Therapy is especially good when you're in dark place and don't wanna risk being a burden to family and friends by dragging them down with you. 

 

It's the same when people come to me with their problems, a lot of times i don't know what to say or what I say makes them more upset. They should go to a therapist 

Yes, I use AI for that  jk I went to a therapist in 2019 and it was worthy it.

Yes

The main problem with it is that a lot of people can't afford it. It's really expensive in most countries. 

But also, I feel like some people think therapy is magic and it will fix all your problems. It won't. It's suppoused to give you tools to cope.

I can tell just by being on ATRL some of you have problems accepting other's points of view and  accepting advice. In therapy If you don't make an effort to get better it won't work. Therapists are not there to attack you that's probably your self esteem. Going to therapy is never a confortable situation tho. 

Also there're different approaches to psychology and you have to find the one that fits your personality the most. If you just want to vent out, psychoanalysis may be a better fit for you. But if you already know about your trauma and just want to change something specific or you are having problems coping with one situation, you probably need something like cognitive behavioral therapy. I advice to do your research before making an appointment otherwise you will probably get dissapointed.

 

Edited June 19, 20251 yr by Digitalism

2 hours ago, smartalek22 said:

It's obvious most atrlers haven't 

This is true. My beagles are my therapists 

Yeah, I've been to therapy several times. The first time was when I was 16, but that therapist was pretty awful. After a suicide attempt in my early twenties, I spent a month in a psych hospital and then did about six months of therapy after that. More recently, about a year and a half ago, I was back in therapy for another six months. It definitely helped me to manage my depression and anxiety a bit, but it's hasn't "fixed" me. 

I'm fairly certain I'll never be happy and I'm ok with that, so I don't see the point of trying to solve things with therapy when I can do without them. 

3 hours ago, Swiftie In Red said:

But can't you just do that with friends and family 

if your friends and family don't get annoyed with you using them as a sounding board sure 

 

 

Several times but it took some time to find the right therapist. 
once i was able to find someone good enough. She helped me so so much to improve my life

3 hours ago, Solaria said:

That´s a very valid feeling, and this is something that a lot of self-aware people (including myself) have struggled with in therapy. Somatic therapy helped intensly for me because of this. It's about feeling and experiencing emotional pain, not just talking about it and rationalizing it.

yeah that's what my therapist told me and it actually helped.. she said i'm very self-awaren and  i always try to razionalize everything that happens to me but sometimes you need to allow yourself to feel the emotions or they will show up in the body (in my case headaches and gut problems ). I'm still working on it though

Yes. So far so bad. It hasn't done anything for me yet.

Yes, two times and it's not for me. It felt weird venting to someone who gets paid for it. Idk if that makes sense but that's how i feel. It's not authentic for me. 

 

I have heard from many people that it did help them. Everyone react differently to it from my experience. 

 

Try it. You have nothing to lose. 

Yes, it helped me a lot. It was right after covid. I was feeling depressed and I needed to talk to someone. So I did therapy for 1 year.

 

I had a lot of issues to deal with (I still have but I can handle them better now). So yeah, I would highly recommend it. 

Edited June 19, 20251 yr by alexrex

It's absolutely necessary, specially for the world we are currently living, where bonds are more superficial, people are getting lonelier, and we are surrounded by suffering. Unfortunately it could be expensive, but therapists are people too and need to live/keep studying (and it's not like they're millionaires btw)

 

People who are against therapy/think is useless are a major red flag to me 

it's a hit and miss and depends on several factors, including your therapist actually being good at their job which is not always a given. ultimately, your mental health is your responsibility and therapy is just one aspect of your life that can help you develop some skills, but it's not a fix for everything.

 

it also heavily depends on your situation and what problems you are faced with. i work in offender rehabilitation and i guess you could say my job is therapy-adjacent. we do and talk about various things from emotional awareness and management, healthy thinking, beliefs, goals in life, etc. and i can tell you it only works if you practice and want it to work. and if you have more complex issues, such as diagnosed neurodiversity, an average therapist will not be able to help you deal with that, especially if you need medication and more intense support from a psychologist or a psychiatrist 

 

as much as i believe in mental health intervention, i have to disagree with people here saying it's essential and everyone should do it. if everyone went to therapy, our society would not revolve around anything else. we don't even have enough therapists, and they are not a substitute for a functioning community. if your issues are about systemic problems of our society (isolation, loneliness, housing problems, poverty, homophobia, racism, etc.), what do you think you therapist is going to do? they might suggest developing skills to help you cope but ultimately if your society rejects you for being gay that's going to suck and there is not therapy that can fix that. individual solutions to systemic issues will only take you so far. 

 

you also need to work on developing a support network of friends and family that you can lean on during hard times, that is literally how humans have lived since ever and most humans can only thrive if they have meaningful social links, not some therapist that only listens to you because you pay them. also, if your therapist does not help you manage your issues within 6 months you should switch. sorry, but being in therapy for years on end sounds like a scam to me and the therapist probably made you their cash cow. at some point you should be able to process and deal with life without professional help, i get that it's a different journey for everyone but yeah if you need further support, at least switch therapists every now and then and don't just go to the same person

I think a lot of people misunderstand what GOOD therapy is actually supposed to be because if you think it's about "ranting" and someone just telling you that you're sad and mad then it's a very shallow understanding. It was mentioned that therapy is good for people who lack self-reflection but I think it's the exact opposite. therapy works if you're self-aware. It's not supposed to only tell you what your issues are but what are the tools that will help you get those issues under control and overall lead a better life, and you need to be willing to be curious about yourself, accept that some of your behaviours lead you to difficult situations and be determined to work on them. And this is the job of a therapist, a good therapist has broad scientific knowledge on the human experience, how our brains work, why humans tend to think this way or that way etc. and helps you look at yourself from a completely different perspective. Sometimes we don't even realize how troublesome some of our behaviours might be because for example, this is what we've learned from our childhood home and we've always thought this way of reacting to conflict or dealing with emotions is a standard. 

Also, therapy has been helpful for me because this one hour in the therapist's office is dedicated to ME and no one else. When my issues got significant, talking about them to my family or friends started getting super unhelpful because they would get super worried or they wouldn't understand me or they would start talking about themselves etc. So I definitely recommend therapy but I do think that sometimes it might be difficult to find the right therapist, in my opinion therapists should be calm, composed and professional but they are humans too and there's some bad apples and some good apples and probably some charlatans too. So a good therapist should be guided by a supervisor, have gone through therapy themselves and keep a healthy and professional distance from their patients and not treat their office as an opportunity to rant about their own life.

Edit:

I want to add some things because I just read the post above me which I think is very smart as well. What I wrote is of course 100% my experience and my thoughts so it might not work for everyone, and also some things might be misunderstood. I said that talking about my issues to family and friends proved unhelpful to me, but of course having a support system of friends and family is important and talking about your issues with them is normal - it's just that for me at that moment of my life I felt like ranting about my issues to people around me did nothing to me and I remember how my mom would be constantly worried about me and in general I think like it was a tough time for everyone. When I started doing therapy I could open up in front of my therapist, approached myself with curiosity and discovered tools that helped me deal with my issues. And as a result I didn't feel the need to rant to my mom for example so much and I think it made both of us just more peaceful in general. 

Edited June 19, 20251 yr by gimmelaugh

double post

Edited June 19, 20251 yr by gimmelaugh

I did when I was 19 but my therapist basically dumped me because I refused to try anything she said or take it seriously  I didn't like that it required you to actually do something about your problems 

I spent like 4 straight years in therapy and it was a whole saga that included the first one quitting right when covid started, the second one relocating and dropping me during covid, and the third one eventually quitting as well.  It's really great for your mental health when all of your therapists ditch you!

 

I do agree with the people who think it can be a challenge for those of us who are too self-aware.

 

But a big thing about therapy is that you have to actually want to change your life.  That was something I always struggled with. I even told my first therapist point blank that I "don't care about getting better" and was always saying things like "I'm not happy with my life, but I'm too comfortable with it to change" and none of my therapists ever helped me get through that or the issues that caused that perspective (ie: lack of self worth).

 

If you are in / considering therapy, I'd also advise you to be very direct and upfront about things you want to discuss. Sometimes my third therapist would ask if I was comfortable with my sexuality and I would say "mostly," with the implication that I was not completely okay with it and I wanted her to explore that further, but she never did.
 

Maybe my experience would have been different if I had been on medication at the same time or if I'd had better therapists, but it's hard to measure how much I actually got out of it. Not enough. I guess it helped me learn to better avoid or regulate my negative thoughts and feelings but didn't actually help me address any of the problems that cause those negative thoughts and feelings. So internally I'm a bit better that I was, but externally there's little to show for it. It didn't change my life, just how I feel about it. 

Yes!
 

I had a great experience, my therapist was from my generation and we had a good bond. 
 

She helped me to validate my feelings and challenge some of my views. 

My current employer, as does my next, provides free access to a number of therapy sessions through an outside program. I might take advantage of that not too longer after I start my new job. I just need to vent about this world and get the reassurance that I'm not crazy like a number of people in the world would like me to believe. I'm a millennial that's been caught in a number of financial/economic disruptions, wars, attacks on freedom of speech, indirect homophobic reactions, direct racism and now Trump's MAGA bull plop. And I'm by no means a victim of any of it, but bruh... 

 

yes, it's amazing if you do it with the right person

I am in therapy right now because I am going through the darkest break up ever and It has helped me, I think I would not have been able to manage the pain and grief without it. 

I've done therapy at multiple different levels and found it to be very beneficial. As a teen, I had an incident that forced me into anger management classes, but it was also the first time I had been able to get help for my then undiagnosed mental health issues that my parents were in denial of. Then as a young adult, I went into therapy which mainly helped by allowing for me to work through a few issues and eventually preparing for rehab.

 

I did 3 months of rehab last year which was life-changing. We did group sessions, 1-on-1s, art therapy, I got to do brainspotting a couple of times, all sorts of stuff that really allowed me to dig deep in a space dedicated towards getting better and getting sober. I finally got a diagnosis that made sense- C-PTSD with depression and anxiety comorbid. I swear I have OCD that's been undiagnosed but... baby steps.

 

Since leaving treatment, I've found that I have the tools to handle things on a daily basis, though I shift between periods of feeling great and feeling like I'm back in addiction even if I haven't relapsed. I've been toying with resuming therapy. Not because I need it to function day-to-day, but because I think I may benefit from doing some more trauma work. I will say that while therapy can be incredible, there are also other ways to handle mental health and that people understate just how much mental health can be about one's lifestyle. Going to group meetings, working my program, meditating, having contact with my higher power regularly, and doing a daily inventory are all things that have helped me tremendously. 

Deleted.

Edited June 19, 20251 yr by its_britney_bitch

everyone on this website should absolutely be in therapy. I've been seeing a therapist since 2021 and he's awesome.