Let’s Talk About It: What Is Psychotherapy and Why Might You Need It?
Let’s Talk About It: What Is Psychotherapy and Why Might You Need It?
At Makewell Health, we believe healing isn’t just physical – it’s emotional, mental, and sometimes even spiritual. That’s where psychotherapy comes in.
When you think of therapy, you may imagine a person lying on a couch, spilling their life story while a therapist nods and says, “How does that make you feel?” While that’s not totally wrong (minus the dramatic movie lighting), psychotherapy is much more dynamic, structured, and transformative than most people realize.
So, let’s break it down: what exactly is psychotherapy and how can it help?
What Is Psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is a professional, therapeutic relationship between a trained mental health provider and a client. Its goal? To help you better understand yourself, your patterns, and your responses – and to create space for growth, healing, and meaningful change.
It’s not about “fixing” you. You're not broken. But maybe you’re stuck in old patterns. Maybe life threw a curveball. Maybe your brain won’t stop spinning even though your body is begging for rest. Psychotherapy helps you make sense of what’s happening and empowers you with tools to move forward.
Why It Matters for Our Patients
At Makewell Health, we support a lot of women navigating some pretty big life transitions:
Pregnancy and postpartum
Fertility journeys
Menopause and aging
Body image shifts
Relationship stress
Parenting challenges
Trauma recovery
Pelvic health concerns (e.g. vaginismus)
All of these experiences can leave people feeling overwhelmed, anxious, disconnected, or even isolated. Psychotherapy offers a safe space to be seen, heard, and supported without judgment. It also provides strategies, not just venting sessions (although those are allowed too).
How Psychotherapy Works
Depending on your therapist's approach, sessions can look and feel different. But generally, it involves:
Exploring past experiences to understand present challenges
Learning emotional regulation skills
Challenging negative thought patterns
Developing healthy coping tools
Improving communication and boundaries
Some sessions might feel more reflective. Others might be skills-based. The beauty of psychotherapy is that it’s flexible and individualized – just like you.
Sessions typically occur weekly or biweekly, and duration depends on your needs. For some, therapy is a few months of support. For others, it’s an ongoing tool for growth.
Talk Therapy vs. Structured Psychotherapy — What's the Difference?
Not all therapy looks the same — and that’s a good thing.
Talk therapy (often called client-centered or psychodynamic therapy) tends to be more open-ended. It’s built on conversation, reflection, and exploration. You might come into a session not knowing exactly what you want to talk about — and that’s okay. Your therapist helps you unpack your experiences, explore emotional patterns, and better understand your inner world at your own pace.
Think of talk therapy like a long, thoughtful walk with a guide who’s trained to notice the detours, the roadblocks, and the stuff you’ve been quietly carrying for years.
In contrast, structured psychotherapy involves a more goal-directed and skills-based approach. These methods often follow a specific framework and may include:
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy): Helps you recognize and reframe unhelpful thought patterns that affect your emotions and behaviors.
EFT (Emotion-Focused Therapy): Helps you identify, express, and work through complex emotional experiences, especially useful in relationship or attachment-related challenges.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy): Encourages mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based action, particularly effective for anxiety, chronic pain, and burnout.
DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy): A structured approach often used for emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness.
These types of therapy often include homework, tracking tools, or practical exercises between sessions — not just conversation, but action.
The key takeaway? One isn’t better than the other — they’re just different. Your therapist might use a blend of both, depending on your needs and preferences. Sometimes you need space to reflect. Other times you need tools, structure, and a little push toward change. Both can be powerful.
So, Is Therapy for You?
If you’ve ever thought, “I should be able to handle this myself” or “Other people have it worse”, we’d like to politely interrupt that inner critic.
You don’t need to be in crisis to benefit from therapy. Therapy is for anyone who wants to feel better, live more intentionally, and build resilience. It’s for women in the thick of motherhood. For teens figuring themselves out. For folks navigating pain, change, and all the sticky parts of being human.
At Makewell Health, we offer psychotherapy as part of our integrative care model because we know that pelvic health and mental health are deeply connected. Whether you’re healing from birth trauma, managing anxiety around intimacy, or just trying to keep your cool in the chaos – we’re here for you, head to toe, brain to bladder.
