If You’ve Been Thinking About Therapy for a While, This Is for You
How long have you been considering therapy? A few weeks? Several months? Maybe even years?
At Televero Health, we often meet people who tell us they thought about reaching out for support for a very long time before actually doing it. They describe a lengthy period of consideration – researching therapists, almost making calls, drafting emails they never send, opening booking pages and then closing them.
“I must have been thinking about starting therapy for at least two years before I finally reached out,” they tell us. “I’d get close to taking the step, then talk myself out of it. Over and over again.”
Maybe this sounds familiar. The persistent thought that talking to someone might help. The mental circles of “should I or shouldn’t I.” The moments of determination followed by hesitation. The tabs saved on your browser with therapist websites. The recommendations from friends that you appreciate but don’t act on.
If you’ve been thinking about therapy for a while without taking the step, this message is specifically for you. Not to pressure you, but to offer some perspective on this common experience – and perhaps to help you understand what might be keeping you in contemplation rather than action.
The Space Between Knowing and Doing
There’s a particular kind of tension that emerges when part of you knows something would probably help, while another part holds back from pursuing it. This tension itself can become uncomfortable – a low-grade internal conflict that adds to whatever difficulties prompted you to consider therapy in the first place.
One client described it this way: “It was like having a conversation with myself that never ended. ‘You should really talk to someone about this.’ ‘But is it really that bad? Can’t you handle it yourself?’ ‘Things aren’t improving though.’ ‘Maybe they will if you just try harder.’ Round and round, for months. It was exhausting.”
Another shared: “I’d think about reaching out whenever things got particularly difficult. Then when I’d feel a bit better, I’d think ‘See, you’re fine! You don’t need help after all.’ Then the cycle would repeat with the next low point. It took me a long time to see the pattern.”
This space between knowing and doing isn’t unique to therapy. It appears in many areas where change feels simultaneously necessary and threatening. But it has a particular quality when it comes to seeking support for mental or emotional wellbeing – in part because the very difficulties that prompt you to consider therapy can also make it harder to take that step.
What Keeps Us in Contemplation
If you’ve been thinking about therapy without taking action, you might be wondering what’s keeping you stuck. While everyone’s situation is unique, certain barriers tend to emerge repeatedly:
- Ambivalence about change is natural, even when current circumstances are painful. There’s comfort in the familiar, even when the familiar doesn’t feel good. As one person put it: “At least I knew how to navigate my anxiety. Getting better meant stepping into the unknown.”
- Fear of what might emerge keeps many people from starting therapy, particularly if they’ve been managing difficult emotions or experiences by keeping them contained. “I was afraid that if I started talking about it, everything would fall apart,” one client shared. “Like I’d open the floodgates and drown.”
- Concerns about dependency can create hesitation, especially for people who value self-sufficiency. “I worried that if I started leaning on someone else, I’d become weak or reliant on them,” another person reflected. “I didn’t want to need therapy forever.”
- Practical barriers like cost, time, or logistics are real considerations that can keep therapy feeling out of reach. These barriers aren’t imaginary, but they can sometimes become amplified by underlying emotional resistance.
- Shame or stigma around seeking help remains powerful for many people, particularly depending on cultural background, family messages, or professional context. “In my family, going to therapy meant you were crazy,” one client told us. “It took me years to challenge that belief.”
- The very symptoms prompting consideration of therapy can make it harder to take action. Depression can sap motivation, anxiety can amplify fears about the process, trauma can make vulnerability feel dangerous, and burnout can leave little energy for adding something new.
Recognizing what might be keeping you in contemplation isn’t about judging yourself for not taking action sooner. It’s about understanding your own process with compassion – and potentially finding ways to address specific barriers if you do want to move forward.
The Cost of Prolonged Contemplation
While taking your time to consider therapy is completely valid, there can be costs to remaining in extended contemplation without resolution:
Continuing struggle without support means coping with difficulties alone for longer than might be necessary. The issues that prompted you to consider therapy in the first place remain unaddressed.
Mental energy gets consumed by the ongoing internal debate, adding another layer of stress to your experience. As one person described it: “It was like having a browser tab permanently open in my mind, constantly running in the background and draining my mental battery.”
The gap widens between how you’re living and how you want to live. Each day, week, or month of contemplation without action is time that could potentially be spent moving toward greater wellbeing.
Patterns can deepen over time, potentially making them more established and requiring more effort to shift when you do eventually seek support. This doesn’t mean it’s ever “too late” – just that earlier intervention can sometimes be easier.
One client reflected: “When I finally started therapy, my biggest regret was waiting so long. I kept thinking, ‘Why did I spend years suffering when this help was available?’ All the reasons that seemed so compelling for delaying seemed small compared to the relief of finally having support.”
This isn’t meant to create pressure or urgency. Everyone’s timing is their own, and there’s no single “right” moment to begin therapy. But if you’ve been contemplating it for a long time, it’s worth considering whether the contemplation itself has become a holding pattern with its own costs.
What If You’re Not Actually “Ready”?
One of the most common barriers to starting therapy is the belief that you need to feel “ready” before you begin – that you should have clarity, courage, and commitment before making that first appointment.
But what if readiness isn’t a prerequisite for starting, but something that develops through the process itself?
One client shared their realization: “I kept waiting to feel ready – to feel confident and clear about starting therapy. But I finally understood that for me, ‘ready’ wasn’t going to come before I started. It was going to come through starting – through taking that first small step even while feeling uncertain.”
Another described: “I didn’t feel ready at all when I finally reached out. I felt terrified, actually. But I was more tired of thinking about it than I was scared of doing it. That wasn’t readiness – it was just the scales finally tipping slightly in favor of action.”
Therapy doesn’t require you to arrive fully prepared, certain, or even convinced it will help. It just asks you to show up – with all your doubts, fears, and hesitations intact. Those very concerns can become part of what you explore together with a therapist, rather than obstacles you need to overcome before beginning.
Small Steps Toward Support
If you’ve been thinking about therapy for a while and want to move from contemplation toward action, there are ways to make the transition more manageable:
Redefine the first step to something smaller than “start therapy.” Perhaps it’s just gathering information, or having an initial conversation without committing to ongoing sessions. Breaking it down reduces the sense of pressure.
Clarify your concerns by actually naming and exploring them, rather than letting them remain as vague hesitation. Sometimes bringing specific fears into focus makes them less overwhelming.
Talk to someone who’s been in therapy about their experience, particularly the beginning stages. Hearing firsthand accounts can help demystify the process.
Give yourself permission for ambivalence rather than expecting certainty. You don’t have to be 100% convinced to take a small exploratory step.
Address practical barriers directly by researching options like sliding scale fees, insurance coverage, telehealth for accessibility, or scheduling that works with your other commitments.
Set your own pace by being clear with potential therapists about your needs and concerns. Therapy isn’t one-size-fits-all, and many therapists are skilled at working with clients who are hesitant or uncertain.
One person described their approach: “I finally said to myself, ‘I’m just going to have one conversation with a therapist. That’s all I’m committing to.’ Framing it that way made it possible to take the step. After that conversation, I felt comfortable enough to schedule a second one. Then a third. I took it one session at a time until I realized I wasn’t questioning whether to continue anymore.”
If You’re Not Ready to Move Forward Yet
Perhaps you’re reading this and recognizing that, for various reasons, you’re truly not in a position to start therapy right now. That’s completely valid. There’s no universal “should” about when or whether to seek this kind of support.
If that’s your situation, consider these possibilities:
Set a specific time to revisit the question rather than keeping it in ongoing contemplation. For example, you might decide: “I’m going to focus on getting through this intense work period, and then reassess in three months.”
Explore other forms of support that might feel more accessible or aligned with your current needs. These might include support groups, mental health apps, books, courses, or community resources.
Address the barriers that feel most significant, even if you’re not ready to start therapy itself. This might mean saving a small amount each month toward eventual sessions, researching therapists who specialize in your concerns, or working on shifting your own perspective about seeking help.
Practice small forms of self-care that support your mental and emotional wellbeing in the meantime. While not a replacement for therapy when that’s needed, basic practices around sleep, movement, connection, and stress management can help prevent further deterioration.
One client shared: “I knew I wasn’t ready to start therapy, but I was tired of thinking about it constantly. I finally decided to put a reminder in my calendar for six months later, and give myself permission not to think about it until then. That created some mental space while still ensuring I wouldn’t forget about it entirely.”
It’s Your Journey
Whether you’ve been thinking about therapy for weeks, months, or years, the timing of when or whether to begin is deeply personal. There’s no single right answer about when someone “should” seek support.
What matters is that your decision – whether to start now, prepare to start later, or focus on other approaches – comes from a place of self-awareness and self-compassion, rather than from fear or avoidance alone.
As one person reflected after finally beginning therapy following years of consideration: “Looking back, I can see that I needed to go through my own process of readiness. But I also wish someone had told me that it was okay to start before I felt ready – that readiness could develop along the way. That might have shortened the time I spent stuck in thinking about it without moving forward.”
If you’ve been thinking about therapy for a while, know that your contemplation itself is meaningful. It shows you’re aware of your struggles and open to support – important foundations for growth. Whether you decide to take a step toward starting now, create a plan for the future, or focus on other forms of care, that self-awareness will serve you well.
And if you do decide you’re ready to move from thinking about therapy to exploring it directly, that first conversation is just a connection away.
Thinking about it is part of the journey. Take the next step when you’re ready.