Breakdown of La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.
Questions & Answers about La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.
In Spanish you normally use the definite article (el, la, los, las) much more than in English when you talk about things in a general way.
- La terapia me ayuda…
= “Therapy helps me…” (therapy in general, not a specific session)
If you say just Terapia me ayuda…, it sounds wrong; you need the article here.
Compare:
- La terapia es cara. – Therapy is expensive. (general statement)
- Voy a terapia. – I go to therapy. (fixed expression: no article)
So in this sentence, la is natural and basically corresponds to English “therapy” without “the”.
In Spanish, unstressed object pronouns like me, te, lo, la, nos, os, les normally go before a conjugated verb:
- Me ayuda – It helps me
- Te veo – I see you
- Lo comprendo – I understand it / him
You only put them after and attached to:
- infinitives: ayudarme, verlo
- gerunds: ayudándome, viéndolo
- affirmative commands: ayúdame, míralo
So:
- La terapia me ayuda. ✅
- La terapia ayuda me. ❌ (wrong word order)
There are three different “me/mí/mi” forms with different roles:
me – object pronoun, unstressed
- Goes before the verb: La terapia me ayuda. – Therapy helps me.
a mí – stressed pronoun, used for emphasis or contrast
- A mí la terapia me ayuda mucho, pero a él no.
“Therapy helps me a lot, but not him.”
You can add a mí for emphasis:
- La terapia a mí me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.
(a bit emphatic: “Therapy helps me…”)
- A mí la terapia me ayuda mucho, pero a él no.
mi – possessive adjective “my”
- mi ansiedad – my anxiety
- mi casa – my house
So in this sentence:
- me = “(to) me” (object of ayuda)
- mi = “my” (possessive with ansiedad)
Yes, you can, and it’s correct, but the nuance changes slightly:
La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.
Focuses on my personal experience: “Therapy helps me to control my anxiety.”La terapia ayuda a controlar la / mi ansiedad.
Sounds more like a general statement: “Therapy helps (people) to control anxiety / their anxiety.”
Both are fine; the first is more clearly “it helps me personally.”
With ayudar, the normal pattern is:
ayudar a + infinitive
So:
- me ayuda a controlar – helps me to control
- nos ayuda a dormir – helps us to sleep
- te ayuda a concentrarte – helps you to concentrate
Using para + infinitive after ayuda is a different structure:
- ayuda para dormir = help / aid for sleeping (more like a noun phrase: “sleeping aid”)
For actions that someone helps you do, the standard structure is ayudar a + infinitive, so a controlar is what you want.
In this context it’s much closer to “to manage / keep under control” than to “completely control”.
controlar can mean:
- to control, keep in check:
- Controlar la ansiedad / el estrés – manage anxiety / stress
- to check, monitor:
- Controlar las entradas – check tickets
- to master (a skill):
- Controla muy bien el inglés. – He/she has a very good command of English.
So La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad is naturally understood as:
- “Therapy helps me manage my anxiety / keep it under control.”
All three are possible, but the nuance shifts:
mi ansiedad – clearly my anxiety, personal and specific
- La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.
la ansiedad – “the anxiety” in a more general or shared sense
- La terapia ayuda a controlar la ansiedad (anxiety in general, as a condition)
Bare ansiedad (no article/possessive) is unusual here; you’d normally have la or mi/tu/su.
In practice, speakers often say mi ansiedad when talking about their own mental health, because it feels more personal and specific.
Yes, that’s also correct, just a bit different in focus.
me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad
= helps me to control / manage my anxiety (focus on the action of controlling)me ayuda con mi ansiedad
= helps me with my anxiety (more general help: support, tools, etc.)
Both are natural. If you want to highlight the idea of gaining control or managing it, a controlar is more precise.
The verb must agree with the subject, which is La terapia:
- La terapia → 3rd person singular → ayuda
“Therapy helps…”
Other forms in the present tense of ayudar:
- yo ayudo – I help
- tú ayudas – you help (singular, informal)
- él / ella / usted ayuda – he/she/you (formal) help
- nosotros ayudamos – we help
- vosotros ayudáis – you (plural, informal, Spain) help
- ellos / ellas / ustedes ayudan – they / you (plural) help
So:
La terapia me ayuda… = “Therapy helps me…”
From a learner’s perspective, you can just think of me as “the person who is helped” and not worry too much about the label.
Technically:
- The verb ayudar (a) takes a person as its object:
- Ayudo a María. – I help María.
- La ayudo. – I help her.
- Me ayuda. – He/She/It helps me.
Grammarians may argue about whether this is a direct or “personal” object because of the a, but for using the language, the key is:
- With yo as the person helped → me ayuda
- With tú → te ayuda
- With él/ella → lo ayuda / la ayuda (or le ayuda in some varieties)
For Spain, ansiedad is typically pronounced roughly like:
- [an-sye-DAD] in a simple approximation
- More precisely (Castilian): [an-sje-ˈðað]
Key points:
- an – like “an” in “ant” (short ‘a’)
- sie – sounds like sye (similar to “see-eh” blended)
- Stress is on the last syllable: -dad
- Final -d in Spain is usually a soft [ð] (like the th in “this”, not in “think”)
So you don’t pronounce it as “an-zee-uh-dad” like English “anxiety”; it’s a smoother three-syllable word: an-sye-DAD.
You could see structures with gerunds in Spanish, but in this particular sentence it’s not the natural choice.
La terapia me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad. ✅
This is the standard, idiomatic way to say it.La terapia me ayuda controlando mi ansiedad.
Sounds odd and somewhat ungrammatical in standard Spanish; the gerund here doesn’t link well to who is doing the controlling.
In general, for “helps me to do X”, Spanish uses:
ayudar (a alguien) a + infinitive
So stick with me ayuda a controlar mi ansiedad.