Therapy Readiness: How to Know When Professional Help May Be Needed

Narrative Review. This page provides the verified citation, abstract, and full-text PDF for the journal article.

Clinical boundary: Urgent assessment does not depend on ideal motivation. Medical problems, substance withdrawal, abuse, housing or workplace danger, safeguarding concerns, and crisis may require services beyond or before psychotherapy.

Publication Details

Author: Christian Jonathan Haverkampf
Journal: The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication
Publication date: 2026-03-31
Volume, issue, pages: 15(1), 11–20
Article type: Narrative Review

Recommended citation: Haverkampf, C. J. (2026). Therapy Readiness: How to Know When Professional Help May Be Needed. The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication, 15(1), 11–20.

Abstract

People may postpone psychotherapy because they do not feel ‘ready,’ while others enter treatment under external pressure without a shared purpose or sufficiently safe conditions. Readiness is best understood as a dynamic, context-dependent state rather than a fixed trait or prerequisite for care. It reflects perceived need, understanding of the problem, hope, access, safety, treatment expectations, cultural meaning, and willingness to take a next step. This narrative review considers indications for professional assessment, including persistent distress, functional impairment, recurrent patterns, harmful coping, diagnostic uncertainty, and risk, together with evidence on stages of change, barriers to help-seeking, stigma, and the therapeutic alliance. In crisis, urgent assessment does not depend on ideal motivation. Outside crisis, ambivalence can be explored directly and may itself become an initial therapeutic focus. Preparation can include defining the problem, identifying a meaningful goal, considering modality and clinician competence, clarifying confidentiality and practical arrangements, and agreeing how progress and fit will be reviewed. Professional help may involve psychotherapy, medical or psychiatric assessment, addiction or occupational services, social support, or safeguarding; psychotherapy is not always the first or only intervention required. Readiness may therefore be present when a person can engage in one feasible, sufficiently safe next step, even while uncertainty remains.

Keywords

psychotherapy; readiness; help-seeking; stages of change; therapeutic alliance; stigma; professional help; risk

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Website copy first made available on 26 August 2026. The journal citation retains the article’s issue date.