What is the obsession with therapy/counselling?

[iamfedupwiththis]

Ok please tell me what is the bloody obsession on this site with therapy or counselling??

Nearly every thread I read there are people suggesting therapy for the most simple of things

Can no one make any decisions alone any more?

Can no make changes to improve their life with it?

Can no one pick up a hobby or do something for themselves without?

I don't get it?

I don't get what talking about it for years on end changes the situation.

I have never seen people being obsessed with it. One only recommends it, if someone really is in need of one.

I completely disagree. I am the type of person who finds fun in every situation. I’ve developed a dark humour and there’s very little I won’t find a joke in. I was the typical class-clown to try and deflect people from the horrors of what was happening at home. I’m optimistic. I genuinely very rarely even thought about my past. I wasn’t the type of person to wallow.

I still needed therapy. You cannot laugh off decades of trauma. Unfortunately I was in my 40s before I found a fantastic therapist who dug and forced me to look honestly at myself and identify how I’d been fucking my life up for years because I was stuck in old patterns.

Trauma isn’t ’being miserable’. It’s not ‘wallowing in self-pity’. It’s about accepting you have been damaged, and making changes to stop you from continuing to damage yourself and others. It’s not about expecting to be happy all the time. It’s about finding peace.

Some lucky people already have peace. Don’t begrudge it of everybody. We all deserve it.

I read through some of this but just wanted to say that therapy has been life changing for my daughter. She’s autistic and finds much of the world pretty difficult but her CAHMS therapist has been great - really pragmatic, making suggestions that hadn’t occurred to me, homework each week with a specific goal in mind. She’s so, so much more settled now.

In my experience if you go through a major loss or difficult period in life friends are only around or understanding up to a point. And even then they aren’t trained therapists. I’m a big proponent of paying someone to listen to my shit rather than putting it on those around me. Grief counselling was invaluable for me after my mum died quite suddenly.

I’ve had loads of therapy and it’s really helped. Talking about a problem with someone who listens and knows how to ask the right questions is a good way of coming up with solutions and also understanding what’s happened. It is known to be effective.

Not just the alcohol, doing the other things as well

Is that not just learnt behaviour, both you and your son needing it and finding it helpful?

But what good is talking about it, why aren't you trying to solve your issues? Talk about it until you're blue in the face but until changes are made then surely you're just going round in circles?

I don't understand why everybody is obsessed with booze in this country. All problems seem to be sorted with a large gin. I hate gin and don't need it as I feel a quick chat with my therapist does the job rather than breathing my gin fumes and drunken unpleasantness all over everybody else.

It sounds like you are triggered because you would benefit from therapy.

When I lost my DH, many professionals (mainly GPs, hospital etc) tried to force counselling/ medication on me. I refused it all. I knew I had to just grieve and plough through it.

Death/greif is part of life.

Nothing anyone, especially a stranger, could say or do would change that I’d lost the man that meant so much.

3 years on, I’m glad I just did it alone. 👍

Try vodka or wine.

But what is your therapist doing for you that a bloody good moan with a friend wouldn't do?

Not triggered by anything, just trying to understand what everyone's obsession is with therapy.

A friend will generally support you no matter what you say or do. Some very very good friends will challenge you, but most won't. A good therapist will spot patterns of thinking, unhelpful behaviour etc that you might not be aware of. It's not moaning, it's active discussion of things that have affected you and done right it helps you to take the action that you're so keen on.

IMO if everyone was forced to get good therapy the world would be a far far better place.

No one is obsessed with therapy, it's just that we now have access to it. Where before people continued in patterns of toxic or harmful behaviours, struggled with mental health etc alone, now they can access actual support and get better.
People actually talk about their problems instead of dealing with them alone. Does every single situation require therapy - no probably not but if you have to down a bunch of alcohol to cope with your feelings then it probably does.

But that only a good therapist and come on, they can't all be good.

I am not saying that there aren't some circumstances that therapy won't be useful.

But surely a therapist who challenges you, makes you look at things from another angle is only doing things that you would get on here for free?

Asking me questions which promote reflection. Some examples of that could be:
Why are you so obsessed with other people benefiting from therapy?
Why does it make you so angry?
Why do you feel unable to shift from your position that therapy is bad despite overwhelming evidence that people on this thread generally find it beneficial?
Why do you consider "grin and bear it" to be a superior approach?
Are there any examples in your life where you were made to feel bad for needing help?
Could this be impacting on how you view others being comfortable with asking for support?

Bring paid for it, so that you don't end up using your friends as therapy and constantly burdening them with your problems on top of their own.

You lose friends that way.

You're right that not all therapists are good, which is why I said 'good' therapy.

And no, a forum with random people on it, some of whom have their own serious issues, others of whom are trolls, is not the same as a therapist.

Maybe I do need to explore why I feel so passionate about it.

I mean, of course people can. But think about where they're posting? They're coming to an anonymous site presumably because they need a sounding board and are lacking that in real life. Some situations are going to be more complex than people can accurately advise on based off a short snippet they've read in a post.

Personally I'm very pro counselling, my mother refused to address her mental wellbeing and we all suffered for it so I make a conscious effort to be more self reflective in the hopes that it will benefit both me and my child in the future. I've found it really helpful during certain times of my life and its definitely helped me 'let go' of some things I was holding onto from the past.

At the end of the day, it's no different to any other advice posters get in that it's free advice and they don't need to take it if they don't want to/ don't feel its for them. But personal development and growth is something I'll always advocate for.

To reference your post that I've quoted above, the problem is that people do have a limit. Burnout is a very real thing and people can find themselves quite literally unable to get out of bed or becoming actually psychotic because of the impact of 'getting on with it' for a sustained period. I'm a lone parent so I completely get the need for a get up and on with it attitude but I think it only works for a while and that's where we now know there are close links between prolonged emotional distress and physical health consequences. It always comes out somewhere.

You've identified ways you find helpful to cope with that, but not everyone has coping strategies that work well enough, that are available when they need them or that are in any way healthy. You talk about enjoying a drink but if that's your coping method then what happens when you hit crisis, that could become a problem. Which is why its helpful to have something like counselling.

There but for the grace of god go I, Op. maybe try and have a little more tact and awareness that everyone copes differently.

Not everyone needs therapy, but it can definitely
be a game changer for people who really do need it. I find it interesting OP that you say things like “just get on with life, why go over things, just move on, don’t dwell”, because for years I had red flags
for anxiety disorder and never did anything about it. I kept ignoring symptoms, pushed things to the back of my mind, spoke to my friends, had hobbies, enjoyed my job, etc etc - my life looked pretty good and whenever I got anxious I would push it deep down rather than look at why I was getting anxious. I got shingles and even was told by my GP that at my age (was 32 at the time) I must be under considerable stress to be suffering from shingles and should address it. I ignored his sage advice, and guess what? A few months later I had a breakdown after years of “just getting on with it”. Had therapy, could see why my mental health was the way it was, worked things out with my therapist to change the way I reacted and to be kinder to myself. Don’t have therapy now, but credit it with saving my mind. Sometimes “just getting on with it” is actually making the problem much much worse. yes, not all problems in life/on Mumsnet need therapy, but some very much do.

Yourself, obviously, and if you don't talk about yourself then you are clearly in need of therapy, from some quack who is making a fortune from you!