For some people, the decision to seek help from a specialist is natural and logical: if a problem arises and for some reason I cannot solve it on my own, then I find a person who helps me cope with it. There is no doubt when this concerns some everyday issues, health issues or education. But with psychological problems, everything is not so simple and logical. A person can suffer for months, but what can we do – for years! and do not seek help from a psychologist. In some cases, doctors can diagnose psychosomatic disorders and organic damage to organs or body systems in such a person - but this will not be a compelling reason for him to seek help. What is this? What could be the nature of this behavior? Some kind of fear, social stigma or lack of awareness, or maybe something else? Let's try to think about this topic? From personal experience, I notice that if a person suffers due to a lack of understanding of some psychological aspects of himself or his environment, but is not in therapy, this always means one thing: he is not ready for it and has there are good reasons! Lack of internal resources: when the formation of personality took place under the influence of traumatic stress, fear of retraumatization arises. Fear of learning something unpleasant about myself: I will be diagnosed, I am sick, I am bad and then how can I deal with it? Fear of finding out about something hopeless in my partner or in my relationship: I will have to break up with my partner, I will have to change my way of life, I will have to make efforts for changes, this cannot be changed, my partner is diagnosed with Fear and reluctance to change, actions, decisions: I will have to do what I don’t want; will have to go to work; you will have to take responsibility for your Life; you will have to grow up Devaluation of the psychologist: I know everything myself, I don’t need these charlatans. The reason for devaluation is fear or narcissistic aspects of the personality. Only weaklings and crazy people turn to psychologists - I’m not a weakling or crazy! Extremely low level of personality development, which does not include the concept of psychological help: blocked need for development Lack of value of psychological help and reluctance to spend time and money on it Psychiatry: a person is not aware of reality , psychotic level, schizophrenia and other severe disorders. Indeed, the listed reasons may seem convincing enough not to seek psychological help, and even here not all of them are listed, we can go on and on. However, that is not the point. Here it is important, in contrast to all these reasons, to ask yourself a very important question: Where will this action/inaction of mine ultimately lead me? And here we must answer honestly! What will be the consequences of my such a decision? Yes, this is a difficult question, but it can serve as an incentive to at least think about your reasons and their possible consequences. This will be the first step towards change, towards awareness. And one more thing I would like to draw attention to is that timely seeking psychological help can be useful in that you will not become a patient from the category of a client)) - after all, then it’s up to you to decide the resulting psychological problems and somatic disorders of the body (!) will become much more complex and costly. Traditionally, to summarize, I would like to note that by becoming a client, a person overcomes all of the above points: this is a path, this is development, this is an idea, this is readiness. This is a transformation of personality! Clients are not born – they become clients! Your psychologist, Natalia Fischuk Take care of yourself and your loved ones!