Is psychotherapy useless?
Asked by
Charles (
4826
)
May 4th, 2012
If you have some awful problem locked away in your mind, then will talking for days, weeks, months on end necessarily going to lead to your dealing with it? Does it mean that you’re seeing a therapist for who-knows-how long (it could easily be for the rest of your life!) and paying handsomely for the privilege of running your mouth?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
7 Answers
It’s helped me. Those “problems locked away in my mind” wouldn’t stay locked and were causing me a great deal of pain. I’d much rather talk through those problems than medicate them away.
Psychotherapy, in it’s various permutations, saved my life.
It can be. Or it can be hugely helpful. It depends on the exact type of therapy, the patient, the therapist, and the problems.
Yes. Talking about your problems with a professional will lead to nothing. Stuff those insecurities, anxieties, and fears into a bitter little ball. Swallow them down down down until they are so deeply imbedded into your psyche that they release themselves in ways that you don’t comprehend. The pain of loss is yours alone. Let it simmer and drink your problems away like a real man.
Depend on the skill of the therapist. Some only hold your hand and jolly you along, giving you sympathy and support.. Others. will lead you to recognize things that are interfering with your comfort with yourself and others. Then you can do something about those things. If, after a couple months, you have not reached at least one insight, consider finding a different therapist. Or at least mention your frustrations with your lack of progress.
It’s useless if you have a preconceived idea that it is useless.
Think it’s useless it will be useless because your subconscious has decided it to be so.
It will be useless if you are anything but brutally honest with the therapist as well as yourself.
It will be useless if you are grandiose and think you know better than a professional.
It will be useless if you run when it gets uncomfortable.
It won’t be useless if you are really ready to commit to doing some work or yourself and are ready to change your stories and drop your bad mental habits and change your thinking.
Like happiness, it will be as effective as you make up your mind for it to be.
It can be helpful for some people but I tried it for my depression and it was absolutely no help at all. In fact, after my weekly session the next two or three days I would be feeling far worse than I would if I didn’t go at all.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
