What is the obsession with therapy/counselling?

That isn’t quite what I meant. I mean that the cult like language that is used to ‘recruit’ for MLMs - the idea that if it doesn’t work it’s either a bad fit or your fault for not putting enough effort in - can also be seen in discussions about counselling.

’I’ve had counselling but it wasn’t very helpful,’ is rarely left there. The responses are along the lines of ‘maybe the counsellor wasn’t right for you / maybe you weren’t ready / you have to out the work in you know!’

That is what I’m uncomfortable with. I’m not suggesting counsellors are comparable to Younique or Herbalife or similar!

@badgerandthefox my other half is a therapist and his profession are genuinely concerned about people using socials to recruit people to MLMs under the guise of life coaching.
Someone tried to recruit me whilst my parent was in a hospice. I was under pressure and they came to the hospice as a ‘friend’ to take me for a coffee. Yep and tried to recruit me right there.
I can remember going into my dad who was dying, but still cogent and good for a laugh.
He said… you should have brought her in here to recruit me, love, I could have had hours of fun.
It is not the same as a professional counsellor it’s people monetising vulnerability.
Just as girls doing Botox in the back of sunbed shops aren’t the same as doctors who deliver it in a medical clinic.
We have actually had someone near to
us doing facelifts above a chippy. Even has a bogof offer. It’s been on the news.

@ThisJadeBear i don’t think they are self indulgent or navel gazing, which is why i used ‘can’ not ‘does’: it is the difference between ‘we can kill people in our cars’ and ‘we do kill people in our cars.’

I have no wish to denigrate the good work done by therapists or counsellors, but it is often pushed onto people who can ill afford it as something they ‘need’ - ‘you need counselling.’ And it isn’t always effective or helpful.

I became increasingly uncomfortable with the language used with regard to counsellors and counselling when MLMs were a thing a few years ago. The whole ‘if you really want it, you can achieve it’ and if / when it doesn’t work and clears you out financially and you’ve no friends left - ah, well you didn’t want it enough is reminiscent of a lot of the tropes trotted out on threads about counselling: you have to work at it; maybe it was a bad fit; you have to be in the right place.

Sometimes it just isn’t a good approach for a person and while the OP is putting it very bluntly, she isn’t wrong that it’s better in situations like the work one to remove yourself from the situation / environment as swiftly as possible rather than to dwell on it in counselling.

One of my kids friends was being a bit manipulative of the group and the consensus from them was that she needed therapy. I don't get that at all. She just needed some sensible conversations with her parents

@badgerandthefox so someone going to therapy who has been abused as a child is navel gazing?
One of my friends has just left an abusive marriage. For her loved ones it has been exhausting and we don’t know all the details. She has been referred to a specialist DV therapist and already I can see the changes in her..He had complete financial control of her, too. For the first time in 20 years she used her own money to get her hair done last week.
As her friend I’ve done my best but getting therapy support also helps loved ones and friends, too.
I am not sure any of this makes a difference to you.
Another of my friends is herself a DV therapist. She was kicked in the back by her DH who was wearing his army boots. She was pregnant with twins and one died. She has been in a wheelchair since. She was so inspired by the support she received that she trained and got an education. She does some pro bono work, too, as well as going into schools to talk to young people about consent and respect in relationships.

Edited to add that my post below is in reference to OPs post about being so busy that she’d have nothing to talk about in therapy, bloody quite failed 😭

@iamfedupwiththis
Genuine question, do you think people who go to therapy aren’t busy? Do you think busy people can never be depressed or have experienced trauma? I’m not sure what your argument is here. That therapy is something people do to fill the time?

What is the alternative?! Fucking therapy.

is this a joke thread?!

I think therapy and counselling can encourage a certain amount of self indulgence and navel gazing which isn’t healthy.

How did you change the settings?

I would still be careful as regards using private therapists. We paid a massive amount of money for somebody registered with BACP. They were awful, completely negligent and have left my dc even more traumatised.

Private therapy is a minefield and can be a complete rip off, I’m so angry that really needy people are being left to be fleeced.

I still see value in therapy when it’s done right. It has been lifesaving for another of our children.Sadly I think it’s better/ safer under the NHS but so few people can get it.

yes this - my most unstable friend is a counselor. I actively avoid discussing anything too personal with her as she always projects all sorts of meaning onto the smallest of comments.

And the BABCP for CBT therapists.

.

It’s not unkind to doubt the effectiveness of therapy. But when countless people are recounting their experiences it is extremely offensive for them to be ignored or to read statements like some of those which the OP has made.

”I’d never be so self-centred enough to talk to someone about myself”. The implication that anyone who has therapy is self-centred. That is beyond offensive.

It depends on the problem. Some need support from an expert and for other perhaps you could benefit from support from family and friends, even communities. But we no longer have those kind of communities, at least not in the western world. To work through a trauma requires a lot of support. In an ideal world, this will be coming from your community including friends and family, but that’s not the norm.

Now please don’t give examples of hating your job, crying your heart out and finding another. Trauma is much more complex than finding a job.

And also I'd just say that while yes it's a debate, but you need to recognise that a lot of the language and phrasing you are using is incredibly dismissive of people who have really struggled with traumatic circumstances and who have relied on therapy. There is a lot of judgement coming through in your posts and very little empathy. Which I think is why people are asking why you seem so affected by this as your posts do come across very strong. Are you struggling op and are you feeling like there is noone there to listen? Because if so that's a lonely place to be standing and you do deserve more than that.

But op we know from evidence and studies that certain therapeutic processes help people process and accept/ find ways to grow around impactful things like grief or trauma. There has been extensive research done into this so we know what works and what doesn't. It's been studied over years, for example one of the key differences for veterans and the liklihood of suffering ptsd was the length of the journey home shared with others with the same experience. Those that had longer journeys and more peer support were more likely to have processed what they had experienced before they got home, those who return home rapidly or alone after a conflict are significantly more likely to develop ptsd.

We know that talking helps mental and emotional processing which in turn can help physical health and overall wellbeing.

I agree all therapists SHOULD be qualified but as a client that's something you look into and it's easy to find. It's also not a contracted service. I've been for one session with a counsellor and knew immediately we wouldn't click so I tried another. Clients are expected to shop around and most counsellors will offer introductory sessions to discuss how they work and what qualifications they have/ the approaches they take etc so that clients can decide if its the right fit for them or not before disclosing anything.

You talk about a difficult experience you have and I'm glad you were able to get yourself out of that. You showed a lot of resilience in that process, but the key factor here is that not everyone has the same degree of resilience. Sometimes due to personality, medical vulnerability, the stage of life they are in, a barrage of difficult circumstances happening close together.

And what you say about feeling that noone would want to sit and listen to you. Op, I'm sorry but that's quite sad actually to hear that. You deserve to be heard and listened to and have someone in your life to hold space for you. Perhaps you have a friend or spouse who fills that role, but not everyone does. And that's where people find counselling helpful. For women experiencing dv for example they may need a secret, confidentiality safe place where they can say exactly what they're thinking so they can work out what's gaslighting and what's real. Or maybe it's a big issue affecting you but you worry your friends would judge you or share it with others. A lot of people value that it's confidential.

Can you start with EMDR first? With trauma we need to work on body and nervous system first and then you can work on it once you feel ready.

Cupoftea 💐don’t feel you have to expose your suffering to this wind-up merchant. Focus on your own healing. This person means nothing to you, don’t let them nourish their negativity on your pain.

Sorry I wasn't meaning you personally, I should have maybe said One talks about oneself! I think we hold the same opinion of the never ending proliferation of 'therapy' and 'counselling'! A colleague was once referred to a 'therapist' after an incident which she really didn't want to do and when she clearly didn't want to talk about herself this was seen as evidence she needed therapy, a Catch 22 situation.

Many things can be true.

I agree its become a monetised industry and the pathologising of challenging but normal experiences or variations of human behaviour is causing more harm than good.

Its also the case that for clinically diagnosed significant problems a clinically experienced and properly qualified therapist can be a life saver and a properly qualified therapist will tell a patient if they should be looking at a different path.

For me a big part of the problem is the utter wild west of therapy (including NHS therapy - the NHS label doesn’t guarantee quality or even qualifications). You only have to look at therapy experiences here to see the mixed bag on the market.
I would like to see the industry properly regulated and regulation of the terms “therapist” and “counsellor” in the selling of therapy services, just as dietition or medical doctor is regulated. Preferably along with their specialisations. I have lost count over the years of the number of “therapists” who have told women in abusive situations that they should engage in joint therapy which tells me they know fuck all about their subject.

Of course regulation won’t stop weasels find weasel words - no shortage of self appointed “nutritionists” but at least I know if I need a dietician then there is a title which is protected and means something.

People suggest it as a dig most of the time-at least it used to be an insult. Probably still is. If people are genuinely being helpful and kind suggesting it then it's all good. It's quite offensive to be told you need therapy otherwise!

I have nothing against it but I think there are a lot of things that we have to struggle with for life that therapy won't cure. Not being pessimistic I think that's just reality. I'd rather do hypnosis personally.

Its what friends do. We burden each other with our problems and the mutual sharing makes the coping possible. I would be disappointed if a friend felt they couldn’t share a burden in the way my burdens have been shared with them.

If I look back over decades of friendship the bonds come as much (or more) from the dark times as the light. The new relationships, the marriages, the children, the successes, the sunny days sit alongside the divorces, the widowhoods, the illnesses, the losses and the career crises.

And yes if I look around some have had prolonged periods of needing support more than others but you know what? Even in our own dark times we can still support others dealing with their own difficulties and sometimes being a support to others makes it easier to cope with our own.

For all the additional connectivity its so easy to look inward or online for support and maintaining boundaries against others but its the time spent building those real friendships which keep us going during lives brickbats.

I’ve read 2 pages of this thread and don’t feel I can read much more.
OP, I have C-PTSD, DID and Anorexia. The alternative to having to get up and face the day and take the kids to school and keep working was to try to end my life. I could not keep going. I could not get out of bed. I was fortunate to have a husband who could shoulder the load while I was completely incapacitated. It was theworst period of my life. I had a whole year out of work and ended up losing my job.

I found a truly amazing therapist who has changed my life. She has taught me techniques and skills to regulate myself, helped me work through some horrific childhood trauma (not by talking through it endlessly - I haven’t even told her some of it) but we look at how the impact of it shows up in my life, we look at managing triggers, we’ve looked at core beliefs I’ve formed about myself due to the nature of the trauma. We look at how it impacts me physically and how to control anxiety symptoms. I have my life back and am gaining the ability to step away from therapy as I grow and learn. I’m building a life for the first time free from the things that almost killed me and did not make me stronger. I can parent my children and hold down a job. Therapy saved me. No friend or relative could have handled the level of support I needed and I would never have expected them to.
It is upsetting that you judge me for needing that help. And it’s because of people like you that I don’t tell people that I have therapy or struggle with my mental health.

Who do you think wrote this imaginary leaflet?