Therapy has become so much more accessible and normalized over the past 5-10 years which is incredible, but I now feel like it has become a replacement for venting and working through issues on your own and talking about these things with people who care about you. Don’t get me wrong, therapy is absolutely the right step when you identify themes in your life that you are struggling with and you’ve received perspectives from people who know you well. But not every problem is so big that you need a medical professional who charges $200 a session to overcome it and whenever I see someone tell someone else to take that route as a first response to their problems it feels so callous to me as if they just don’t want to deal with it.
Anyone who has been to therapy knows that it won’t be successful without a ton of self work, reflection, and openness. Hiring a therapist the minute you start having issues in your life is not realistic for most people and is certainly not a replacement for a support network of close friends and family, but directionally it seems like it’s increasingly common for advice to be “you need therapy”.
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Most people aren’t getting advised to seek therapy on a regular basis.
Woah I hope this is not unpopular because I truly feel a lot of the times people say therapy doesn’t work is because therapy is the only place they do the work.
I always leave with “homework”. Mental homework. Maybe it’s “every time you have [insert thought] i want you to consider this” advice from the therapist. And I do it outside. Come back and debrief while discussing stuff.
I use half of my session to vent and then the other half to debrief and discuss how I could have made the situation better or thought better about myself. And speak on how to have better interactions Then get homework for it and repeat.
Therapy is constant work you have to be willing to do.
I agree. People have told me to go seek therapy right after I told them why I will never seek therapy (because I was harmed by it multiple times).
It is kind of dismissive, but when you know someone who constantly complains about the same problem over and over, never takes your advice, and then expects you to somehow make them feel better every time, it’s really the only answer. That person will never listen anyway, but some people really do just need to go to therapy.
I thought the trend here is those post descriptions are severe enough only people will advise therapy, which is reasonable. A normal reditor can somehow “gauge” the severity quite accurately imo thru my observation, but then i am not a doctor, just some random uneducated guess
In some sense, the financial cost can motivate people to actually do the work because there’s something tangible on the line for them.
Friends should absolutelyyy be able to share what’s going on with them, what they’d like to focus on, receive support and encouragement, etc, but I’ve had friends who have outright dismissed therapy, only to talk about the same issues years later with little to no change. It gets exhausting.
If you hold your friends accountable in some cases, you may need to prepare to lose them if they aren’t serious about internal work and are simply using it to get their feelings affirmed vs be advised on actionable changes.
Also, there may be some things you simply shouldn’t talk about to your friends… so a therapist is a safer option.
All very complex and dependent on the individuals and motivations involved.
I firmly believe every single person on earth needs therapy. Not every week forever, but it should be a common thing like seeing a doctor. Check ins throughout the year or something.
To take this a step further, what’s worse is when people in your life who do attend therapy won’t engage with you about anything unless you do as well, and so they have this sense about them that they have the moral high ground and its on the other person to take the proper steps.
It really comes down to how you put it, if you were to say,” Go to therapy psycho!” People would take that in a negative way, if you would say,”Please, you need assistance, go to therapy, and I hope you get better.” It would be positive.
It’s kind of amazing how even small problems in one’s life can be fixed with a little therapy.
I think your age matters. I’m here for my friends but I don’t have the time to commiserate for hours on end like I did in my teens and 20s, and I know my friends don’t have the space to listen to all the shit I got going on either. But the therapist I pay does.
I hate this shit. It’s just lazy at this point. And guess what their answer is to me saying that I‘m not compatible with therapy.. Well try more therapy you‘re doing it wrong..
Seriously fuck these guys, they sound like a cult
There’s nothing wrong with a friend or acquaintance telling you they don’t have the energy to process your shit for you. If their reasoning happens to be “go to therapy” and you take offense, I mean, sorry? Figure out something else. If you have other friends then leverage them instead. If this friend was your Hail Mary then my dude that’s a huge hint that therapy is the best option.
Most people are not capable of working through problems on their own. If they were, they wouldn’t be so crazy.
And venting just reinforces bad feelings so you should cut that out.
It’s just a polite way of calling someone crazy.
I honestly thinking mental health as a whole has become a joke.
As someone that has constantly struggled, every second of every day for the last 15 or so years….I watch people all the time that have “depression” or “ptsd” or whatever the fuck Google told them, have no clue what it’s legitimately like.
One of my best friends, to this day, still does not understand depression and believes it has some kind of on/off switch like it’s a choice.
People use “go to therapy” as a put down and don’t want to entertain the potential damage that comes with that. It’s almost the same feeling as when I hear someone say “that person belongs in the looney bin”
I need to have the emotional energy of one of my friends needs a whinge.
People expect professional level mental health services from random friends and maybe even society as a whole all the time now. I am happy to listen to a friend all I can. However, I don’t really know how to help with very entrenched personal issues.
When I was in college I had a friend group very committed to trying to help each other through our mental conditions. But we could never fix our friend’s depression. People spent years trying to help me through “anxiety” which wound up not being anxiety but rather OCD. After this, I’ve just accepted that even those with the best intentions just can’t help each other through the labyrinths our minds have created. Even therapists never seem to be able to solve these problems, just look at people who have been in therapy for years and are still struggling with the same class of personal problems.
It’s not dismissive, it’s an admission of not knowing how to help.
I agree it’s a little overused. Any minor problem? Reddit will be like “Therapy, now.”
I see it the same way I see minor injuries at home. Some stuff you can treat yourself and not need actual help with. Minor cut? Wash it and put a bandaid on it. You wouldn’t go to a doctor for that. Hurt a muscle? Avoid using it for a few days and see if it gets better. You don’t need to rush to the ER for that unless it persists or gets worse. Same can be applied to minor mental issues. Feeling a little down about something? Or stressed? Give it a little time and see if it gets better. If not, consider therapy. But you don’t have to rush to get professional help for everything.