To think therapy is for the benefit of others

As a therapist I would agree that the people around you will benefit if you are happier, calmer, less anxious or free from fear. That's a secondary gain.

Totally disagree
Therapy helped me massively
It’s good that the knock on effect of it helping me helped my family and relationships. It can do the opposite.

But if the end effect is positive and the person having therapy thinks it's working does it matter if the therapist is really just enabling the friends are family to just be friends and family ? I don't see what your issue is here.

Have you had therapy OP?
I dunno, I mean I stopped feeling suicidal because of therapy, I suppose it wasn't much benefit to me...

Family and friends are untrained and possibly not best placed to provide guidance, but family / friends who are getting tired of you because you've had a bereavement are not worthwhile. Real friends (and family worth having) are there for the rough times and the smooth. Anyone who expects you to be "fun" or "over it" in a prescribed period of time is lucky enough never to have encountered real grief.

@Soggybogdog could it be that the positive effect in family members is a result of being pleased someone is trying to help themselves rather than just relief that they’re not going to have to listen anymore?

I always ask people what their goal is (what they want, not what they want to stop doing). If they say they’re attending because others have told them to or to please others then that’s a problem and if, after a conversation it was clear it’s not their choice or their goal then I wouldn’t see them.

Often when I see clients for problems such as OCD their families are involved anyway, at a psycho-educational level, because often the family’s understandable attempts to soothe anxiety contribute to keeping it going and so there is some training for them about responding differently. So therapy with me may not offer families total respite from the client’s problems.

Therapy shouldn’t just be just another audience for repeating the same things and staying in the same tangle. I’d be frequently reviewing progress with the client and challenging them on their perspective and approach to their difficulties.

it sounds like you’re speaking from a very personal perspective? I think you’re right that it can be really difficult for loved ones to manage someone who has MH struggles. It can feel relentless and if the person is someone you love and care about it’s upsetting and impossible to have the neutral role a therapist can have. I think you are also right that there are other factors at play. It isn’t just the type of therapy or the skills and competence of the therapist (though that’s obviously very important) but also the therapeutic relationship, the collaborative understanding and much more besides.

If therapy is just an audience to repeat the same thinking, beliefs, attitudes without actually changing anything then it’s a waste of time, therapy is only working if the client can report some tangible improvements in their life over the course of sessions (not just insight). Having more helpful communication with their family might be one worthwhile improvement, it wouldn’t necessarily be a false positive.

Therapy certainly isn’t a magic bullet and it’s a minefield finding the right therapist in private practice but I’m not sure your generalisation about what’s going on in therapy sessions actually holds up.

I don’t agree with you, but sometimes it can take a while to find a therapist that is the right fit for you. Then it can work wonders.

You'd be surprised OP. It's often the opposite. Family and friends often end up unhappy that the person has gone to therapy. If they've been getting certain benefits from them for years, perhaps they're a people pleaser that always does stuff for them or lets things slide to keep the peace, therapy can mean somebody finds their backbone and start advocating for themselves. Which people in their circle might not like.

It's something people are often warned about when they begin therapy. That therapy can have a range of impacts on the person's life, and to be aware of that.

Ultimately certain modalities are in the NICE guidance for a reason, because they're proven to work for a lot of people. Does therapy help everyone? No. Does any treatment work 100% of the time? No. Is every therapist good at their job? No. Are most of them decent enough to effect positive change? Probably. But when therapy is done well, the right therapy at the right time with the right client, it can be life changing.

Therapy is with a physiotherapist, a licenced and trained person who is there to help you learn techniques to deal with your mental health.

Counselling is not a protected title and the person you are talking to isn't a trained professional. Anyone can just start offering counselling services. It's usually used more as a place to vent and get basic advice (which can be helpful if you are in a stressful situation or bereaved) but it's not a treatment for mental illness.

There is some cross-over with some therapists offering counselling services but I've seen some real harm done to people who were very mentally unwell and needed real help (and thought they were getting it) but it was just the random thoughts of joe bloggs down the street.

Not all therapy is privately funded. I am receiving EMDR trauma based therapy via talking therapies on the NHS. I might be easier to live with as a result but the focus is on my well being and recovery rather than the benefit of others.

I could not disagree more.

The underlying premise of your idea is that your friends and family should carry your emotional burdens. What do they do with their own emotional burdens at these times?

People can have to carry a lot in life, the loads may not be even but adults cannot be expected to take over another adult’s emotional burdens on top of their own. That would lead to a lot of overloading.

I am a very empathetic person and also I had a horrendous period of pain and grief in my life. I am willing to support other people but like everyone else my capacity is limited. I found therapy a godsend but also a lot of hard work and I would definitely recommend therapy to others who were struggling.

What are you basing this on?

If you feel that way about therapy you are receiving, you need to change therapists!

When my mum died I was told by the world and it's dog that I should see a therapist as I wasn't "grieving properly", so I went to get them off my back...absolute waste of time and £. Still it made everyone else feel better.

So IME YANBU OP

This. 👍

Having seen someone close to me lose years to depression, having therapy and thriving again, I couldn’t disagree more. He had to work very hard at it though, and he had to be something he really wanted to do and he had to believe in it. He also paid privately, NHS therapy was a sticking plaster on a cut when underneath the leg was broken.

I disagree somewhat. I think a lot depends on the therapist.
had CBT twice for anxiety and depression following a physical health diagnosis via NHS IAPT. First experience was okay but not great.
More recently I had a great therapist I really gelled with and I found it extremely helpful.
I do think there are some poorly trained therapists out there, and some charlatans in private practice ( as well as some good ones!).

Therapy can also validate abusive behaviour. I have seen an abuser present himself as the victim to his therapist, who was so manipulated by him that she essentially validated his abusive behaviour.

I see. I think that therapy can feel pointless sometimes but it can have an effect without you even realising it.

I remember my CBT counselling many years ago after a relationship break down and the counsellor suggested that I write down in a letter everything I wanted to say to my ex that I hadn't felt able to say and then burn it. It sounded so silly but actually I do still remember that moment of walking to the park and burning the letter by the lake as a good moment. It didn't feel important at the time but it did help, in hindsight.

Similarly the counsellor saying my ex may be completely different with the next woman he was in a relationship with was sobering and not what I wanted to hear but did make me think.

I totally disagree. Therapy has completely change my understanding of the world around me and made it much easier for me to cope with.

Even at a basic level, it allows people to explore thoughts/situations/worries they don’t want to share with people they know and are close to.

Sometimes it’s helpful to talk through something and understand it better with someone who is neutral. Not backing you up, not bringing you down, just disinterested.

Therapy, and lots of it, improved my quality of life massively. A by-product of me being more happy and stable is improved relationships with my nearest and dearest. Most people aren't equipped to care for someone with severe MH problems, just like they aren't usually equipped to treat physical illness. And why should anyone be expected to absorb all the emotional and psychological impact of someone that ill?

I think friends and family can be exhausted by things, that's fair and not a reflection of them, but also they aren't always best placed to help you professionally because emotionally they're invested. I think you're perhaps underestimating the training therapists/counsellors do too.

I'm gonna push back slightly and say, while I agree that therapy is positive and I'm not anti it at all, I'm slightly confused when you say that counselling isn't. Because counselling, in my mind, comes under the umbrella term for therapy. I think perhaps this is where I'm slightly confused, because there's some sorts of counselling which are therapy. For example, acceptance and commitment or psychodynamic, they're all counselling. And there's a lot of accredited counsellors.

This.

If you mean that family and friends should play the unpaid therapist role then YABU.

Or do you mean that family and friends benefit because therapy means you are expected to become mentally strong and shoulder more than your fair share of responsibility?

I have found therapy hugely helpful for myself. It has calmed obsessive thought patterns and taught me a lot about how my brain works and what can help and hinder.

That being said, it would also be a huge benefit to me if my mother would go.