One of the first questions individuals think of when looking for therapy is “can I afford this?” Completely understandable! The cost of living is rising and sometimes the reasons individuals are coming into therapy is because their mental health is having an impact on their ability to work.
Other times individuals may wonder if the cost is worth it. As a society we are potentially not used to paying for things for our health. We have the fantastic NHS which can help us when needed though I am experiencing more and more that individuals find they don’t get the support they need from the NHS for their emotional/ mental health due to long waiting lists.
We are a lot more used to spending money on maintaining a car, gym membership, haircut, meals out, leisure. So why do we struggle to then prioritise our emotional health? Perhaps it could be that for a lot of individuals counselling seems like an unknown thing. Unlike a fitness program there isn’t a before and after picture you can look at to see the results.
Research by the University of Warwick and the University of Manchester found that psychological therapy could be 32 times more cost effective at making you happy than simply obtaining more money.
They found that it would take a pay rise of over £25,000 to achieve the same increase in well-being from an £800 course of therapy.
Its hard to tell someone the value of therapy until they experience it themselves. Over the recent years I’ve seen therapy become more normalised. It fantastic that people are recognising the importance of looking after their mental health too!
For details on the research:
