Mental health counseling is a fantastic way to address a plethora of mental health matters; not only can mental health counseling help you address the aspects of your life that are not going well, it can also help you identify ways to take your mental state from surviving to thriving (Cook et al., 2017).

Regardless of why you are seeking counseling, your Wilmington Mental Health therapist will meet you where you are and help you develop a deeper understanding of yourself on the road to achieving your goals. The following is a list of ten reasons why people seek out mental health counseling. This list, while not comprehensive, identifies many of the common reasons people seek out therapy.

1. Addressing Stress and Anxiety

Feelings of stress and anxiety can be entirely natural functions of the human experience; they become a cause for attention when they persist over a significant period of time or cause distress incongruent with the stressor (Munir & Takov, 2025).

2. Working Through Depression

Similar to stress and anxiety, feeling sad or depressed is a normal experience, but when it causes significant distress or persists for an extended period of time, it is important to address (NIMH, 2024).

3. Navigating Life Transitions

Change can be challenging to navigate; consulting a counselor before, during, or after major life changes can be a valuable tool in ensuring that you take care of yourself throughout the transition and prepare to handle life's inevitable changes sustainably and healthily (Shigley, 2025).

4. Building Coping Skills

Coping skills are strategies that can be used when you encounter stressors in your many aspects of your life (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2025). Counselors are well-equipped with the tools to teach you coping skills as well as the how, when, where, and why to use them.

5. Developing Deeper Self-Awareness

Counseling isn’t only used to fix something that’s not working. Counseling is a great tool to help you understand yourself on a deeper level.

6. Improving Relationships

Relationships are complex, and they can be difficult to navigate. Talking with a therapist can help you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your relationships and help you decide what you want from them.

7. Healing From Trauma

Trauma can be a complex matter to work through, and seeking out therapy is a great way to address your trauma and heal while developing coping skills to move forward in life cognizant of your trauma.

8. Feeling Overwhelmed

Sometimes it all gets to be too much, and you need someone to talk to; a therapist is a great resource when you feel like you need an outlet for any reason.

9. Managing Unhealthy Habits

Unhealthy habits can take many forms; often, they are manifested in addiction. At Wilmington Mental Health, our counselors are well equipped to address addiction and other destructive behaviors - some of our counselors even specialize in treating addictions. Counselors can help you address your problematic behaviors and replace them with healthier alternatives (Cleveland Clinic, 2023).

10. Personal Growth and Finding Fulfillment

By exploring your perception of yourself as well as your goals, desires, and values, you and your counselor will be able to dive deep into who you are and who you want to be.

With the development and implementation of telehealth - a service that allows you to log on to your therapy sessions virtually - mental health counseling is more accessible than ever before (Price, 2024). No matter how or why you are seeking counseling, your therapist will use evidence-based practices to help you identify and address what brought you to counseling and help you leave the counseling relationship with skills and strategies to help you thrive.

References:

Cleveland Clinic. (2023). Addiction Counselors.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/25165-substance-abuse-counselor

Cook, S. C., Schwartz, A. C., & Kaslow, N. J. (2017). Evidence-Based Psychotherapy:

Advantages and Challenges. Neurotherapeutics: the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics, 14(3), 537–545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-017-0549-4

Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2025). Develop a Battery of Coping Skills. Called To Care.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/community-health/johns-hopkins-bayview/services/called-to-care/develop-battery-coping-skills

Munir S. & Takov V. (2025). Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure

Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441870/

NIMH. (2024). Depression. National Institute of Mental Health.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression

Price, S. (2024, January 10). Nearly 30% of Adults Have Seen a Therapist During the Pandemic,

While Others Turn to Social Media and Mobile Apps for Help. ValuePenguin. https://www.valuepenguin.com/therapy-health-insurance-coronavirus

Shigley, B. (2025). The Role of Counseling in Navigating Life Transitions. Indiana Wesleyan

University.https://www.indwes.edu/articles/2025/04/the-role-of-counseling-in-navigating-life-transitions