What actually happens when you reach out to a therapist

Gavin Demurger-Jones, Counsellor and Centre Director at held, answers the questions most people are too nervous to ask before they get in touch.

Most people who eventually find their way to therapy will tell you the same thing. They thought about it for a long time before they did anything. Weeks, sometimes months. Occasionally years.

So what gets in the way?

“I think there is still a lot of stigma,” says Gavin Demurger-Jones, Counsellor and Centre Director at held. “On some level, people do not want to be seen as struggling. And I think many people simply do not understand therapy well enough to know what they might be walking into.” He pauses. “And then there are the people whose lives are just genuinely full. A full time job, children to look after, a packed diary. Turning to your boss and saying you need an hour each week to go to therapy is hard. It takes something.”

There is something else too, something Gavin finds harder to put into words but returns to often in his work. Therapy is fundamentally about feelings. And if you have grown up in an environment where feelings were not particularly named, acknowledged or valued, the idea of building a whole hour around them can feel strange or even pointless. “If someone asks you how you are feeling right now and you genuinely cannot answer that, it is probably because you have never been asked to notice,” he says. “And if you have got this far in life on the strength of your intellect alone, on your ability to think things through, the argument for developing emotional awareness is not always obvious. That takes faith.”

But people get there. And when they do, here is what happens.

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Getting in touch

At held, the first step is straightforward. There is a short form on the website. You fill it in briefly, telling us a little about what is going on for you and what you are looking for. That is it. No long questionnaire, no clinical language, no commitment.

“That form lands with me,” Gavin says. “I read it, I think about what you are looking for, and I match you with a therapist I think will be a good fit.” Every therapist at held offers a free twenty minute introductory call, usually online for convenience, so that you can meet them and get a sense of whether you could work together. “We all know that different people connect with different people,” Gavin says. “That call is for you. It is your chance to decide.”

If it does not feel right, that is fine. You come back to Gavin, you tell him what did not quite click, and he finds someone else. “We have a lot of therapists,” he says. “I am confident there will be someone you would want to work with.”

Once you have found your person, you agree a time and a day, and you start. That is the whole process. From first form to first session, it can happen within a week, sometimes faster.

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What therapy is actually like

Television has a lot to answer for. The image of therapy as a calm, measured, softly lit conversation where someone nods sympathetically while you talk about your childhood is not entirely wrong. But it is not the whole picture either.

“Sometimes what you need is to be angry,” Gavin says. “Sometimes you need to completely fall apart. Sometimes your therapist says almost nothing. Sometimes they say a great deal. It is very different for everybody.” What surprises most people, he says, is not the process but the destination. “People quite often come into therapy wanting to address one thing, and within three months the entire focus has changed. We are somewhere completely different. But it proves to be exactly where we needed to be.”

The thing you came for is rarely the only thing. Sometimes it is not even the main thing.

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What if held cannot help?

Occasionally the logistics simply do not line up. Diaries do not match, or the specialism you need is not currently available. In those cases, held operates a callback service. “We live in a busy world,” Gavin says. “Sometimes the practicalities just do not fit right now. That does not mean they never will.” Where held genuinely cannot meet someone’s needs, the team will help with signposting to other services and options in the area.

Nobody is turned away without a conversation.

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Am I bad enough to need therapy?

This is the question Gavin hears, in various forms, more than almost any other. And it produces in him what he describes as a twitchy reaction.

“I do not like framing things in a binary way,” he says. “Good enough. Bad enough. It is the wrong question entirely.” He reaches for an analogy. “Do you need to be unfit to go to the gym? No. Anyone who wants to get stronger goes to the gym. Anyone who feels they need space to reflect on what is happening in their life can come to therapy.” Life moves fast, he says. There is more happening around us, and to us, than we can consciously process. Our minds are constantly bracketing things off, filing them away, shutting out what is too complex or too much to carry right now. “Having a time and a space where you can stop, quietly, and reflect on what is happening, that is valuable,” he says. “It has nothing to do with being bad enough. It is called being a human being.”

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One last thing

If you have read this far and you are still not sure, Gavin has something to say to you directly.

“Be a bit brave,” he says. “What if this does not work? What if it is not for me? What if I am imagining all this? All of that is true. And what is your point?” He says it without confrontation, with something closer to warmth. “It might not be for you. You might come for six sessions and walk away feeling clearer and more sure of yourself. That is not a waste of time. That is exactly the point.”

And for those who worry that opening a door they have kept shut for years might mean they cannot close it again, that the tears, once they start, might never stop, he is clear. “People always find a way of picking themselves up again,” he says. “And they become stronger. More able to do the heavy lifting of life.”

That is what therapy is for.

held is open for enquiries now at heldtherapy.space