Many people can benefit from therapy. Therapy is a great way for anyone to address, process, and work through various challenges and issues that life throws at us. As a young adult, there are specific struggles and experiences that therapy can help address and work through. Entering adulthood brings with it a lot of stress, challenges, and obstacles. Beginning therapy as a young adult can help you set yourself up for success and move forward into adulthood in the way you are hoping for. Therapy is a great way to address a multitude of issues and challenges. Some of them can include:
Life Transitions
There are many changes throughout our lifetime, with some of the more significant changes occurring in early adulthood. Transitioning from a teenager to an adult can be a lot to process. Moving into adulthood comes with new responsibilities, new stressors, and challenges. While experiencing change in early adulthood is normal, it does not take away the challenges that come with change. More often than not, change comes with obstacles whether the change is inherently good or bad. Beginning therapy can help you address and process these major life transitions and help you feel more comfortable with the season of life you currently are in.
Identity
Getting to know ourselves is an ongoing process and feeling comfortable with your self-identity is a huge aspect of entering young adulthood. There are many factors that can influence our identity that feel outside of our control. Moving from childhood and adolescence, where much of our identity is in school work, extracurricular activities, how we are raised, etc, it can feel as if you are figuring out who you are for the first time. Improving your view of yourself and working on seeing yourself with love and confidence is a great goal to work on in therapy. With working on feeling comfortable and confident with your identity, it is important to also work on understanding and identifying your emotions and the beliefs you hold about yourself. At times, the beliefs we have about ourselves go unnoticed and impact how we perceive ourselves and our relationships. Through therapy, you can feel more confident in who you are as you move into adulthood.
Communication and Relationships
Forming lasting relationships is a critical part of life and therapy can help as you navigate what relationships look like in adulthood. Learning healthy communication in various types of relationships is important. Working on communication can aid in being able to helpfully express your feelings, navigate conflict, apply and maintain boundaries with others, and find a healthy vulnerability with the people around you. This not only includes friendships and romantic relationships but also family relationships. Relationships with family change significantly in early adulthood, as you move towards independence. Some people may find themselves feeling more alone with this newfound independence. Prioritizing healthy connections with friends and family during this time is a great way to strengthen relationships with those you care about.
Developing Coping Skills
Starting therapy as a young adult can help you apply healthy ways of coping with stress, anxiety, depression, and distress. Life can be difficult and learning how to cope with life’s stress in a way that is the most helpful for you is a necessary skill to learn as an adult. There are many unhelpful ways we can cope with past trauma or current stressors such as abusing substances, self-harming behaviors, self-isolation, etc. Therapy allows you to address these ways of coping directly, develop self-awareness about where these unhelpful coping skills originated from, and how to apply more helpful long term solutions. Coping skills can include distress tolerance skills from DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), mindfulness, grounding skills, and other tools to help you feel regulated and autonomous over heavy emotions and situations that feel out of control.
Processing and Addressing Past or Present Trauma
Traumatic events and hardships experienced during childhood can have a lasting impact on how you view yourself and the world around you. Experiencing something traumatic can be very painful and you deserve a safe place to be able to process and heal from experiences that have occurred in the past or are happening in the present. As you enter adulthood, these traumatic experiences can carry with you. Working through trauma can be difficult and overwhelming at times, but processing hard experiences, trauma, and challenges can ultimately bring you to a place of healing, peace, and confidence as a young adult.
Navigating early adulthood can feel overwhelming. It can be an exciting new season of life and with it, often comes changes and obsticles. You deserve a safe space as you launch into adulthood to explore, process, and heal. During any season of life, therapy is a great way to address any issues or struggles from your present or past. It can feel overwhelming to start counseling and it takes a lot of courage to reach out for help. If you are entering adulthood and are interested in learning more about therapy and what to expect from therapy, contact us below.