I Need Counselling; Should I Go Private?

You're asking the wrong question. The question isn't whether you should go private. The question is whether you can afford to keep waiting for a system that treats your mental health like a productivity problem.

Let's be honest about what's actually happening here. You're in crisis, or heading towards one, and you're trying to decide between getting real help now or joining a queue for help that might not even be helpful when you finally reach the front.

You're weighing the cost of private therapy against the cost of staying stuck. And the system is designed to make you feel guilty for even considering that your mental health might be worth paying for.

What the NHS Mental Health System Actually Offers

Let's stop pretending the NHS mental health services are just "overwhelmed" and acknowledge what they actually provide: triage, not therapy.

Six to eight sessions of CBT. Delivered by someone who may have never experienced the kind of complex emotional patterns you're struggling with. Focused on symptom management, not understanding why you have symptoms in the first place.

Group therapy with strangers. Because apparently your individual psychological patterns can be addressed alongside seven other people with completely different histories, triggers, and needs.

Self-help leaflets. Because decades of emotional patterns can obviously be resolved by reading about mindfulness techniques and challenging negative thoughts.

And if you dare to suggest that 8 sessions might not be enough to address a lifetime of trauma or complex relationship patterns? You're labelled "treatment-resistant" or told you need to "engage better with the process."

The Impossible Choice

Here's the position the system puts you in: Pay for therapy and feel guilty about spending money on something that "should" be free. Or wait months for help that might not actually help, while your mental health deteriorates.

It's a perfect trap. The system makes you choose between financial stress and psychological suffering. Between getting real help and being a "good citizen" who uses public services.

And then, when you finally get your 6 sessions of CBT and you're not "better," the system suggests the problem is with you, not with trying to address complex human psychology through standardised protocols.

What You're Actually Paying For

When you go private, you're not just paying for therapy. You're paying for the radical concept that your mental health deserves individual attention rather than mass processing.

You're paying for time. Real time. Time to develop trust. Time to explore patterns that took decades to develop. Time to understand why you are the way you are instead of just learning to manage it better.

You're paying for expertise. Not just someone trained in delivering a specific protocol, but someone who understands that healing happens through relationship, insight, and gradual change - not through homework assignments.

You're paying for the revolutionary idea that your psychological patterns might actually make sense and deserve to be understood, not just eliminated.

The Guilt About Going Private

Let's address the guilt directly. You've been conditioned to believe that paying for mental health care is somehow selfish or privileged. That "real" people use NHS services and only the entitled go private.

But would you feel guilty about paying for dental treatment if NHS dentistry wasn't available? Would you feel selfish for buying glasses if optometry wasn't accessible? Would you apologise for paying to fix your broken leg if A&E had a 6-month waiting list?

Your mental health isn't less important than your physical health. It's not a luxury service. It's not an indulgence.

And the fact that the system has failed to provide adequate mental health care doesn't make it your moral obligation to accept inadequate care.

What Private Therapy Actually Looks Like

Private therapy isn't about luxury - it's about sufficiency. Sufficient time to understand your patterns. Sufficient expertise to handle complexity. Sufficient consistency to build trust.

It's weekly sessions that don't get cancelled because of staff shortages. It's a therapist who remembers what you talked about last time. It's space to be contradictory, resistant, or confused without being labelled non-compliant.

It's therapy that adapts to you instead of expecting you to adapt to it.

It's the difference between being processed through a system and being seen as an individual human being whose struggles make sense given their history.

The False Economy of "Free" Mental Health Care

NHS mental health services aren't free - you just pay for them differently. You pay with months of waiting while your mental health deteriorates. You pay with the cost of staying stuck in patterns that damage your relationships, your work, your sense of self.

You pay with the opportunity cost of not addressing your issues while they're manageable. You pay with the additional therapy you'll need later because surface-level interventions didn't address the root causes.

Free therapy that doesn't work isn't free. It's expensive in ways that don't show up on invoices.

The Investment That Pays You Back

Good therapy doesn't just help you feel better - it changes how you navigate everything. Your relationships improve. Your work satisfaction increases. Your capacity to handle stress expands.

You stop making the same relationship mistakes. You stop sabotaging opportunities. You stop exhausting yourself with patterns that don't serve you.

The money you spend on therapy often comes back through increased earning capacity, better relationships, improved health, and reduced need for other medical interventions.

It's not a cost - it's an investment in every aspect of your life.

Finding the Right Therapist

Going private means you get to choose. Not just accept whoever is available at the local IAPT service, but actively select someone whose approach, experience, and personality feel right for your specific situation.

You can interview therapists. Ask about their training, their approach, their experience with your particular struggles. You can have initial consultations to see if you feel understood, challenged appropriately, and genuinely helped.

You can choose someone who's done their own deep work rather than someone who's just learned to deliver protocols.

The Question You Should Actually Be Asking

Instead of "Should I go private?" ask yourself: "How much longer can I afford to stay stuck?"

How much is it costing you to keep repeating the same patterns? To stay in relationships that don't work? To feel anxious or depressed without understanding why?

How much would your life improve if you actually understood your psychological patterns instead of just managing them?

What would be possible if you had real support instead of just crisis intervention?

The Reality

If you can afford private therapy, the question isn't whether you should do it - it's whether you can afford not to do it.

Your mental health isn't a luxury. Your understanding of yourself isn't an indulgence. Your emotional wellbeing isn't less important than your car insurance, your gym membership, or your Netflix subscription.

The system that makes you feel guilty for prioritising your mental health is the same system that fails to provide adequate mental health care.

You don't need permission to invest in yourself. You just need to decide that you're worth it.

And you are.