Do I Need to See a Psychologist If I’m Still OK?
You still get through each day. Your family is fed and the jobs get done. From the outside, you look like you’re coping.
But you’ve felt this way for a long time, maybe a year or two:
- You feel tired, even after a good night’s sleep.
- You get angry with people more easily than before, and then you feel bad about it.
- Things you used to enjoy don’t make you happy any more.
- It’s harder to concentrate than it used to be.
Maybe you’ve thought about talking to someone. Then you thought: “Other people have it much harder than me. I’m managing. What would I even say?”
A lot of people think this way. In Australia, many people wait years before they get help.
Why waiting for things to get worse doesn’t work
When something stressful happens, your body reacts. Your heart beats faster and your body gets ready to deal with the problem. When the problem is over, your body calms down again. This is normal and healthy.
When stress keeps coming, day after day, your body doesn’t get the chance to calm down fully. Over time, this wears you down.
You can think of it like the bench in your kitchen. Normally, you cook, you clean up, and the bench is empty again. If you have to cook meal after meal with no break, you never get time to clean up. The bench stays full. The kitchen still works, but everything takes more effort. Long-term stress is the same: you keep going, but it costs you more.
Many people wait for a clear sign that they need help. Scientists have looked for one. They haven’t found a test, a score or a cut-off point that shows when stress has become too much. So if you wait for a sign, you could wait for years.
Australian research shows that people with milder problems are the least likely to get help. Researcher Meredith Harris and her team found that fewer than 1 in 4 people with a mild mental health condition had seen a health professional in the past year. For people with a severe condition, it was nearly 7 in 10. They also found that people on the highest incomes were more likely to see a psychologist.
Help is available, and you can get it in your own language. Getting started is also easier than you might think.
We often see people who have been coping for years. They can tell us exactly what they’re doing to keep going, and that information is very useful in a first session.
The best time to see a psychologist is while you can still explain the problem clearly, in your own words and in any language.
What you can do this week
If things are serious, get help today
Get help now if you’re having thoughts of ending your life or hurting someone else, or if you’re hearing or seeing things that other people don’t.
- 000 in an emergency
- Lifeline: 13 11 14
- NSW Mental Health Line: 1800 011 511 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
If you want to talk in your own language, call TIS National on 131 450 and ask them to call the NSW Mental Health Line for you. NSW Health recommends doing this.
Step 1: Notice what you’ve stopped doing
Sometimes it’s easier to notice what you’ve stopped doing than to describe how you feel.
Here’s an example. It isn’t a real person. It’s a mix of things we often see. A man used to cook a big family meal every Sunday. Now he buys takeaway on the way home 5 nights a week. He hasn’t noticed the change, but his family has.
Write down one or two things you used to do and don’t do any more.
Step 2: Choose one thing you want to change
Pick one thing you’d like to be different. For example, sleeping through the night until your alarm goes off, or enjoying Sunday lunch with your family without wanting to leave early. Write it down. One clear goal gives you and your psychologist something to work towards.
Step 3: Start small
You can start with a short course of sessions. If you need more help later, you can get it then.
Starting small also lets you find out what it’s like to talk to a mental health professional, before you decide on anything bigger.
Step 4: Use the language that’s easiest for you
You can talk about this in Vietnamese, Arabic or another language. Some of our psychologists speak Vietnamese and Arabic. If your psychologist doesn’t speak your language, we book a phone interpreter for you. You don’t need to book it, and you don’t pay for it.
Step 5: Ask your questions first
You can call us before you decide anything. Ask what happens in a first session, or whether you can join a free program. In the first session, you’ll mostly talk and the psychologist will listen. Bring the notes you wrote in Steps 1 and 2, so you don’t have to remember everything while you’re there.
How a few sessions can help
In Australia, people with anxiety often wait a long time before they get help. Researchers at the University of Sydney found that half of them waited 11 years or more before their first treatment. A short course of sessions takes a few weeks.
Here’s how a short course works:
- Your psychologist teaches you a few practical skills, one at a time.
- You practise each skill at home between sessions.
- The skills match your problem. If you can’t sleep, you work on sleep. If you’ve stopped doing things you enjoy, you plan one enjoyable activity into your week and notice how it feels. Psychologists call this behavioural activation.
- At most sessions, you answer a few short questions about your week. This shows whether things are getting better. If they’re not, your psychologist changes the plan, or helps you find more support.
Research supports this. A 2024 review combined 30 studies with more than 7,000 adults who had some signs of depression, but not enough for a diagnosis. People who had short, structured therapy were less likely to develop depression. The benefit was still there a year later.
No one can promise that therapy will work for everyone. Many people get better, and some don’t. We also couldn’t find any studies that tested this kind of therapy with an interpreter.
Next steps
Tonight, write down one thing you’ve stopped doing and one thing you’d like to change.
When you’re ready, you may be able to join Side-by-Side. It’s a free short course of psychology sessions for people aged 16 and over from multicultural communities in South Western Sydney.
- You don’t need a referral from a doctor.
- We can arrange an interpreter for you.
- You can see a psychologist in person at our Fairfield or Bankstown clinic, or from home.
If you can’t stop worrying at night, read Thinking too much: what it means and what helps.
References
- Beese, S., Postma, J. and Graves, J.M. (2022) ‘Allostatic load measurement: a systematic review of reviews, database inventory, and considerations for neighborhood research’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(24), 17006. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9779615/ (Accessed: 12 October 2026).
- Birrell, L., Prior, K., Vescovi, J., Sunderland, M., Slade, T. and Chapman, C. (2025) ‘Treatment rates and delays for mental and substance use disorders: results from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing’, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 34, e8. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39949085/ (Accessed: 12 October 2026).
- Buntrock, C., Harrer, M., Sprenger, A.A., Illing, S., Sakata, M., Furukawa, T.A., Ebert, D.D., Cuijpers, P. and the IPD-PrevDep Consortium (2024) ‘Psychological interventions to prevent the onset of major depression in adults: a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis’, The Lancet Psychiatry, 11(12), pp. 990–1001. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00316-X.
- Harris, M.G., Tapp, C., Vescovi, J.J., Sunderland, M., Diminic, S., Chapman, C., Slade, T.N., Teesson, M., Pirkis, J. and Burgess, P.M. (2025) ‘Consultation with health professionals for mental health in Australia in 2020–2022 and changes since 2007’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 59(9), pp. 810–823. doi: 10.1177/00048674241307919.
- NSW Health (2026) Mental Health Line. Available at: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/Pages/Mental-Health-Line.aspx (Accessed: 12 October 2026).
