4 Surprising Benefits of Telehealth Therapy Sessions

When you book a telehealth therapy appointment, you likely expect certain benefits. You may expect to work through trauma in your past, learn techniques for coping with stress in the future, and see a reduction in your symptoms. While therapy is likely to have many of these benefits, that’s not where the help stops.

After a few telehealth sessions, you may find yourself surprised by the many other ways therapy has helped you and others. Below are four common but unexpected benefits of going to therapy regularly.

Learn to Have Difficult Conversations

In online therapy sessions, you have to talk about challenging subjects like trauma, negative thoughts, and difficult emotions. While many people struggle with these conversations at first, a licensed therapist can walk you through it. Over time, you learn to calmly talk about negative feelings and thoughts. You can use this skill with people outside of therapy and have important conversations.

Furthermore, your therapist is a neutral third-party, not someone in your daily life. In almost all cases, your virtual therapist has a professional and legal duty to keep your thoughts confidential. These facts can make it easier to open up about things for the first time. Your therapist can then teach you how to have conversations about the same subjects with other people in your life.

Inspire Others to Seek Help

When you have online therapy sessions, you are under no obligation to share that fact with anyone. However, if you do decide to open up about your experience, you will help break the stigma that keeps so many people from seeking the help they need. When you open up about your experiences, people around you start to see that they are not alone and may feel comfortable enough to start therapy as well.

Develop Deeper Empathy

No matter what type of therapy your provider uses, the goal is to help you see things in a different way. In some situations, your therapist may help you see problems from another person’s point of view. This outside perspective can help you develop more empathy for others, which can help you process your own feelings.

On the other hand, you may have plenty of empathy for others but very little compassion for yourself. Therapy can help with this as well. You may develop more empathy for your past self, for example.

Improve Your Physical Health

While you may go into therapy expecting an improvement in your mental health, you may be surprised how much better your body feels as well. By reducing symptoms of mental health disorders, therapy can reduce physical tension, stress, and sleep problems. This can have many benefits on your physical health, including:

• A stronger immune system
• Achieve and maintain a healthy weight
• Less inflammation and pain
• Healthy blood pressure
• And more

The effect of therapy on physical well-being is so pronounced that some researchers are looking into using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as part of a treatment plan for many physical disorders, including chronic pain.

Ready to gain all the benefits of therapy, both expected and otherwise? Book an appointment with one of our providers today. We offer in-person and online therapy, and we accept most insurance.