To think therapy/counselling is not the answer

[onlytheace]

It is almost always suggested to people as something that can help them deal with problems, process trauma and generally be happier.

However, I think a lot of it is nothing more than the comfort of offloading to someone neutral in a “safe space”- it isn’t that they do anything special, it’s just sharing feelings. Yet they charge up to £50 a time.

Happy to be told I am BU but probably won’t agree!

Different therapies can help in different ways. For example if you have cognitive behavioural therapy those sessions would be very different to say psychoanalysis.
Many of the more evidence based therapies (NICE recommended, for example CBT, counselling) are offered on the NHS for free.
I would add that therapy isn’t ‘done to you’ it’s something you have to engage in & work very hard at it. It’s not so much “do this & you’ll be cured”.

I don’t doubt there could be some people wanting to make a bit of money, i went for a massage a few years back & saw a lot of certificates on the wall of different therapies. I imagine many on-line introduction courses (Jack of all trades master of none springs to mind). Those people might be in it for money & shouldn’t be practising really.

I would say that a genuine therapist wouldn’t be in it to take your money.

MrsGrahamNorton makes perfect sense to be fair - I suppose I'm causing no trouble in society so trying to fix me isn't very valuable.
Difficult decisions but I can see why offenders are prioritised as society is better for everyone the more of them that we can fix!
I'm using the word fix loosely, I realise people aren't cured after a chat or two and do have to work towards things!

I had therapy on the NHS and it turned my life around. It helped me process a traumatic experience so I no longer think about it all day every day. It also changed my habit of catasrophising (sp?) every situation to the point where I could barely speak to new people, I now make friends easily and come across as confident and self assured, which for the most part I am.

I had 12 sessions of CBT on the NHS (so free, not a penny paid) for health anxiety.

How did it help me? Well, a glimpse of the before and after shows that it DID help me:

Before: I was vomiting several times a day through severe anxiety alone, and spent almost every waking moment convinced that I was about to drop dead, in spite of no evidence to suggest that. I couldn't work, couldn't socialise and saw absolutely no hope in the future that things would change. This was in spite of talking everything through in huge detail at length on a daily basis with people who loved me.

After: I am generally very content, and completely rational 99% of the time. I'm currently doing a bloody good job at work whilst staying on top of housework, spending time on hobbies, and socialising more than I ever have before. I'm in a really good place. This change in me arose during the course of those 12 sessions.

How did it help me? The therapist made me:

1. explain my thoughts and recognise the logical fallacies,
2. notice the parts of my life that had caused those logical fallacies to arise in the first place, which helped me accept that developing anxiety was a normal and understandable response to an unfortunate series of events,
3. recognise the physical symptoms of anxiety and understand that they had no physical basis, and I could control them with anxiety-reducing techniques,
4. regularly practise the anxiety-reducing techniques,
5. create my own five-page document identifying signs to look out for which might signal I'm heading towards a relapse, and include techniques for anxiety management that were personal to my own situation.
6. undergo a number of challenges that proved my logical fallacies were wrong and that I was capable of conquering them.
7. understand the role of the people I'd been confiding in in reinforcing the negative thinking that exacerbated my anxiety. It wasn't usually a pleasant experience; there was certainly no tea and sympathy. I gained a much better understanding of myself and have been significantly anxiety-free for well over a year now.

There is a lot of science backing up my positive story: www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/therapies/cognitivebehaviouraltherapy.aspx

I would recommend reading about CBT to anyone who thinks it is 'just talking' or a scam.

@ballerini you asked for useful books, and I recommend "Depression - A way out of your prison" by Dorothy Rowe, even if you aren't depressed. Some of it is about depression and some of it is incredible wisdom about how to see the past and your problems and life generally. Also some of it about how you think about things will determine how you feel.

Not RTFT but here's how it helped me. I was in a bad place but couldn't help myself because I didn't not exactly what it was I was feeling and what was hurting me. I don't talk about feelings with family and friends because I feel like a burden. So so went counselling and didn't feel bad about talking about myself because I was paying to be listened to. The counsellor listened, asked questions that helped me understand myself and come to conclusions I couldn't come to on my own.

Does that do it for you?

I had CBT with ERP on the NHS, and it's had an incredible impact on me. No friend or family member could have done what my therapist has done for me, but nor should they be expected to, its not fair. Talking about some of your problems is part of friendship, but a more in depth analysis and practical interventions for distressing issues, is not part of a normal friendship.

Also, as much as I love my friends, several have stated that they are so OCD because they like a neat kitchen/room, which doesn't give me confidence that they are the right person to talk about your obsessions and compulsions to! If you don't even understand what a condition is, let alone how it comes about, sustains itself etc, I don't know how you are supposed to be helpful.

You can look up how CBT/ERP works online including practical examples of exposure exercises if you're interested OP

I've never had any counselling but I would have thought it would have been beneficial. Don't you every feel better when you've off loaded to a friend. I thought counselling helped you to gain a different perspective on things, guided you in a different way to think of things and to offer ways to cope with problems? Like I said I've never actually experienced it but I thought it was more than just someone talking about what's bothering them?

csthreads thanks so much for the book recommendation! I'll definitely check it out!

Counsellors and therapists are different and have different training, you also need to have one you "click" with. Long term therapy is very different to short term too.

Counselling has been great for me. Helped me change my thought patterns, feel less overwhelmed, been somewhere I could take my suicidal feelings which hadn't gone into ideation but I got to work with them and didn't have to overwhelm my family.

If I'm justified spending £40 on a haircut or four cocktails on a night out, I don't see what's wrong with investing in my mental health. It's helping me make better decisions with who I surround myself with. I wished I'd had it sooner because I spent 20 years kidding myself it didn't matter that my mum had left us. Turns out, it did.

You have to gel with the therapist though.

Hi all,
Thanks to those who posted their concerns about this thread. We are going to leave it, however, because we have no reason to doubt the poster's sincerity. Whether or not everyone agrees with her premise is rather the point of MN, it's exactly the place to discuss these matters.
We can see that it became somewhat strained at points, and will make some deletions now.

It's definitely not the answer for everyone.
It's made me worse due to a "counsellor" who may or may not have had a couple of days training and was totally not equipped to deal with complex needs.

This. It doesn't help with circumstances and seems to deny their existance.

A good counsellor is aware of this. The counsellor who I saw about my anxiety after miscarriages was very clear that no one could do anything about the 'normal' sadness I felt from the fact I was going through something shitty - ie my circumstances - but that the channeling of this into a destructive anxiety was a problem that could be tackled.

As I said upthread, I actually found counselling much more useful for a situational problem than for my 'why am I so depressed when my life is pretty good?' period, perhaps because it felt more like there were issues that talking could help me work through.

I had trauma therapy for two years FOR FREE thanks to amazing people doing work on a pro bono basis to help me as I was a bit skint

It’s not an exaggeration to say it saved my life

Hope this thread stays up because of the thoughtful, informative posts about people’s experience and what they have found helpful.

"They don't tell you directly that you are wrong. It's more about getting you to think rather than just have a fixed idea."

They absolutely can tell you are wrong. I have been in treatment for an eating disorder and meeting otgers in group therapy or inpatient many get apathetic because we are basically told to get a grip and you're behaving wrong. We know we are! It doesn't help.

To me, saying that therapy isn't the answer is like saying antibiotics aren't the answer because they failed to cure my flu, or chemotherapy isn't the answer because my friend died from cancer. Even the best treatments can only deal with certain types of illness, and even then they can't necessarily cure everyone. Would you start a thread saying doctors are charlatans because they couldn't cure somebody's cancer?

My dd's experience is very much like that of SweetThames, with the exception (I hope) of not having to learn that her nearest and dearest were a big part of the problem.

For her a combination of ADs and CBT were the best treatment, and it took several years of treatment to get her back on her feet.

What the therapists achieved was to get her to accept that her situation (painful joint disorder) is incurable, that her MH problems (anxiety and mood swings) may also be incurable, but that using certain techniques can enable her to cope with a difficult situation. It was realistic, it taught her that she is always going to have to work at this, but it gave her the tools and the confidence- and not least the ability to spot when she is heading for another bad patch.

For the record, dd's anxiety only got really bad after an ordinary paediatrician had misdiagnosed her condition. But I wouldn't advise you all to stay away from hospital consultants just because of that.

I felt the same until o found the right counsellor.
I had years and years of counselling. I still would say I don't need counselling it doesn't fucking work. Then I met one who really helped me wprl through things.

I reccommended couples counselling to a couple I know the other day. They need to learn to communicate with each other better than they do. Everyone in their life is being used as a sounding board, but sadly they bpth are being UR and people are taking sides, which is helping no one. A counsellor will hopefully lead them in the healthiest direction

I have been in treatment for an eating disorder and meeting otgers in group therapy or inpatient many get apathetic because we are basically told to get a grip and you're behaving wrong. We know we are! It doesn't help

I have no idea what happens in group counselling but that sounds awful!
In one to one counselling I doubt the counsellor would tell you that you are wrong in a direct and blunt way like that.
They would challenge what you say so you can consider the situation.

@LisaSimpsonsbff - your post has reminded me about something I was told in my sessions. I'm normal. I'm nothing special. I'm having perfectly normal reactions to abnormal situations. Such a simple thing but it helped such a lot. Along with the "proper" treatment of course.

There is an element of offloading BUT a good therapist should challenge you. They should help you recognise negitive patterns of behaviour and help you change.

For me therapy gave me courage to follow my convictions. I wasn’t sure I wanted kids, actually I was scared to admit that I did and scared I would suck at being a parent. My family is very dysfunctional and I feared I would pass this I . Therapy helped me to see that Mtblife is very different from my parents and that I am not my mother. I’m now pregnant and delighted.

Who knows I might hate being a parent but better the devil you know!