"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

I'd find a different therapist

It's also fine to correct their assumptions.

YABU

Good therapy is brilliant, but the system is lacking proper assessment as to which type of therapy is best for which person at which state of life and severity of illness/problem.

Many understand therapy as 'i go there for a bit and I'll be better for the rest of my life'. This is rarely true. Those who struggle a lot, for example as a result of childhood trauma, will need to dip in and out for the rest of their lives to really get somewhere.

Therapy on children is useless unless the parents also go to therapy. Chances are that the upbringing has caused them issues and unless the parents face up and change as well there is no point.

I don't believe for a second that holocaust survivors were not hugely traumatised in a way that didn't get passed down to the next generation, and then the next and so on.

Trauma doesn't just happen because of some shit happening in the world. It happens because previous generations have not dealt with theirs and pass it on. This is why everyone and anyone is in therapy and meds these days.

Therapy is a lifelong process. I agree you can do chunks on your own, have great insights etc, but you aren't really able to understand, process and resolve real childhood trauma on your own. And if you don't deal with it, your children will because you are likely doing some fucked up things that you don't recognise as such.

There is an issue with the way mental illness is treated. CBT is thrown at everyone as a cure for everything, but is not effective for all causes of depression for example. If someone seeks therapy, they are required to choose their own therapist, of which there is a huge variety with all sorts of qualifications and therapy approaches. This is completely fucked up and you wouldnt ask a cancer patient to select their own treatment plan.

People suffering from mental illness are being hugely let down. Unless you are in some sort of hospital, chances are your GP puts you on meds and throws CBT at you. For anything else, you have to go find your own therapist like you were in a jungle.

But often you need to be drawn back into that pain in order to properly process it and be able to move forward. Suppressing feelings doesn’t help most people you have to acknowledge them.

i have CPTSD. By discussing and understanding my feelings around the initial event which triggered it I have been able to identify the unhelpful thought processes, seperate the fact from my brains catastrophising and learn how to respond.

thanks to that process I can hear certain alarm sounds without automatically beginning to panic. I can slow my thoughts down enough to rationalise. I can live without the constant fear

@EthicalNonMahogany I absolutely agree with you. It can't ALL be on the therapist to 'cure' their clients. I think many people approach therapy without any idea of just how much self-reflection and, ultimately, self-awareness is needed to truly understand their own behaviours.

I've experienced some therapy over the years - not what I'd call a lot, but at certain points in my life when I've felt I needed help to unravel and understand emotions and situations. I think, in later years, I approached it as I'd approach a fitness regime - starting off from a fairly low-impact baseline and gradually building up a different version of yourself using the tools presented to you and taking the advice of a professional who'll help you understand how to use those tools.

Completely agree. I find it very strange and callous to suggest that Holocaust survivors are homogenous and haven’t had lasting, devastating, inter-generational trauma.

Polik ·

How fortunate you are to be able to talk openly with husband/mother/friend.

@honeylulu I understand, I needed to make sense of it and be heard and validated, and I was heard and validated. I made sense of it on my own. No therapist ever told me "your mother isca covert narcissist who uses victimhood to have power. Your father is a weak co dependant man whose power comes not from his own agency but from backing up a dominant wife. He will never defend you and there is no way to be in the family if you won't absorb all of the projections that allow them to believe they're perfect and "one up". "

But I figured it out and sat with the pain and grief for 3 years. Finally after 3 years I just got bored of my own thoughts and naturally felt ready to move on and just radically accept the situation cannot change. I railed against it for years and years, hoping one day I'd be heard, but now I can accept I'm not a real person to them, not in the way my children are to me.
Boring my friends for 5 years wouldn't have helped in the same way.

There was also something healing about the very act of putting some attention on me my perspective, my healing, my pain. As my family has always denied me the right to a reaction or a perspective. Things are how they say they are The.End.
So just to spend money on my validation when my entire family was determined to close ranks around my mother labelling me mad for having had the expectation that I might be heard and feeling sorry for her that I was so "mad" it was validating. I couldn't heal until I was validated.

I also think even with the most understanding friend or relative it’s very hard to discuss things without their emotions coming into it, or without worrying what you say will upset them. When in a therapy session with a stranger that isn’t there it is just about you.

that’s not to say there isn’t a place for discussing things with a loved one but it’s very different

I've had a fantastic therapist and a rubbish one, it can depend on who you get as to the outcome.

I have spoken only of my own experiences of holocaust survivors, which includes 30-40 years of very close relationships with around 20 of them, including my parents, 2 surviving grandparents, 2 surviving great grandparents, and a host of other aunties and uncles, and of my experience of myself and my children being involved in long term epigenetical studies - of more than 10 years...

"intergenerational trauma" is really not a thing, epigenetically, and the traits passed down as a result of life experiences are BENEFICIAL - obviously otherwise what would be the evolutionary advantage!

I am not going to respond to any more comments about holocaust survivors, or epigenetic effects, as I clearly have a far greater experience and knowledge than the other poster that are trying to impose their views on this topic, so unless there are actual constructive questions, it is totally pointless to reply to statements made by people who don't know anything about it

As a therapist I hope you are wrong. I believe I do good work and that my clients benefit from working with me. But I do believe many people expect magic and are therefore disappointed. The thing is, we can reflect and educate and use whatever strategies there are, but at the end of the day, change only comes from thinking or doing things differently. So if clients go home and do everything exact the same as they usually would, they're not going to experience much improvement. But then sometimes our job is to sit with the client in that space until they are ready to make change.

Research shows that the most important element of therapy is the therapeutic relationship. You need to feel safe and supported before you can accept being gently challenged. And for many people, eg someone who has been neglected, abused, or without adequate social support, it takes a long time to build a strong therapeutic relationship. You have to get to know the client, their personality and quirks, their fears, their life history, relationship history and thinking patterns etc. You have to allow them to get to know you but also draw appropriate boundaries. This all takes time.

I used to work in schools and found that incredibly difficult as the work you can do with children is very limited if their parents or primary caregivers are not engaged with the process. I found they often wanted me to "fix their child's behaviour" but they didn't want to come to appointments or change the way they disciplined or engaged with their children.

I also had one lady from a war torn country with severe PTSD. I don't believe anyone will ever be able to help her and I used to cry every time I got home after working with her. The only thing I could do was try to teach her strategies to block out the memories.

Yet I think for others with PTSD, finding a way to acknowledge their grief and anger, maybe find a way to process it or learn strategies to compartmentalise it so that it doesn't intrude on every aspect of life/define their life can be helpful.

I guess at the moment, I believe that I am helping. Most clients seem to come for 6-20 sessions which given the time commitment and financial commitment suggests to
me they get something out of it. If they stopped coming after the first session or kept coming forever (suggesting limited improvement or dependence on me) then I would worry.

You come across as quite closed minded and self opinionated because you’re proclaiming that you don’t think it works for anyone. Presumably the teens were not your own so you really don’t know that much about them. Your relatives not causing a problem for you doesn’t mean it wasn’t a problem for them. I think many of that
generation has awful trauma that played on their minds a lot although they were taught to hide it.
the thing that stands out in your post is that you were ‘sent’ to therapy. It’s really something you have to fully engage with because the change is yours to make. And it depends on getting the right therapy and a good therapist. EMDR is usually used for trauma. MH issues are much more common in ND people, yet therapeutic approaches are modelled on NT. self help from books is also still therapy…

It depends entirely on the fit between therapist and client. Bad therapy can be detrimental. Good therapy with the right therapist can be life changing.
I tried it for a bit and whilst the therapist was very good and helped me in some way - I found it ruinously expensive for not much benefit.
I am still the same person with the same thoughts and feelings - and going over and over them won’t change that.
I began to get bored going over the past and I knew it was time to stop when I started resenting going.
I found spending the money on myself in other ways more helpful.
Having said that, if I found myself really struggling with something - I would pick it up again. Having the space to be heard is not something we all have/ want to impose on others.

Therapy can be very helpful but it only works if you do the work.

There is no magic fix.

I dont think combing over the past is helpful but if the past haunts you, there are techniques that can help it be managed.

Therapy is more about changing patterns of behaviour or thought that are harming people today.

I find it utterly...bizarre, to say the least, that one would use one of the worst traumas in history just to bash counselling.

I remember my father telling me there wasnt any gay men when he was younger. No dad, they were all married to women or committed suicide or lived long isolating lives.
Same as the total lack of autistic children in the last generation.

Mental health is at a crisis. Services are lacking. People are dying in their thousands. And we are criticising counselling because....well, let's just make up reasons why.

I've asked it a few times now and nobody has been able to answer it.

There are physical treatments available for things that years ago people just had to live with. Women years ago wouldnt have had access to medicine and scans and all the marvellous things we hahe for pregnancy. But women before managed?

Our ancestors didnt hahe the half foods we have, and they managed?

Teeth were taken out with whisky?
We didnt try at all to protect vulnerable women who were soliciting, and they were fine?

So many examples. Why pick on mental health?

Counsellors arent allowed to counsel their own relatives. So suggesting one can manage perfectly fine with their friends and husband is all well and good, but somewhat performative.

I'm honestly baffled as to why anyone would want to criticise something like this.

As I said earlier if you've never needed counselling then consider yourself blessed. As it happens, I know many people who claim to har never suffered mental health and manage perfectly well with all that I would argue are in need of serious counselling. I also know many people who have been in counselling or are in counselling who cope far better than those who shout loudly how useless it is.

Going to a stranger to tell them you have had certain thoughts is the bravest thing a person can do and should be applauded.

@EthicalNonMahogany true, and some people prefer the comfort of the lie or the mask. It's been a real gift to my mother, her ability to project everything on to her family. Eg, she is not heartless - dad is a hypochondriac, she is not heartless - her daughter is sensitive/emotional, it's not hard on her daughter that her daughter cannot raise an issue or ask to be heard - her daughter is aggressive, it's not that she has no ability at all to resolve small conflicts - it's that her daughter is detached from reality. It's not that she is judgemental - it's that her son is weirdly secretive. I coukd go on, but why would she at this point in her life unwrap herself from the middle of the warm and comforting lies??

I had some therapy early last year after struggling to come to terms with a chronic condition which was recently diagnosed, and the fact that I might never be able to work again. (I am back at work now, admittedly I still struggle with the condition.)
What really helped me and the way I react to difficult circumstances was the realisation that it all stems back to circumstances in my childhood. Therapy didn't 'fix' me, and I still get anxious, but I understand myself a lot better now.

This is fucked up. You aren't able to consider other views and believe you have the monopoly on the truth unless someone says their family have also been through the Holocaust. Somehow I doubt you'd even consider the experience of such a person as you clearly think you know it all.

Many people that are traumatized and dysfunctional don't recognise it.

You could have said much more concisely ' I'm right and that's it'

You cant be surprised that people are appalled that you are trying to use a trauma to push your agenda - which I'm still unsure of.

If only someone before you hsd realised that all mental health can be cured by a natter with friends.

you cant claim in your posts to be somewhat informed and researched and know lots about everything when you make statements like that.

Btw, by your own confession, ALL of your 'research ' is anecdotal and biased and totally non admissible.

But as youge started a thread based on evidence you're unwilling to discuss, I'm not sure what you hope to achieve.

Apologies, @Market1 , I misread earlier posts and I withdraw “strange and callous”. While I wasn’t using inter generational in the epigenetic sense, you are absolutely entitled to your view.

At the start of my 1990s Russell group psychology degree we were told counseling/ psychoanalysis was worse than useless. However since then I think some good results have been found for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT,). the Five ways to wellbeing are a better bet but we have voted in politicians who have systematically worked to make wellbeing less likely. Link

Quite. Elderly people are really well known for talking about their mental health in great detail 🙄

I agree with you that op wouldnt listen anyway.

Totally agree with every word OP and this part of your post resonates with me 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

Both my grandfathers had horrific lives. One of my grandfathers was an army doctor during WWII. He was the youngest of 8 children and they were Jews living in Crimea. His brothers who enlisted with him disappeared during the war and he later spent many years looking for their graves (in vain). His mother and sisters were all executed by the Germans when Hitler occupied Ukraine. My grandfather was in all the main Soviet battles of WWII like Stalingrad; his regiment was the one protecting Moscow and was the closest to the German army when Hitler was by Moscow. He had many many medals for bravery and as an army doctor he had to be right on the battlefield running under bullets. He was only one from his family who survived the war. He hardly ever spoke about the war and went on to have a successful medical career, married, raised a big family and lived to be over 100.

My other grandfather was too young to fight during WWII, but his father died in an accident before he was even born. His stepfather was executed by Communists as "an enemy of the state" (for being an outspoken academic who criticised the Regime) and his mother was imprisoned as the wife of an enemy of the state. He was living in absolute abject poverty, being sent from relative to relative and living in absolute squalor. He managed through an unbelievable academic talent to become a very famous scientist in the Soviet Union and one of the leading experts who investigated the reasons behind the Chernobyl disaster. He also raised a large family.

Both were amazing grandparents and absolutely never wallowed in any self-pity or seen a therapist.

Well, having had a brief relationship with a man who would not stop talking about his kids' sexual abuse by another family member- and I mean, every time he was drunk he would go over the same harrowing, explicit details- and yet refused to go to therapy because "I'm not mad!" I would say that therapy benefits more people than the patient themselves.

I have personally found therapy life changing and am training to be a therapist. However, it is definitely NOT for everybody - as lots of people have said on this thread, some people do much better working things out for themselves, drawing on informal support, and generally dealing with things in their own way.

I think there are also a lot of bad therapists out there. It is a profession that attracts some odd types. And even among the good therapists, you have to find one that you 'click' with. Not to mention finding the right type of therapy. This can be hard (particularly since many of the best therapists don't have spaces for new clients). My personal view is that lots of people who say "therapy is not for me" had a therapist who was crap/crap for them and might have benefitted from seeing somebody else.