How Do You Know It's Time to Start Therapy?

Most people wait longer than they need to. Not a little longer. Research published in Health Services Research by Wang, Berglund, Olfson and Kessler found that people typically wait years after symptoms first appear before ever making contact with a mental health professional, and depending on the condition, that gap can stretch into more than a decade. A more recent study from the University of Sydney, using national mental health survey data from 2020 to 2022, found something similar: people waited an average of three years before seeking help for depression, and roughly eleven years for anxiety.

Eleven years is a long time to carry something quietly.

So if you've been sitting with the question of whether now is the right time, you're not indecisive. You're actually right on schedule for how most people approach this, which is slowly, and usually much later than would have helped.

What actually brings people in

It's rarely the big, obvious thing. More often it's something smaller that just hasn't let up.

Maybe you keep circling the same decision, whether to stay or leave, whether to finally say no to something, and month after month you're no closer to an answer. Or a relationship ended, a diagnosis landed, a move upended things, and the steadiness you used to have hasn't fully come back. For some people it's the self-criticism, a voice that's harsher with them than they'd ever be with a friend, one they've quietly started to wonder about. For others it's something from a psychedelic experience that hasn't found its shape in words yet, or a pattern with focus and follow-through that's started to feel like a character flaw instead of something worth understanding.

None of these need to look dramatic from the outside to be worth bringing somewhere.

You're not required to know what's wrong

A common hesitation is not knowing what you'd even say. That's not something to solve before you come in. Most people don't arrive with a diagnosis already worked out, and they don't need to.

A first session isn't an exam. It's a conversation about what's been going on and whether working together feels right, for both of you. You can be uncertain. You can change your mind mid sentence. Nothing has to be resolved in advance.

Waiting rarely brings the clarity people are hoping for

There's a common assumption that a bit more time, a bit more thinking, will eventually produce an answer on its own. Occasionally it does. More often, the same thoughts keep circling the same ground, because what was missing wasn't more thinking. It was someone else in the room, asking a different kind of question than the one you keep asking yourself.

If you've read this far, some part of you is probably already leaning toward finding out.

I offer online sessions in English and Hungarian, and in person in Ericeira, Cascais, and Lisbon. If any of this sounds familiar, I'd be glad to meet you and see if we're a good fit.

Sources

Wang, P. S., Berglund, P. A., Olfson, M., & Kessler, R. C. (2004). Delays in Initial Treatment Contact after First Onset of a Mental Disorder. Health Services Research, 39(2).

University of Sydney (2025), analysis of the Australian National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020–22.n