To think that people overuse therapy as a solution for every problem?

Anybody seeking it for small challenges wouldn’t get far with their GP and people just don’t have the money to pay for it themselves . Those that can just about afford it submit to funding it when at breaking point

Even if that was the case maybe that's exactly the point of therapy for them. That they will feel able to deal with 'every small challenge' after treatment. Not everyone got nurtured as a child in the right way and learnt what in your opinion they should be able to do with ease.

Therapy is supposed to make things worse before they can get better, but any therapist should stay within the clients window of tolerance. You often go to therapy many months and things get worse before they get better.

How dare people turn to places to learn healthy coping mechanisms for this terrible corporate capitalist patriarchal hellscape dystopia, eh?

We should all just do the proper thing and buy a packet of benson and edges and neck a few shots of whiskey.

This conversation is made difficult when people use the term "mental health issues" to mean everything from mild social worries to paranoid schizophrenia or PTSD after (actual) traumatic events.

You obviously don't know what the purpose of therapy is. Therapy is expensive and therapists operate within ethical framework and it's usually very challenging. There is a reason self help books or peer support only go so far. You are being incredibly dismissive of peoples problems. Possibly, your sample hasn't shared all with you and you don't have a full view of what drives a person into therapy.

I don't know anyone who goes to therapy for a 'not good enough reason' but I know lots of people who would probably benefit from doing a bit of work.

You're just making shit up OP, who exactly is having therapy because they had a bad week?

Maybe you should have therapy to work out why you would start silly attention seeking threads based on lies? You're basically trying to show you're better than other people because you are more resilient than them by not needing therapy -maybe therapy could help you work out those insecurity issues too.

And to add, I've had to pay my entire life for any therapy. I second that ref the NHS being useless.

Ive spent significant time in hospital with health issues. I've seen the aftermath of many suicide attempts. Not even those poor loves will be getting therapy! And I tell you it would probably serve them incredibly well if they were able and willing to access it.

I don't think work related stress is a small issue.

This!!!

Its near impossible to access any sort of therapy, even for severe MH issues these days so I am really not sure what you are talking about. The NHS just doesn't work in case you don't read the news...

Default to therapy for any little whim isn't happening in my view. What I see instead are the likes of very deep seated issues that even the OP doesn't realise. These are then manifesting as what may appear as low level sadness, issues with relationships and things some may see as typical life challenges. They are in more likelihood being driven by something much deeper that only a professional can unpick.

Therapy should be much more than just moaning about problems. There are different types. However, therapy I've had for example, has helped me unpick the absolute dysfunction and coercive dynamic of my entire life growing up. This is something that then informs almost every relationship, every choice in my life until I realised. And you often don't even realise it.

I believe if more people actually considered therapy, learnt about their history and themselves, we'd have significantly less messed up people.

I'm very suspicious of people who make a point about therapy being problematic or anything negative about it. I can't think of any greater example of personal accountability than that.

I don’t think any of us know the details which are private. We don’t know what was happening with those girls and if there were destructive behaviours as a result of trauma that needed treating. 1 case doesn’t speak for everybody struggling with trauma anyway. There are several options for treating it.

Discussing the actual trauma in detail is often unhelpful, and sometimes re traumatising, unless the client wants to and finds it cathartic. But discussing the impact of the traumatic event, how they can accept where they are now move on from it and tools to help them do that can be very helpful. But the client has to want that - and in this case it sounds like it was forced by the parents, which is always going to unhelpful and may actually reinforce the trauma as it is another time when control is being taken away from the client.

Well of course they’d be reliving the trauma, it’s pretty difficult to do trauma therapy without reliving it.

You can’t cite one anecdotal case yourself to support your argument that therapy doesn’t work and then tell a poster she can’t use an example of her own and say it doesn’t count it’s “just one case”!

if you going to debate then play by your own rules otherwise just just sound a little bit goady tbh

Well having supported mentally ill dc I can say it’s way too big for parents. We’re not therapists and the burden is too much. It’s exhausting and wrecks your own mental health. My dc needed therapy
and supportive parents . They’re two very different things .

No. I really do wonder at comprehension when I read this response.

I am saying that people are unsurprisingly different. Therapy should have absolutely been offered. Once the girls resisted it and felt it was reliving that trauma, they should have been listened to, with the option to go again in the future should they wish to.

After all, a biggie in counselling is people must apparently be ‘ready.’ If someone doesn’t want to go in the first place therefore it is surely unlikely to be helpful.

I’m sorry about this and none of what I’m about to say is trying to be dismissive. But that’s one case! You’re saying it’s worked in one case.

People commit suicide because of debt, problems with the law, relationship breakdowns, physical health problems and yes, mental health problems. Therapy isn’t a ‘cure’ for mental health issues: it can help, it isn’t me saying ‘it isn’t helpful’, it’s me saying ‘it isn’t always helpful.’

So you’re saying trauma therapy shouldn’t be offered for trauma.🤔Counselling is very different to trauma therapy such as EMDR.

The thing that I think is bad is the attitude of "you shouldn't go to your friends and family for support, that's unloading problems onto them and unfair to make them have the mental load, you should go to a therapist".

Unless someone explicitly says please this is too much, I think we should be able to assume that friends and family are there to support us. Knowing that you've got that support network to catch you, people who love you without you needing to pay them, is 90% of mental health right there.

It does help. I can vouch for that personally. I'm surprised that you're arguing against therapy being available to suicidal people with a poster who has already shared on this thread that therapy has stopped them taking their own life.

Well as the mother of a child who has tried to take her own life several times I can say it’s massively helpful in developing coping strategies. Medication isn’t enough and is just a sticking plaster.

‘Google it’ is bloody rude and it isn’t meant to be - but if you do have a look, there is some interesting stuff about counselling and therapy sometimes making things worse.

I remember reading interviews with Charlene Lunnon and Lisa Hoodless, who were abducted by a man in 1999 aged ten. The girls were held hostage and repeatedly sexually assaulted for a number of days. The police called on a chance investigation (I think another child had complained) which probably saved their lives.

The girls were sent for counselling and both hated it, found it relived the trauma and begged their parents to let them stop. One of the girls’ parents agreed, the other did not, which led to her feeling bitter and resentful to her former friend.