My worry is that therapists and therapy are a modern invention that is replacing (poorly) what humans have been doing for thousands of years. Instead of reaching out to your friends, family, or community, you can call some random therapist over FaceTime in your car. That person doesn’t know you or care about you, they have dubious creden…
My worry is that therapists and therapy are a modern invention that is replacing (poorly) what humans have been doing for thousands of years. Instead of reaching out to your friends, family, or community, you can call some random therapist over FaceTime in your car. That person doesn’t know you or care about you, they have dubious credentials, they may be more mentally unstable than you are. It’s just a cheap fast food substitute for leaning on the connections that are meant to make you feel better and stronger. Instead of going to your best friend, your rabbi, your neighbor, you are talking to some stranger, whose incentive is ultimately to keep you coming back. I have yet to hear of a therapist who said “your problems are minor and you don’t need me - you just need to suck it up and move on”. The incentive for the therapist is not to strengthen you. It’s to “validate” your feelings and let you regurgitate and feel briefly better - but that doesn’t leave you more resilient of better equipped to solve your own problems. It’s just the junk food that makes you feel better only while you’re chewing it. Unfortunately, like almost all things in life, the most correct thing to do is usually the most difficult. Eat well, exercise, abstain from drugs, work hard, work on your relationships and upkeep them, get fresh air, sleep well, do saunas and cold plunges, pursue a difficult and fulfilling career, have productive hobbies. That’s so much harder than going to therapy, but also, so much more effective.
My friends are dumb and have problems of their own. They don’t substitute as a therapist if one is truly in need of counseling. That would be an example of taking someone hostage to my own drama. How about we focus on rebuilding self agency skills? Remembering where others end and I begin? For all this talk about a generation who only knows or focuses on themselves, they sure seem to have a tough time allowing others to be who they are. And who do we look to for that skills? Certainly not in the more senior humans on these discussion boards - best as I can tell.
Your point about hostagetaking and boundaries is very important. I am sure many people have been at the mercy of a narcissist, who expands their drama infinitely until we are ourselves never heard, but only a fan club for their latest injuries. However, I think there is a very important truth that should be looked at: why when we have a problem must we pay someone to listen to us? What DID happen to grandparents, aunties, doting uncles, confidantes? The statistics on American friendship or dismal. Vast numbers of people have no close friends to call on. The people I know who are the strongest and most resilient have close ties, confidantes, and people they call on whose perspective they trust both to comfort them and to set them on the right path when they make a self-destructive turn.
Here in Seattle therapy starts at about $150 per hour and goes up. This is for 45 minutes, 50 if you are lucky. I personally cannot afford this. When I have tried on occasion to go to my HMO’s co-pay, only people they are half my age, barely out of school and useless to where I am, and who I am. We need to bring back hanging out. We need to bring back long coffees and late night conversations around the kitchen table.
(Sorry for mangled sentences, couldn’t edit after posting.) I want to add that at a different phase of life when I was in my 20s I urgently needed professional therapy and tried to go to friends, but was so confused at what I was going through and so distraught I overburdened friendship and that pushed people away. There are issues like actual) physical and sexual abuse and alcoholism that can definitely benefit from the help of skilled professionals. Children from alcoholic homes or from homes with sexual abuse tend to gravitate towards others, who come from those same backgrounds and have similar wounds. Liz, I agree, confiding in people who are as confused, and who have similarly distorted perspectives, can create even more problems..
Well, Dasha, I am a therapist and I do exactly that… I never try to keep someone in therapy to pad my pockets. I have a strengths perspective “you are stronger than you think, life has its challenges and let’s figure out how to meet them” approach. I am the child of a Holocaust survivor who spoke about her experiences, shared them with audiences all over the world, and wrote numerous bestselling books about her life. My life lesson has been one of perseverance and resilience, and this is exactly what I attempt to impart to my children and, yes, my patients.
We are not all of the “what went wrong this week “ variety. Some of us employ the “what went right and what did you do to help that happen so that you can do it again “ method.
Soon enough, I’m able to say to many, “you’re doing great, I think you’re ready to do it on your own. I’m always here if you need me “. We part ways, both of us feeling great about the work done together.
I’m sure you’re a great therapist and your patients feel you do a lot for them. My opinion is a dissenting and unpopular one - my feeling is that our current population is the most over-therapized, over-medicated of any in all of history or space. There’s every manner of therapy from online to in person to group to insurance covered to private to FaceTime. It’s every where you look. And yet people are diagnosed with more “anxiety” and “depression” than at any point in history. And I believe that therapy is part of the problem, not the solution. Training resilience in yourself is not easy or pleasant - if it were, it would be called therapy. The cure is not working.
My worry is that therapists and therapy are a modern invention that is replacing (poorly) what humans have been doing for thousands of years. Instead of reaching out to your friends, family, or community, you can call some random therapist over FaceTime in your car. That person doesn’t know you or care about you, they have dubious credentials, they may be more mentally unstable than you are. It’s just a cheap fast food substitute for leaning on the connections that are meant to make you feel better and stronger. Instead of going to your best friend, your rabbi, your neighbor, you are talking to some stranger, whose incentive is ultimately to keep you coming back. I have yet to hear of a therapist who said “your problems are minor and you don’t need me - you just need to suck it up and move on”. The incentive for the therapist is not to strengthen you. It’s to “validate” your feelings and let you regurgitate and feel briefly better - but that doesn’t leave you more resilient of better equipped to solve your own problems. It’s just the junk food that makes you feel better only while you’re chewing it. Unfortunately, like almost all things in life, the most correct thing to do is usually the most difficult. Eat well, exercise, abstain from drugs, work hard, work on your relationships and upkeep them, get fresh air, sleep well, do saunas and cold plunges, pursue a difficult and fulfilling career, have productive hobbies. That’s so much harder than going to therapy, but also, so much more effective.
My friends are dumb and have problems of their own. They don’t substitute as a therapist if one is truly in need of counseling. That would be an example of taking someone hostage to my own drama. How about we focus on rebuilding self agency skills? Remembering where others end and I begin? For all this talk about a generation who only knows or focuses on themselves, they sure seem to have a tough time allowing others to be who they are. And who do we look to for that skills? Certainly not in the more senior humans on these discussion boards - best as I can tell.
Your point about hostagetaking and boundaries is very important. I am sure many people have been at the mercy of a narcissist, who expands their drama infinitely until we are ourselves never heard, but only a fan club for their latest injuries. However, I think there is a very important truth that should be looked at: why when we have a problem must we pay someone to listen to us? What DID happen to grandparents, aunties, doting uncles, confidantes? The statistics on American friendship or dismal. Vast numbers of people have no close friends to call on. The people I know who are the strongest and most resilient have close ties, confidantes, and people they call on whose perspective they trust both to comfort them and to set them on the right path when they make a self-destructive turn.
Here in Seattle therapy starts at about $150 per hour and goes up. This is for 45 minutes, 50 if you are lucky. I personally cannot afford this. When I have tried on occasion to go to my HMO’s co-pay, only people they are half my age, barely out of school and useless to where I am, and who I am. We need to bring back hanging out. We need to bring back long coffees and late night conversations around the kitchen table.
(Sorry for mangled sentences, couldn’t edit after posting.) I want to add that at a different phase of life when I was in my 20s I urgently needed professional therapy and tried to go to friends, but was so confused at what I was going through and so distraught I overburdened friendship and that pushed people away. There are issues like actual) physical and sexual abuse and alcoholism that can definitely benefit from the help of skilled professionals. Children from alcoholic homes or from homes with sexual abuse tend to gravitate towards others, who come from those same backgrounds and have similar wounds. Liz, I agree, confiding in people who are as confused, and who have similarly distorted perspectives, can create even more problems..
Well, Dasha, I am a therapist and I do exactly that… I never try to keep someone in therapy to pad my pockets. I have a strengths perspective “you are stronger than you think, life has its challenges and let’s figure out how to meet them” approach. I am the child of a Holocaust survivor who spoke about her experiences, shared them with audiences all over the world, and wrote numerous bestselling books about her life. My life lesson has been one of perseverance and resilience, and this is exactly what I attempt to impart to my children and, yes, my patients.
We are not all of the “what went wrong this week “ variety. Some of us employ the “what went right and what did you do to help that happen so that you can do it again “ method.
Soon enough, I’m able to say to many, “you’re doing great, I think you’re ready to do it on your own. I’m always here if you need me “. We part ways, both of us feeling great about the work done together.
I’m sure you’re a great therapist and your patients feel you do a lot for them. My opinion is a dissenting and unpopular one - my feeling is that our current population is the most over-therapized, over-medicated of any in all of history or space. There’s every manner of therapy from online to in person to group to insurance covered to private to FaceTime. It’s every where you look. And yet people are diagnosed with more “anxiety” and “depression” than at any point in history. And I believe that therapy is part of the problem, not the solution. Training resilience in yourself is not easy or pleasant - if it were, it would be called therapy. The cure is not working.
There are some therapists who will tell you to stop coming and there is not need but those are few and far between.