Therapy?

No, not the band - used to love them years back though.

I can't be the only one on here shaking my head at this constant tedious 'get therapy' advice.

People.. do you know what a therapist is? The kind that deals with regular Joes, not a psychiatrist/doctor of any kind.

It's someone who has been trained to pretend to give a f about the crap you spew on them - because you pay them USD 250 an hour to do so. It's someone who is intelligent and a good listener. They've been trained to listen and to say nothing. They've been trained to ask the right 'pseudo-questions'. They will NOT sort out your lack of relationship/job/money/life.

'I don't love my boyfriend' - 'I strongly recommend going to therapy to get to the bottom of why you..'

'I cannot stand my job anymore - 'I strongly recommend going to therapy to get to the bottom of why you'..

'I am having an affair because I've spent the last 10 years of my life ignored and neglected' - 'I strongly recommend going to therapy to get to the bottom of why you..

'I am madly in love with someone after 2 months together and feeling very very anxious about it' - see above.

You cannot therapy yourself into loving someone whose touch you can't stand.

You cannot therapy yourself into forgetting someone you adored from the first second you saw them.

People. Get real okay? You cannot just sit at your laptops spewing 'go to therapy' to everyone who has a difficult situation in life. It works for some. It DOES NOT work for all. I for one find it laughable that sitting there listening to someone who paid 50K for a 'good listener' degree tell me, tactfully, how to life my one life is any kind of 'help' at all.

Yes, I've been to therapy - several times. I hated every single one of them. It made me cringe. It made me want to just get the f out of there and never EVER come back. I think it's the biggest con that ever existed.

October Rust

I agree with you. Totally. It's on the same level as 'life coaches.'

Therapy saved my life. Different people different outcomes.

The only part that makes sense is that talk therapy has limitations. If there has not been an evaluation first for mood, neurological etc disorders that would be better treated medically and have been ruled out. Talk therapy is good support, but of course is not effective if there is no belief in it. Many mood, thought and personality disorders do not respond to talk therapy. Cluster B personality disorders in particular rarely respond well to talk therapy. Some talk therapy is for people simply navigating difficult times.

I've been to therapy - several times. I hated every single one of them.

Years ago my doctor referred me to a therapist because I was having a severe depressed episode. The therapist "fired" me because she said I didn't need her, I would be just fine. I was disappointed because I really wanted the help. But eventually I did get past the episode.

This forum kind of serves as therapy for me. I feel like in "real life" I need to act as though I am just fine and very strong, but many times I feel myself slipping badly. The people here kind of level me off (although I still have very bad days).

Therapy works for some, not for others.

A riff to meet your riff:

When I see the suggestion of therapy—be it here, or elsewhere—I don't see a prescription. Just speaking for myself, at least when I've mentioned therapy in the context of whatever else I offer on here, I see it a bit like saying: hey, we here on this site have limitations, big ones, and so it might be worth finding another form of support to explore whatever you're needing to explore. Not a panacea, in short, but just another tool, perhaps a sharper or more effective one, to help fine tune the emotional snags of the sort that lead people to a forum like this.

I've found therapy helpful at various moments in my life: edifying, enlightening, clarifying. Along with yoga. Along with a nip of bourbon here and there. Along with afternoon naps. Along with learning to ride twisty roads on a motorcycle with my cheek eight inches from the pavement. Along with reading voluminously. Along with—for a good stretch—cigarettes, which did absolute wonders for my mood, if not some obvious parts of my machinery. Along with a primarily vegetarian diet. Along with hamburgers. Along with trash television and Buddhist texts. And so on, and so forth...

Guess what I'm saying is that there is no "cure" to the sometimes tricky aspects of being a person, but there are a variety of treatments that work better for some than others—coping mechanisms to try out when some of our trusted coping mechanisms prove to be problematic or, like cigarettes, more unhealthy than anything else. I'm not a religious person, for instance, but I wouldn't judge someone for suggesting I listen to a powerful sermon. I never quite got into Therapy, the band, but I don't think you're foolish for enjoying them—or if, in a parallel world, you were on a forum about music and suggested people looking for a new sound check them out.

I'm a big believer in experts, and expertise—that those who commit substantial time and energy to learning something (how the mind works, how a motorcycle engine functions, how a guitar can be strummed to produce a catchy, transporting melody) provide tremendous value. Someone who dedicated years of schooling to reading Jung and Freud, to understanding brain chemistry and how different stimuli affects the brain, to learning and honing the very fine art of listening—well, I think there is a place for that, just as I think there is a place for someone (like you, in the above) to dismiss it all the pawning of snake oil.

Whatever gets you through the day, in the end, feeling decent in your skin and being decent to others.

It works for some. It DOES NOT work for all.

You already said it all. Pretty much nothing works for everybody except air, water, food, sleep, and maybe good sex.

I had both good and bad experiences with therapy. When it helped it wasn't because the therapist told me something I didn't know or found some magical solution for my problems. Sometimes I simply needed the time and space to talk about things, in a way that I don't feel like doing with my family/friends/partner, to calm my mind and to figure it out on my own. It was not cheap but in general I felt it was worth it. I only used therapy when I was in some kind of crisis or transition. When I start to feel the cost outweighs the benefit I stop.

The person matters, too. A therapist that other people strongly recommends may not click with you. I always try to shop around and meet a few to start when I want to see a therapist. It's a bit like dating - you have to find someone who you're comfortable with. I know the feeling of sitting through a session with a therapist and everything they say just rubs you the wrong way. Not fun. Sorry you never had a real therapeutical experience with therapists. I think therapy is an important part of mental health care. Not many people who are just going through a tough time need to see a psychiatrist/doctor. And then there is marriage/relationship counseling - which I haven't tried but I heard can be a lifesaver for some. Likely a waste of time and money for others, of course.

I agree with your sentiment that recommendation for therapy (or even psychiatrist/doctors) can be overused sometimes on this forum. In many cases there are other ways of self care, many of which far predate modern therapy, that can work just as well. There are people who are simply not in in the position financially to afford therapy. There are parts of the world where therapy is not as popular/accessible and still associated with strong stigma. Everyone's situation is different. Recommending therapy is probably a simple "one-size-fits-all" prescription that presumes a lot of these things, like many doctors who, facing a new patient, often start with the most common condition/treatment that fits their symptoms and see how it goes.

More generally, what many people are seeking on this forum is not that different from therapy - someone to talk to, a listening ear, maybe with some advice. The advice here comes for free but from people who don't necessarily have any training or experience, people who are often facing the same troubles themselves. So it should be a given that any such advice comes with the bias/limits of that person, just like how what therapists can offer are limited, but even more so. You can see how a user's advice is shaped by their own experience of the world, their own stories, their own perceptions. But here you hear from different people with different perspectives, so you can feel free to take the parts that are helpful and ignore the parts that are not (e.g., therapy). Not much unlike what I do with therapists, I'd say.

Under review...