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.

My best friend had a similar situation with her narcissistic ex husband (yes, clinically diagnosed). I think the issue stemmed from the fact he found it impossible to see himself in a bad light and take any responsibility.
I think a lot of us know people like this who don't "believe in psychology" and think they are cleverer than everyone else, but to everyone else seem to be the most in need of therapy.

It is so frustrating reading posts like this.
Yes, there are a few inept therapists about.
But therapy changes a lot of lives.
Loved ones can no more provide what a great therapist can deliver any more than a family member could give you surgery with no surgical training. If you were married to
an actual surgeon they still wouldn’t do it as they where an emotional connection to you, and need to stay calm and focused.
Trauma-relayed therapy with EMDR gave me my life back. And in therapy you have a safe space. You often don’t want to tell loved ones about upsetting events as they often get upset and sorry.
A therapist can talk to their professional supervisor about difficult cases.
I didn’t do therapy ‘for other people’ but it helped all of my relationships.
If you slice your hand open you don’t stick it out to a friend asking them to sew up for you? They are not qualified and feel an emotional pull towards you. In A and E, they will be assessed and seen by someone with the correct skills. Done badly and an infection can get in.
Why people thinks mind are different I’ve no idea.

Yes!

No. My therapy is to help me. As a result of therapy,
I have challenged my DM about some of the thoughtless things she has said to me. She did not appreciate it but it was good for me to get a few things off my chest.

the therapist does therapy every day, the client is a novice. They can't lead it.

Absolutely correct, but only the client can know, and say, what outcome they are looking for.

I have had some therapy, it didn't cure as that is impossible, what it did do was let me talk to an impartial person and not burden family and friends,who would have been devastated to see how much mental pain I was in. So you could say it helped those around me but not in the way you mean.

@INX and @Sunnyphoenix I am really sorry for what you both have and are going through. I think you have both highlighted something important. Grief is incredibly hard and not a straight road but it is an entirely appropriate response to loss. It may become something else, such as depression which might need therapy or counselling but the rush to prescribe therapy for bereavement isn’t necessarily appropriate and it doesn’t need “fixing” (and can’t be fixed). I think friends don’t know how to respond or react to the changing nature of grief and want to provide “solutions”.

Julia Samuel’s book Grief Works has been recommended to me as a helpful book that is free from “solutions” and talk of “stages of grief” (a misinterpretation of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s writing on the subject) and other simplistic and rather alienating concepts. 💐💐

My therapist said that the point of therapy was to do herself out of a job. So now I cry alone (mostly) but also I love therapy and recommend it to anyone and their dog.

Why would you be combative and insulting to someone who's engaging politely and in good faith, and hasn't said anything offensive?
Personally, I've heard both DBT and ACT are good for people with autism and ADHD, and ACT makes a lot of sense to me, but there are no affordable therapists near me who use either. Happily, I seem to be managing well without it, these days.

But I do wonder why people take the fact that therapy hasn't worked well for others so personally.

A couple of aquaintances have had therapy which has been or seems to have been purely affirmation and this did nobody any good! Each was affirmed in their separate and very different view that they were quite right to withdraw further from any responsibility or interaction with the world and that everything was the fault of circumstances/ other people.

Both stopped trying for a ling time. One has now come out the other side, the other has become even more withdrawn.

One had a parental bereavement quite young and the other is probably neurodivergent but doesn't want to look into that.

The right therapy (and diagnosis in the second situation) would doubtless have been invaluable, but unfortunately there are a lot of terrible therapists, or at least qualified therapists willing to work with clients they are absolutely not a match for!

What OP said was actually was exactly how I felt, with many of my therapists. What @Eyesopenwideawake resonated with me though, and is how I've managed to move past much of my trauma – but my therapists never actually helped me achieve that. It sounds as though it may have been an issue with modalities? That's one issue I have with therapy – it's very expensive if you go private, and yet there's little guidance for people in regards to working out which modality would work best for their particular issues.

Again, it's interesting to see how people are determined to paint those who have found therapy unhelpful as the problem, when that absolutely isn't necessarily the case.

Kind of. I started using my husband as a therapist in the sense that all my anxiety I was pouring out to him and he said he felt like my carer and didn’t want to be and I didn’t want him to be either.

i think if friends and family feel less stress around the person in therapy it's a benefit to everyone.a good therapist will enable you to know yourself better,provide coping skills and be less dependent on others.

Unless you have the therapists word for this, I wouldn't believe it. This is one of the ways people weaponise therapy simply because nobody knows what goes on in solo sessions. No decent therapist would ever disclose this information to a 3rd party.

Couples therapy is different. There an abuser can manipulate the therapist. That's why many therapists do not believe that couple's therapy is ethical.

I think you feel defensive and that is why you feel like that about what I am saying.

The truth is that people like this might actually benefit from talking therapy more if they accept that they are being obstructive to their own progress.

I'm not defensive, I'm just mildly offended that without knowing any details whatsoever, the first two responses to me assumed that I was doing therapy wrong, or didn't stick at it, followed by other negative implications, none of which are true. Since then, you've cast a number of unpleasant aspersions, including just now implying I must have been obstructive.

In actuality, I was actively wanting therapy to help me deal with the lasting after-effects of CSA and being trafficked as a minor – but it's interesting to see the way people immediately leap to the idea that someone must be uncooperative and obstructive, rather than that the therapy they engaged with just didn't resonate with them in a way that was helpful.

There's a strangely defensive, almost cult-like attitude around therapy at times, with this immediate jump to blaming an individual instead of considering that the therapists or modalities may not have been right for that particular person.

As I said, many of us have seen patterns where people who are known to us, and therefore we know traits of their personality on every day interactions, have said similar. Our familiarity with said person lets us know that they are generally obstinate in their interactions, particularly when people disagree with them. So we know them as combative to anything they perceive as a challenge to their worldview, and they also report that therapy is ineffective.

I disagree it gives people the tools to cope and learn new things and also overcome obstacles they may never of knew how to

So you're making unfounded assumptions about random strangers based on people you know? I find it ironic that you're accusing others of being combative and obstinate, considering your own comments on this thread. I'm not sure why someone saying that therapy was unhelpful to them, although they can see others benefit from it, has set you off so much, but I'll leave it there as clearly it's a personal issue for you.

My beloved daughter died aged 24 last October. Totally unexpectedly. The scale of my loss and trauma and grief is impossible to over state. I had very strong suicidal ideation, terrible intrusive thoughts and flashbacks to the day of her death that left me vomiting.

I have been having psychotherapy since January. And EMDR since May. My grief is still overwhelming but the EMDR in particular has slightly softened the spikiness of the trauma. I can’t imagine a time when I will ever feel anything approaching happiness again. But I am no longer having consistent suicidal thoughts (they do occur, but are not constant) and I am moderately functional. I credit the quality of my therapy with the fact that I now eat solid food again and brush my hair and teeth each day!

I do think there is a wide range of therapists out there though and some are really not very good.

No.

Transference, countertransference is real.

Understanding child development, how the brain, emotions and personality develop when things go well and when they (significantly) don't means that a good well trained therapist understands the possible divergencies from relatively healthy thought patterns, resilience and emotional life.

They can also keep a necessary balance between closeness and distance. Getting emotionally involved is disastrous to the therapeutic relationship.

Joe the electrician or Helen the lawyer might listen and care but they really don't have the training to understand what's going on in therapy or how best to guide someone through the sometimes very difficult process of facing heavy emotions or buried trauma / shell shock, or the process of forming new and better patterns of interaction and thought.

Not sure physiotherapists are best placed for this

@Soggybogdog 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 am not saying this is the case for you but I've encountered two situations where extreme trauma very early on, certainly pre-memory, have had profound life long effects.

It seems that brain development is plastic in infants, but not infinitely so.

It was an autocorrect - I typed psychotherapist

No, not the therapist's word, but therapy isn't about the therapist any more than healthcare is about the doctor/nurses/allied health care professional - this is what the individuals got out of therapy.