To think that people overuse therapy as a solution for every problem?

[SnugOtter]

It feels like therapy is recommended for every small issue - are we too quick to turn to it?

@Eyesopenwideawake lots of traumatic events came up for me in therapy that I had 'forgotten' and the realisation and going back there completely floored me every time, but were necessary to integrate and overcome it. Just working on today's symptoms of past trauma wouldn't have achieved the same results. I needed to develop an understanding of what exactly caused it and what it felt like at the time to reduce the heavy dissociation in daily life. I actually needed to allow myself to fe el those feelings, and although extremely painful I could reap the rewards after many months.

Exactly this for my young person.

Depends what you mean by 'small issues'?

I don't think people should use therapy reactively every time something bad happens - eg you don't need therapy automatically for every single upsetting event or bereavement, you should only be looking to it if working your feelings through with your existing emotional support network (friends, family) really isn't working. Or maybe if you don't have an emotional support network.

Who does that? The NHS certainly doesn’t provide that and very few can access private. I suspect those that can access private only do when absolutely necessary due to cost.

If you have no coping strategy for a bad week at work then yes, therapy would help.

Therapy helps you to understand your own reactions to situations. Some people cope well with life, others don't.

Therapy helps people who can't cope with small challenges to cope with them. There might be many reasons small challenges are overwhelming to some.

You are suffering under the illusion that everyone is like you.

I get what you mean, OP. I know from experience that I find it really unhelpful when people suggest therapy as the big magical solution. I’ve tried therapy and it’s not for me.

Not saying therapy is bad and that it doesn’t have its uses. For some people it’s great. But I think that if people want therapy they will already be seeking it and they don’t need someone on here to tell them to do it. So when you see someone trying to start conversation looking for a hand hold and practical advice from people, talk to them! Don’t fob them off with “therapy will help you.”

Sometimes speaking to people who have good practical and anecdotal advice is better than therapy. Therapy is also expensive privately and the waiting lists on the NHS are very long, so again that’s another reason why therapy shouldn’t be immediately thought of as the solution to everyone’s problems.

Ive never known anyone to seek therapy for the issues you’ve mentioned but I have met a lot of people who would have benefited from therapy but who took the bottling up, numbing with alcohol and taking it out on others route instead. Anyway what would be the issue with going to a therapist for the reasons you’ve cited? Why would it be wrong? The idea that everybody is turning to therapy at the drop of a hat is bs.

Are you turning to it too quickly, OP?

If not, there is an intriguing question as to why you are concerned about what other people might choose to do? Do you have insight into why you might be so interested in judging other people's choices?

I needed to develop an understanding of what exactly caused it

Trauma arises when something happens that is so awful we need to avoid it at all costs in the future. To do that we need to understand exactly what happened, why it happened and whether our actions (or lack of) contributed to the event(s) in some way. That's why there are flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts as the mind desperately tries to find answers.

When all those variables can be understood we will be safe, right?

But what if the event was simply completely random? What if the other driver died so couldn't explain why they swerved? What if the person who abused or tormented you refuses to discuss it or can't be found? What if the young you saw things that you couldn't understand so developed a false narrative to try to make sense of what you heard or saw?

Accepting that there possibly/probably isn't a satisfactory explanation and never will be is a huge part of letting go of trauma. Once your mind knows that constantly seeking an answer is a fruitless exercise it will let it go and the trauma no longer has an emotional hold over you.

I agree, OP.

you might be interested in reading Abigail Shrier’s book Bad Therapy. It’s focused on adolescents and children but many of the issues it raises apply to adults too.

one thing Shrier points out is that like any other treatment or intervention, if therapy is powerful enough to be beneficial, then it must also be powerful enough to cause harm in certain circumstances. But there is an assumption made that therapy can only be good and beneficial.

No, an emotional support network isn't responsible or able to deal with or process anyones emotions. The affected person has to have had developed the skills to do it themselves and if they can't do it nobody else can do it for them. You can lean on friends, maybe cry about something or take practical advice. But all this isn't what happens in therapy. Therapy really isn't a replacement for the lack of a support network.

Probably because you'll have so many people telling you your sneezing into a tissue wrong and you must be a psychopath for how you do it 😂

I don't know anyone who is turning to therapy for 'trivial' reasons like a bad week at work!

This is made up rationalisation in your head (for an essay/article?)

I do think therapy doesn't suit every problem and not everyone benefits. In our family, though, private therapy to help people struggling acutely has been very beneficial, when the state literally offers nothing.

The biggest problem for teens and children is not getting therapy, it's not getting any treatment at all, getting discharged or unable to access CAMHS, and once they get desperate and take overdoses, for example, then private therapy won't take them as they are too high risk. Private therapy tends to prefer 'easier' problems and teens with more risky mental health issues, who would benefit from proper psychiatric and psychological intervention don't get it, and there's very little in the private sector that will address that. Same for autistic or LD teens, harder to get someone to take you on, but a great person specialising in ND can be life-changing.

Not enough therapy of appropriate kinds, lots of talking therapy for milder problems.

A bit shocking that this is your reply as a therapist. I think I either didn't explain it well enough or you didn't get it.

If the event was random at least you remember there was an event. You'll still have to access and deal with the emotions around this and there isn't any way around it.

Now tell me how to access emotions from an event I don't remember. Tell me how to reduce flashbacks, insomnia, depression and panic attacks. Yeah, that would be all the CBT crap, which doesn't deal with emotions but forces you to think your way out of a panic attack.

Exactly.

This is one of the main purposes of therapy ? To get people to a position where they have techniques and tools to manage the “small things” themselves.

I have had therapy for “workplace stress”. Only it wasn’t really. I had a lot of unresolved issues from childhood and an ongoing mental health condition that, combined with a high stress work environment meant I was indeed unable to cope with the small things.

Therapy taught me to value myself more, to recognise when I can’t take on anything else - when my bucket is full if you like - and how to say no. It made my understand I wasn’t the problem and changed my life.

Because of the way I grew up and the way my mental health condition was managed as a child - I knew none of these things.

I think it's really naive to think you know enough about what's going on in someone's life to know if they should get therapy. To you it might look like one bad week at work, but for them it could be the 52nd bad week in a row and they've just stood being able to mask how they feel.

@Perimenoanti - emotions are subconscious, as are memories and imagination so they can be accessed whether or not you remember the event(s). The way (I use, via remedial hypnosis) to approach childhood trauma is to accept that it can't happen again because you are no longer a child - you have all the tools of maturity, logic, experience and strength on your side. Once your mind knows you are no longer at risk there is no need for your subconscious mind to be raising the alarm bells.

Who are the ‘we’ and ‘people’ you refer to? How many of them do you think there might be?

The essay extract is pretty concerning. A great therapist comes at things with no bias. Friends and family are often operating in their own best interests and sometimes even they don't realise it. So it's not often in anyone's best interest to go to others for support. This is reality and not a problem with me or any individual.

No way on earth can a self help book, friend etc unpick the complexity behind a person and the unique set of circumstance that drives someone. I went to therapy with no clue. I just knew something's was wrong. I'm intelligent yet would never have figured that out without a good professional who also lived it.

I agree that journalling is therapeutic.

I'd suspect some NHS Tsar wrote the essay to further gaslight us all into zombie land and stop us draining resources.

This can be pretty invalidating. The reason for trauma is often the experience of the abuse of power. This is real and not 'defective thinking' and requires the restoration of safety.

The reason for trauma is often the experience of the abuse of power. This is real and not 'defective thinking' and requires the restoration of safety.

All trauma is real, none is 'defective thinking'. There is nothing anyone can do to undo what happened so the aim should always be to recognise that the event(s) were in the past and can not be repeated in the future, therefore there is nothing to defend against and a constant fight or flight reaction is not appropriate (the restoration of safety).

We don't live in the same sort of society we used to. Extended family nearby. Childhood friends who really knew you and you could talk to nearby.
We work more, stress more about the minutiae of life and talk less to people who are significant to us.

Therapy is replacing what we had in society. So no. I don't agree with you at all.

@SnugOtter
I think you are getting mixed up with Therapy and counselling.
Counseling is usually short-term and focuses on the present, while therapy is longer-term and focuses on the past.
I've had Therapy for over 40 years and still do.
Things come back to haunt me.
I was drugged ganged raped in my 20s and ended up with an STI that gave me pelvic inflammatory disease.
Which in turned became years of gynaecology operations etc.
I'd just turn 30 when an ex started stalking me.
He threw me under a moving bus and l was left for dead.. in a coma.. countless more operations.. severely disabled now age 66.
He got jailed.
He's due for parole.
The nightmares continue.
I've had every Therapy going.
At the moment I'm having CAT Therapy and have a brilliant psychiatric therapist.. he's best I've ever had... and CAT Therapy is much much better than what I've had in the past.. even EMDR didn't help me.. but l know it helps loads.. especially men from the military with PTSD.
Things move on in Therapy.. new ideas evolve...
So l really think you mean counselling for people who are having problems like you mean.
Therapy is more complexed.
Google is your friend.
Educate yourself.

What a lovely life you must have if you think trauma magically never reoccurs. Abuses of power often continue. Our place in the world and our exposure to harm needs to change, not ideas our about them (eg. 'defective' thinking). Take traumatic experience of racial abuse as an example.