"Therapy" is no better than a natter with a friend or a placebo.

[Market1]

I am starting this thread to see what people think of therapy. I am personally convinced it is at least 80% useless - I am not saying completely useless, as I am sure talking about a problem makes you feel better, although you can talk things through with your pet rabbit - I used to as a teen! There is also some value in learning some techniques such as CBT, but that can be learnt from a book, so again, not sure of the value of an actual therapist.

I've come to this conclusion through two main sources, children and holocaust survivors.

I have known thousands of children through teaching, and fostering, and many many of them have seen therapists. My main observation is that huge expectations are placed on therapy as some sort of magic bullet that is going to cure all problems, but the result is inevitably disappointment, as nothing changes. Parents, and children too are left wondering what magic was supposed to have happened, and why it didn't. One fostering social worker once mentioned to me that she thought it was a complete waste of time after the age of 8, and I think she was right. Between the ages of 5 and 8, you can possibly use therapy to teach children a bit about the emotions they are feeling, which can help them understand themselves, but beyond that there seems to be no benefit

My other source is coming from a family of holocaust survivors, who never had therapy, and survived by not talking about hte past - Many went on to have long, happy, successful lives, married and raised families, ( including me!) . They did not discuss the past, and I was told not to ask questions. They were not totally without problems. I was aware of the occasional nightmare, and several of them were binge eaters who became obese in old age. However, they lived with this problems quite happily, and there was no talk or expectation of "therapy" of any kind to address them

So I have started this thread to see what others think. Maybe I am wrong - I am open to being told that I am wrong in this. My experiences have not given me any confidence in arranging for therapy for any child, or suggesting it for any adult, but please tell me if it is really in fact a wonder drug and I have missed the point somehow!

I should say I have been sent for therapy twice myself - once after being in a road accident in which my closest school friend died, ( aged 16)it was awful, made me cry every time, I felt so much better when I was allowed to stop, and once sent by my employer after I was knifed ( quite gently!) by a student at school - I was taught some useful CBT, but in my opinion a book would have been more helpful than a difficult journey to speak to someone who was basically going very slowly through what I could have read for myself in half the time without the train journey.

so:

YABU - therapy is helpful - and please explain how!
YANBU - therapy is a waste of time /a money maker/ sending someone for therapy or providing it is just a way of letting someone feel they are doing something useful, when they are not

My tuppence worth is most therapists and some therapy approaches ( humanistic/ person centred) are crap. Only useful if you just need someone to vent to. But then the Samaritans do that for free. And do it better than therapists I’ve paid for as they don’t feel the need for professional detachment.

A therapist who can help you analyze your thinking and help to plan a way through your issue is useful, but the problem is the ‘patient’ needs to have the motivation and drive to put the work in, and many, because they are at a place where they turn to therapy, won’t be able to do that or at least keep it up long term. Also, a good therapist chslkenges their patient, so the ‘patient’ needs to be able to cope with that to progress.

Ahh yes finding the answers in the bottom of a wine glass. That’s a well proven method for improving mental health isn’t it!

Fantastic for addiction services.

Could you imagine someone posted a thread claiming their physically ill friend who was accessing medical treatment should just 'get on with it' and have awee chat with a friend?
People are so ignorant about mental health and it infuriates me.

There are plenty of holocaust survivors who have had therapy. There are a lot of Jewish therapists (especially in the US) who went into the field after witnessing their parents/grand parents' trauma.

I also don't buy that your binge-eating obese elderly relatives were actually happy. Especially when they were alone, because that's presumably when they binge-ate. They may have been happy when family/others were around though, which is good. Nobody who has an eating disorder is a poster child for happiness though.

I think the issue is muddied because the field isn't clear. I have experience of therapy helping a lot (developmental/complex PTSD). But I've had other less helpful experiences. However, there's then things like a therapist I saw 20 years ago at uni. I thought he was crap and didn't understand the situation. I found a diary 18 years later in which I wrote about our sessions. What I thought was crap then was actually SPOT ON! I just hadn't been ready to hear/able to understand it at that time.

I have also done a counsellor course. Over two years there was one out of twenty students who I'd want to see for any kind of therapy, or who I'd refer anybody to. I later studied psychology to have a scientific/research background, rather than relying on interpretations of research from people who often didn't understand it themselves!

And finally, therapy limited to 12 sessions is a complete waste of time if you actually have a problem. If you need someone to chat to or learn a few tips from, that's fine. Otherwise it barely scratches the surface, or worse, opens things that are better kept shut in such a short time.

I think there are a lot of variables that affect whether or not therapy will work for you, including the type of therapy, the therapist/your relationship with the therapist, your approach/objective e.g are you using the therapist as a sounding board, are you trying to problem solve, are you trying to learn more about yourself/the world/others etc.

I briefly had therapy (heavily dbt influenced) and found it absolutely life changing. It gave me a whole new perspective on how I think and process emotions.

I think some forms of therapy can be harmful though. CBT is my personal bugbear. It’s literally just gaslighting. I hate how it has become so ubiquitous, it’s even being used (misused) in the workplace

I think its very dependent on the person undergoing the therapy (and the therapist, obviously) and their capacity to digest, unpack and view themselves and their emotional hard-wiring.

I personally have got a great deal out of it because I'm naturally a fairly analytical person and I like to have a non-biased, non-involved sounding board to process things. I think its enormously helpful when you're in a "negative feedback loop" when you keep cycling through negative or self-destructive thoughts: having an objective third part making you see how irrational this is is often half the battle. I think for most people having this kind of outlet for their own damaging thoughts and habits is a positive thing. I think more people benefit from it than don't.

But I think there is a grain of truth in what the OP says: I think people can become rather dependent on it and start to use it as a bit of a crutch and an excuse to constantly overthink fairly insignificant life events and visit their neuroses on others. I have a friend who has seen a therapist for decades and who is incredibly prone to offloading constantly about more or less everything all the time and I do sometimes think (rather uncharitably) that it might help her to be listened to a bit less than she currently is. There is sometimes a virtue in knowing when to stop thinking about things and just get on with it.

This perfectly represents the total lack of understanding of mental health here and in society in general.

I really hope this attitude doesn't prevent people in crisis from reaching out and accepting help but actually we know that it does.

Polik

Clinical supervision and therapy are different things. Talk to your supervisor if you are not finding it helpful.

OP. INRTFT and I am sure this has already been said but whether or not therapy is helpful depends on many different factors;

• a good therapeutic relationship where you feel safe enough with the therapist.
• How ready you are to change and how well resourced or supported you are.
• right model for what you want to work on.

There are many different models of therapy and counselling. Some are very directive and quite informative (e.g CBT), some are completely led by you (e.g Humanistic/person centred) and everything in between. Some are based on very sound science and research and some have developed through theory. Some therapists have very little training and others are highly trained and skilled.

It’s not a simple question with a simple answer.

Oh. And a well trained therapist wouldn’t allow you to become dependent on therapy. There are, sadly, lots of ‘dabblers’ out there that give properly trained and supervised counsellors and therapists a bad name. It’s good to do your research and check for registration with professional bodies like the BACP or HCPC.

This we are trained to end even if we know the counsellor wants to continue.

A friendship is a reciprocal relationship.

A therapist is a professional who has support from their peers and who does not expect you to help them with their problems.

This is one of the most useful things about therapy.

It’s a complex situation, there’s no one size fits all. Human experiences, feelings and minds are extremely complex and individual. Of course sometimes a chat with a supportive friend or family member can work wonders but in other situations the problem is too big or too difficult for that. Sometimes you actually need somebody external to talk through the feelings with, someone very close just won’t work.
Have you watched Couples Therapy on tv?? It’s an insight into how some couples have begun to find it difficult to live with each other. Sometimes through therapy they can learn to understand each other better, not misinterpret each other, and move forward together. Other times it becomes clear that they are going to go their separate ways. It’s not about proving who’s right.
Books and self help methods can often help too but a good therapist can ask questions to bring out more about the situation.

Therapy draws you back into your pain and you keep discussing it. you wont ever change what happened. Go out there and live your best life while your alive, sing, dance and do other things you enjoy.

Patronising, vacuous nonsense. On a thread full of ill-informed opinions, I think this one really takes the cake.

I'm so glad that when I was diagnosed with PTSD I saw a qualified psychiatrist who correctly determined that what I needed was treatment in the form of evidence-based psychological therapy, instead of inane, meaningless platitudes that sound like they came from a motivational quote on Instagram.

Therapy did not draw me back into my pain, it helped me claw my way out of it. It quite possibly saved my life, and it certainly enabled to me regain my functioning to the extent that I could return to work and parent my children. I have also worked with many suicidal adolescents whose lives have been saved by therapy.

Please do not go around discouraging people from accessing a legitimate form of treatment for their Mental Health that you clearly know absolutely nothing about. The goal of therapy isn't to "change what happened," nor is it to keep discussing traumatic events over and over. In fact, one of the most effective therapies for trauma (EMDR) doesn't involve discussing traumatic or distressing events at all!

Not everyone has an emotionally literate friend/parent/sibling with the time and energy to listen to you and talk through your problems. My family was the cause of some of my problems so trying to broach anything with them simply made it worse.

I found a therapist was great for identifying certain problematic thought trains with lightning precision, then supporting me to interrogate that thought train instead of just rolling with it. Sadly my therapy was on the NHS and is done now, I could've probably done with quite a bit longer, but I did and do find it helpful for my specific issues.

👏👏👏

@Blatantlyfemale out of interest - could I ask why you view the humanistic approach as critical? I am just researching a bit trying to figure out what it does and if it might suit me.

@Market1i think the fostering social worker you spoke to who said there’s no point in therapy past 8 was ignorant/irresponsible. I have seen therapy have a significant impact on looked after children as teenagers and I hate the idea that there are social workers who go about saying there’s no point in therapy when there are children who have so few ways of navigating their lives and need help.

I totally agree. I have worked with a lot of care experienced teenagers over the years, and being able to make sense of their early childhood experiences through therapy has been transformational for many of them. The ones who didn't find it helpful were almost always pressured into it by adults before they were really ready. I have a huge amount of respect for Social Workers, I liaise with them daily in my work and have met some wonderful ones. But they are not therapists and are not qualified to make such sweeping generalisations about the efficacy of therapy. Its not a magic bullet, but its not supposed to be and that doesn't mean it has no value.

I went to a psychiatrist for 4 years when I was young. I did have to try 3 before I found the right one for me but it was life changing. I did have family and friends but it’s not the same thing at all. It was hard work but it made me a much happier and stronger person. It doesn’t make all your problems disappear nor stop you from having new problems but it does help you to learn to cope with them. I can only speak for myself but I am glad that I had therapy.

I'd somehow missed that from the OP. I very much doubt a fostering social worker said that at all, and if they did, it's outrageous.

No social worker said that.

This. Therapy changed my life too. And those people who think of it as paying someone to listen to you (and don't you have friends??) are absolutely missing the point.

I was so damaged by childhood trauma that I didn't even see that I'd had an abusive upbringing. I thought the problem was that I just couldn't cope, that I was weak. I had a lot of coping strategies: denial, humour, alcohol. It took six months of my therapist gently redirecting my narrative, trying to get me to lose the defensive humour, to home in on certain key elements, before I had a breakthrough and started to realise how bad it all was. Something he had clearly realised very early in the process. For a while I couldn't imagine how it was possible to go on living in that much pain - but I got through that and learned to live with reality, not the story I told myself. It was absolutely transformative. I wish I'd done it much earlier 😁.

those people who think of it as paying someone to listen to you (and don't you have friends??) are absolutely missing the point.

I think that people who have very little understanding of therapy often assume that it's just sitting in a room complaining at someone. They don't realise it's a collaborative process, and it takes work.

I've heard it said that therapy is a bit like untangling Christmas lights. It's not just talking about what has happened to you in the past or what's going on now, it's about having someone highly trained work with you to "untangle" or make sense of it all. Venting to friends over a bottle of wine might make you feel better, but it's just a temporary release, it's not actually resolving anything.

Before I started therapy my thoughts, memories and emotions all seemed such a confusing mess I thought untangling it all wasn't possible. So I just ignored a lot of things, and of course it all got more and more tangled as the years went on. Now I realise I just needed someone who knew what they were doing to help me untangle it all. It's all still there, of course, but i'm not confused by it or ashamed of it anymore, because I understand it. I understand where it all came from, how it all links together and why it got in such a mess over the years. I also understand now that none of it was my fault. Perhaps most importantly, if it starts getting a bit tangled again, I've learned techniques in therapy to untangle it myself before I get in too much of a mess again.

It's simplistic to the point of offensive to invoke Holocaust survivors in this context. Many Holocaust survivors had therapy; some even were or became therapists. Some did not have therapy, and thrived. Some did not have therapy and did poorly, and likely would have benefitted from it. Many - including those who were ostensibly 'fine' passed on inherited trauma to their children and grandchildren which has resulted in them having serious mental health problems and needing therapy. I am one of those people.

There isn't anything 'special' about Judaism or the Jewish people which somehow mitigated the effects of what survivors went through (as one PP suggested). An enormous number of central European Jews were fully assimilated and with no particular connection to Judaism - some of those who survived had a connection to it, and many of those who survived did not or actively eschewed it.

OP has refused to engage on the comment any further after not being applauded and indeed being questioned for her appalling post.

Indeed, but I felt I had to challenge it