy can also improve a person's efficiency and effectiveness at work. Mental
health issues can cause people to miss work more often and less effective and
productive while at work. Many employers utilize employee assistance programs to
provide short-term therapy to employees in recognition of this problem.
Additionally, executive coaching is a popular new form of psychotherapy to
improve the performance of executives. Additionally, gains in self-confidence
and decreases in anxiety that people experience in psychotherapy can lead to
benefits such job promotions or the confidence to find a better job.
One of the biggest tolls that emotional issues take on our lives is in the area
of relationships. Problems with relationships and family issues can be very
expensive. Consider the costs when a family has to pay legal expenses for a
child with legal problems resulting from drug use. The medical costs of treating
someone who has been physically harmed in a domestic violence squabble can be
high. Divorce and custody battles can cause the expenditure of large sums of
money for many years. Individual and family therapy can go a long way in
averting these costs.
Therefore, the long-term benefits of therapy, both in financial terms and in
personal happiness, can greatly outweigh the short-term cost. Psychotherapy is
one of the greatest investments a person can make in him/her-self. Each person
can decide if therapy is a good use of money by comparing the long-term benefits
to the estimated cost. Consider whether therapy is helping you to be a better
employee by helping you to focus better, have more confidence, work better with
difficult co-workers, or miss less work due to anxiety or depression, thereby
enabling you to earn more money either through promotions or job changes. Or
perhaps you learn to better handle relationship issues so that you can be
happier all around and avoid expensive family problems down the road. Remember
that the short-term cost of therapy is paid upfront, but the benefits last a
lifetime.
