Trying to suggest to a loved one that they engage to online therapy sessions can be quite a confronting prospect, especially if they have already shown sensitive towards the subject. There could be a wide range of reasons why they might reject your suggestion, ranging from a poor past experience with a therapist or a fear of being stigmatised by engaging professional help.
Depending on their past experiences and beliefs about engaging this kind of service, the specific approach you take to suggesting they engage to online therapy sessions will be different. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some general tips you should try to keep in mind when suggesting this course of action to a loved one.
1. Don’t rush them
When you come to someone with a sense of urgency, it can come off as forceful when you suggest a course of action and their brain may interpret it as manipulative. This can be especially true if you suggest they engage in online therapy sessions and cite your personal feelings or the personal feelings of someone else (such as their partner or children).
While they will care about others in their life and how their mental state affects them, it can often backfire when you come to them with a plea based on what they might construe to be selfish feelings. You need to approach the issue from a frame of mind that’s focused on their personal well-being and happiness.
For example, if you think someone you care about who has a drug addiction would benefit from online therapy sessions, then it will be much harder to pry them away from their coping mechanism by citing the feelings of others. You need to demonstrate that they aren’t really very happy in the rut they are in and that they will be glad they sought help.
2. Present research and evidence
If the person you are trying to convince to try online therapy sessions is skeptical about its benefit for them, then you can try to sway their mind by presenting a scientific case as to why they should not be so stubborn. While there’s never a guarantee that something like this will solve all their problems, there is accessible evidence to support its endorsement by the medical establishment as an effective tool in addressing mental disorders.
Even if they think they are too clever to respond to online therapy sessions and will fail to sincerely engage the process, it is still worth encouraging them to try. Many people who walked into a therapy session planning not to take it seriously have emerged with a changed perspective once they gave it a chance.
They won’t be able to deny the statistical effectiveness of the process and at least take it into consideration. Even if this isn’t what pushed them over the line into trying online therapy sessions, it will help build upon your case regardless.
3. Show them other stories of success
A good way to convince a loved one that online therapy sessions is worth a try is to give them examples of people with similar situations to them who had success with the process. Try to find someone with a very closely related problem to them so that they can relate to the feelings they had before and after the process.
