To think therapy is for the benefit of others

[Soggybogdog]

I've become increasingly suspicious that therapy and counselling is primarily for the benefit of the people around the bereaved or anxious or struggling person rather than the person themselves. It doesn't seem to help the person going to therapy, but it means they talk to the therapist more than the people around them. They don't intrinsically feel better about the situation.
I think the only way it helps is that it lessens people's perception that they are a "fun sponge". It's a way for everyone else to not have to listen to worries and upset. The person in therapy feels the same but has spoken into a therapy void rather than weighed everyone else down.

Therapy is with a psychotherapist not a physio!

I am a trained counsellor and a trained psychodynamic psychotherapist and when I practiced I was registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and was bound by their code of ethics. However this membership was entirely voluntary. It isn't a legal requirement.

In the UK there are no legal standards or controls for counsellors or other therapists. Just as anyone in the UK can call themself a counsellor any one in the UK can call themself a psychotherapist and start charging for services. There is no set standard of training, there is no license required and no need pass any exam or test.

Psychiatrists are different again - they are medical practitioners and as such closely regulated. They are often the most appropriate people to work anyone who is seriously mentally unwell but the NHS mental health services are so severely overstretched it can be nigh on impossible to see one. The local A&E psychiatrists used to refer teenagers who had attempted suicide to our counselling service because CAMHS was too busy to see them.

I think many of us are familiar with the type of person who insists the therapists dont know what they are doing and it is all a waste of time.

Have a look at the character "Barb" from the "Shawna The Mom" world.

It's an odd way to look at it OP as I doubt many people pay for therapy for just one life event. Therapy usually involves deep dives into repeating behaviours or choices, for example, to find out drivers and finding better ways to cope or manage situations that are individually triggering. Of course this benefits people around the person getting therapy, as well as future partners, which is why people do it!

You're very unnecessarily combative and insulting, aren't you? Not a great advertisement for therapy.

(Incidentally, I acknowledged it works for some people, but the fact is that it didn't help me to get past my trauma, or the issues that stemmed from it. That's just my experience and it's not an attack on you, so there's really no need for you to be so aggressive.)

For those asking, yes, I have had therapy. I've been under a clinical psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist and I've also had counselling. After going through my history, relationships, chatting, traumatic events etc. over many sessions I felt the same and my write ups said that I was "presenting in an objectively calm manner" and that I was dealing with past events appropriately. So basically lots of chat, no help, no progress. But a box ticked because I'd been to therapy.

Not meaning to be antagonistic as this is a genuine question but what were you expecting from therapy?
Did you want to change your own thought processes, change how you view events/ people?

Maybe, but it's worth exploring the idea?

Personally I think you've got a valid point, OP.

Therapy is not necessarily the same for all, many people themselves experience change in their behavior. It asks for time and fair commitment and the results possibly would be non-disappointing.

Did you want therapy at that point or were you told to have it?

Therapy is a dialogue and if it’s a dialogue you don’t want to have then it probably doesn’t do much. Therapy is also hard work you have to be prepared to challenge your learned world view and deal with uncomfortable feelings. If that isn’t something you are ready to do or simply don’t want to do then therapy won’t bring about a change by osmosis.

Don’t you think this is the sort of thing that would be explored during the therapy process? The way the OP has expressed it is seeing therapy as just a place to get your worries off your chest and that you should really be doing that with friends or family. That is a hugely reductive way are looking at therapy.

Regarding bereavement, the English are awful at dealing with death and bereavement compared to other cultures. But a good bereavement counselling service won’t see someone in the acute stages of grief as those feelings of depression, despair are a normal reaction.

Primarily, I was hoping for help to process a series of traumas from my childhood and teen years, and move forward from them. My experiences were causing me depression and social anxiety, and a hell of a lot of emotional pain.

I now know that autism and ADHD probably exacerbated some of my issues but they were never picked up on. I'm not sure what modalities my earlier two therapists used; I saw them during my teenage years/young adult years, and either wasn't told or don't remember, although they were clinical psychologists. But the latter three seemed to be mostly talk therapy/CBT, as that was what was available to me on public health.

If you were already calm and dealing with things appropriately what outcome would you have liked? What was your reason for going

I'm fairly neutral about therapy, having never been myself. I think it can help some people, but I think over-use of 'therapy-speak' can be incredibly irritating and is sometimes used to justify/explain away bad behaviours (and sometimes to inaccurately pathologise natural, normal human emotions and reactions).

No, I don't think it's mostly for the benefit of others, but if someone is driving their friends and family away by forcing them into the position of unwilling therapist, maybe it can be for the benefit of both them and the people around them (which is still a benefit for the person in therapy, since it prevents them from scaring other people off).

I'm very sorry to hear about your husdand, do you mind me asking whether you ever did have therapy for this?

My husband is in very last stages of terminal illness and all the way through this has been a constant theme from some of my friends. Actually they're not people I partiuclarly talk to about the emptional side of things (so hopefully not trying to stop me offloading to them) but it just seems to be an expectation that if you go through something like this then you will need therapy. Obviously it's been awful but I think I know myself well and at the moment see the emotions I'm feeling as a part of life rather than a problem to be solved. I wouldn't be averse to having therapy if I felt there was a need in the future but I'm worried that there's an expectation (from some people) that you have to have ticked the therapy box to be allowed back into society...

I'm not convinced it's the actual therapy that makes any difference - just that everyone around the person suffers from less emotional fatigue

But surely the person who is having therapy would typically want their friends and family to suffer less emotional fatigue? For me, that alone would be a good enough reason to go to therapy.

Why would I want to put my loved ones through distressing, exhausting, boring, repetitive conversations that were all about me?! It isn't fair on them. I don't want them to be miserable just because I am.

Also, friends and family aren't remotely qualified to give unbiased, neutral advice. They're too close to you and they don't have any training in the techniques a therapist uses.

"presenting in an objectively calm manner" and that I was dealing with past events appropriately

What had you hoped for from your therapy that would be different from that?

I don't think therapy is necessarily meant to make your feelings go away - more to help you process them in a way that's not harmful and enables you to continue with normal life as best you can. And if you were calm and able to manage things appropriately to get through the day, then it sounds to me like that was progress, of sorts? I don't think therapy is ever going to be a 'cure' for anything, any more than a paracetamol is a 'cure' for flu - they're both things that treat the symptoms and help you cope with them, rather than a cure.

But of course if you were hoping for something different then I can see why that disappointed you.

If you think you'd have made the same progress from talking to friends and family, then sure, you might be right - but it might also have had a negative effect on your relationships with them, and on their own mental health, which in turn wouldn't have helped you. So I wouldn't look at the therapy you had as wasted time, even if it wasn't quite the outcome you wanted.

I voted YABU because both counselling and therapy have really helped me, but I do totally get that MH issues can be a real strain on others. I'm absolutely sure when I was depressed I was no fun to be with at times, but that's partly why I got counselling. To be more fun, but also to HAVE more fun. To regain my lost sense of humour.

You say "everyone around the person suffers from less emotional fatigue and that stability makes it seem like the therapy is working to the person who is going every week."

What that says to me is, this person is measuring their mental wellness only by how others behave around them. Others seem happier? = I'm better. Others seem less happy? = I'm worse. That's not really measuring your mental health properly, in my book. Never mind others, how do YOU feel within yourself? The fact that a person is focusing on the mood of others rather than him/herself is itself an issue to be dealt with in therapy. It sounds like people-pleasing, which is usually a result of low self-esteem. Which is usually a result of emotional neglect in childhood. Hello, that's me.

I'm really sorry your therapy didn't seem to help.

I'm sorry about your husband too 💐

No I didn't have therapy in the end, although like you, I wasn't completely against it or anything, I just simply didn't need it.

It was just the assumptions from others that of course I definitely would and they found it quite shocking.

Thank you, that's really helpful.

For me personally, the practical and emotional support we received from the hospice nurses was worth its weight in gold and all we really needed.

Why would I be an advertisement for therapy? I just think many of us have come across those who insist therapy isn't effective and it is usually because they aren't going there for the right reasons snd they think they are above the therapist and therapy itself. DBT is usually what those people need once they are in a place to.accept they need it.

So you are trying to resolve childhood trauma?

I work with trauma and this is how I describe it;

When something bad happens, a part of our mind gets the job of working out why it happened, for the express purpose of recognising and avoiding a similar threat in the future.

However, when we suffer a traumatic event (or a series of events) in our lives - especially early trauma - there isn’t always an answer to that question. Trauma can be so unexpected and undeserved that in truth we didn’t do anything wrong to cause it, and certainly couldn’t have avoided it.

The need to make some sort of sense of the experience can often lock us into that moment. A part of our subconscious becomes unable to move on until we can fully understand it and put it to rest in our minds. Sometimes simply letting that part of the subconscious know that it can stop looking for an answer.

Remedial hypnosis can be very effective at cutting the emotional ties with the trauma – you don't forget it but it no longer affects you, it no longer defines your adult life.

I've got a functional disorder that my consultant thought was triggered by grief or a suppressed trauma from my childhood that I'm not aware of. The grief aspect is what the people I have seen have said that I am dealing with appropriately. They also said that I don't seem to have any trauma, but also that it might be buried so deep that I don't know. In which case, then what? It's like Schrödinger's trauma. I either have it or I don't and I apparently have no way of knowing. Which makes it just sound like nonsense. I was happy to have therapy as a means to help my physical symptoms, I'm medically trained and understand the implications of stress on physical symptom presentation, but I was very underwhelmed by all aspects of therapy and counselling.
I also think it's mad to say that someone is doing therapy wrong as a PP said. Assuming they aren't there under duress then it is the therapists job to tailor the sessions to them - the therapist does therapy every day, the client is a novice. They can't lead it.

I might be wrong but I’m not sure what that’s what they mean.

my ex, for example, was just resistant to therapy. He had a serious mental illness, and couldn’t engage. He was in such denial that talking to someone about it made no sense.

we had relationship counselling towards the end and after 2 sessions the counsellor said she couldn’t see us as he wasn’t going to be able to do the work- she was right, it was a waste of money.

not everyone can do therapy, like any treatment not everyone responds to it. Or, it may not be the right type (I personally can’t imagine something like CBT is suitable for trauma)

my ex isn’t inadequate, he’s not doing it wrong - but he won’t benefit from therapy. All he can do is turn up and answer their questions, and that isn’t therapy.