Therapy is overrated

Couldn't you say the same thing about doctors? That they are benefiting from someone's health problems, and they are making a ton of money doing so? The reason therpy costs so much is because it takes a person years and years of extensive training and certifications to be able to be a therapist. I would know, I used to be on that path toward becoming a Marriage and Family therapist.

I agree though that it would be great if there were less expensive options. And it really frustrates me when people act like everyone should be in therapy, and like if you aren't, you're doing something wrong. Some people can't afford it.

However, I do think there are probably plenty of options, financially, that you are unaware of. I mean, I know people who are in therapy who definitely do not have that much extra cash lying around. So there must be other options if they are in therapy. I'm pretty certain there is no way they have 300 bucks or more a month to spend.

I agree that therapy is certainly not a magic fix for all of your problems. It's also important to shop around for a therapist, though, before deciding to just give up on it because it's not working. It's a delicate relationship. Not every therapist is going to be the right fit for every client.

I do think that, with the right therapist, therapy could probably be at least somewhat beneficial to just about everybody. We all have things we could use to talk through and issues we could use to address instead of bottling up or ignoring.

However, one concern I have with the way our culture, especially younger people right now, are treating mental illness is the extensive over-diagnosis of mental illnesses. Whether it's a self-diagnosis (which is a huge problem) or a diagnosis from a doctor, I feel like everybody is diagnosing people way too much. It's like if you have even a couple symptoms of a thing, they slap that label on you. Now, to be fair, a good therapist would not do this, and I'm sure there are plenty of those. But at least with self-disgnosis, I'm deeply concerned by kids on tiktok labeling themselves with all these mental illnesses because of very normal behaviors they have that everyone does.

Before I left tiktok, I swear, at least a few times a week I would see some video that's like "do you like to daydream a lot? That's actually a sign that you could have PTSD and ADHD!" That crap infuriates me. It's so unbelievably unhealthy. I was literally arguing with someone in the comments on one of those videos about the dangers of mis-disgnosis and self-disgnosing, and that person didn't see any danger in it, and they claimed to be a licensed therapist! I sincerely hope they were lying, because if not, they should have their license revoked.

So I do very much still believe in therapy as a good tool for most people, but I'm also very concerned about over-disgnosing normal behavior.

Another thing I'm concerned about is how often we label spiritual problems as mental illnesses. I'm not saying that anxiety disorders or clinical depression are not real things, but I honestly believe that most people who are diagnosed with things like that don't have an actual, chronic, mental illness. They are just deeply lacking a spiritual relationship with God that their soul needs in order to function properly. It's like someone with a major iron deficiency having a doctor diagnose them with cancer or something. They don't have an illness... they are just missing something natural that their body was designed to need in order to function. This kind of problematic diagnosing happens a lot in the medical community as well, when people have some illness label slapped on them when really their problem is a nutritional issue that could be solved by eating differently.

The problem with having someone give you a label of mentally ill, or giving yourself that label, is that it puts this problem you have in a box in your mind that feels permanent. For example, if you are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, you might say "I'm an anxious person, by nature, that's just who I am." But the Bible says "do not be anxious about anything" and to cast your cares on the Lord and that anxiety is not from God. So no, you were not created to be an anxious person. It is not who you are. It's not your very nature to be anxious. It's merely a problem you are struggling with and that you very likely can overcome. I just don't like the way certain diagnoses make people accept their problems as if they are a permanent part of their lives. I don't think that's healthy. For some things that might be the case, if it's legitimately a medical issue and a problem in your brain that medicine has not yet discovered a cure for, but for other things it's not like that at all.

So yeah. Therapy and the mental health community is a catch 22 for me. Because on the one hand, it can be useful to know what you've got going on so you have a better idea of how to work with it or fix it, but on the other hand, you don't want to put yourself into a label and embrace that as if it's who you are when maybe it's not at all who you are, but rather just a common problem that most everyone has and that can be fixed.

 

I went to therapy and it seemed to help. But within weeks of stopping it, I went back to feeling almost as bad as I did before.

 

Yes, I agree with this statement and @TakingTheSteps gives a balanced overview, as usual.

I have had Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT); Mentalisation-based Treatment (MBT) and Long Term Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy. I had very little benefit from any of them. I am lucky that in England none of this cost me a penny.

 

Maybe I'm off on this but I feel like therapy is a very American thing, seems like it's their answer to every little hurdle in life.

 

I recently learnt that therapy abuse is a thing, I saw a trailer for a show apple+ released a show called "The Shrink Next Door" which is based on true events about a therapist who made some of his client's lives worse and took great advantage of one client in particular for decades gaining access to his funds of over two million dollars.
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-shrink-next-door-true-story/

Having said that of course I'm not saying all therapists are like this. I see therapists similarly to how I see other professions like car mechanics, some are good at what they do, some aren't so good, some may charge you fairly, some may charge unfairly, etc.

When it comes to internet pornography specifically one problem that has been said is that it is relatively new so there isn't really a clear diagnosis, so many therapists are not trained on how to fix this problem which is why at times porn addicts have to try a number of therapists before they can find one that actually knows how to help them with this.

Overall I don't think therapy is bad and many need it but I do agree that it looks like we are heading in this direction of thinking therapy is the answer for every issue that pops.

 

Yeah, that brings up another problem I have with therapy. The psychological community is not always right about everything. For instance, I've spoken to many people here who suffer from HOCD, and based on recent changes in legality in the mental health profession, in many places (at least in my state, I'm not sure how it is elsewhere) it would be ILLEGAL for a therapist to give someone with HOCD the proper treatment they need.

There are plenty of other issues like this as well, and I'm sure more will crop up as things change. Some things are added or removed from the DSM because of political reasons, not scientific ones, and then therapists are forced, by law, to change their treatments accordingly. Which, of course, is sometimes a good thing, because some regulation is important, but can also be a bad thing when the scientific community makes mistakes.

I mean, in regards to NoFap, the scientific community is still telling people that masturbation is good for you and that it isn't addictive and doesn't pose any potential risks at all. And therapists are also regularly recommending practices like meditation, ignoring all of the research and testimonials of the dangers of that practice. There are tons of things therapists think are good that aren't, or things they think are bad that are good. They make mistakes, just like everybody else, and those mistakes can really damage people sometimes.

That was one reason (a small one, but still valid) that I chose not to continue pursuing my education to become a clinical psychologist. It is quite stressful to imagine having that much control over someone's life and that much power to influence their mental health. Even small mistakes could have catastrophic consequences, and I know myself well enough to know that I would have a very hard time not internalizing that guilt if I unintentionally led a client into something that harmed them.

 

I've undergone CBT before, but I have not heard of the therapies you mention. Were they all for BPD?

 

@TakingTheSteps The misdiagnosis thing scares me sometimes. I'm a very anxious, perhaps even neurotic person and I often cycle between earnestly believing I am mentally ill in various ways. The descriptors for what constitutes someone being BPD or bipolar or whatever are all extremely vague and it's easy to misattribute them.

 

As an introduction I'll admit I'm from Eastern EU. As usual truth is between one thing and another.

The case about therapists being in a position of power: we have similar case about priests here. Our priests are forced to be in celibat compared to US and other religious. As far as I know celibat is mostly in EU within catholics. So there were some cases were priests were accused of pedophilia. Does it mean that all priests are pedophils? Of course not! Not all governments are corrupted although there's always a risk, once you're in that position. "You judge people for how they treat people dependend on them over to people on their level" something like that, not exact quote!

The cost of the therapy: partly what was already said, to be therapist, it takes a lot of effort, time and practise. What's more there're costs what most people don't see: rent of place where you're going to meet, sometimes office in city centre what costs shit tons of money, taxes and all costs around: website, accounting, reception. Especially if we're talking about mind health clinics. Each of mentioned costs contribute in the price of therapy. Although I understand those concerns. For me mental health is very important, sometimes even more than the physical health. Therapy is also very expensive in my country. Luckly, I've a few psychologist visits free of charge each year, what helps a bit. I didn't compare avg salary/therapy cost between my country and US but I guarantee it's more expensive here.

Mental health is going to be more and more important within society. There should be some kind of national programme in each country providing at least some help to everyone... it's really poor in that regards in my country for example.

Last thing: in my country therapy is not overrated... I think it's underrated! Depression and other mental health issues break through media really rarely. This is kinda TABU thing within society here... "if you're in therapy/visiting psychologist/psychiatrist there must be something wrong about you" and people might distance from you, give you bad reputation. I personally feel, because of the common approach to this kind of threads within my environment, ashamed to talk about my problems, even to my close friends, if they(problems) might be an effect of who I am(for example isolating myself, being introvert, calm etc).

 

Yes. BPD is a very, very tough nut to crack unfortunately.

 

And none of those things helped you? Wow. What did? If anything?

 

Nothing has. I was hopeful for the last one in particular. I received the therapy, living in a therapeutic community in a hospital in London for seven months. I had four therapy sessions a week plus many other therapeutic interventions. But it was not successful. That ended two months before Covid-19 lockdowns etc. So, all I can do is manage the symptoms.

 

Seven months is nuts, I didn't realize that was a thing for people with BPD. When you mentioned it on another thread I thought I had a general idea of what that entailed (although I have read more about how it effects women than men) but I must be totally off.

 

Here is a pretty good explanation of BPD... Borderline Personality Disorder | Psychology Today United Kingdom

 

Thanks. You experience the worst of these symptoms? That's terrible, how do you manage them?

 

I'll be sure to check this out, thanks!

 

Yeah it's very concerning to me. Especially with all of the young people on tiktok self-diagnosing themselves with disorders they very, very likely don't have, because mental illness has literally become trendy right now.

I think part of why it has become appealing for people to say they have s mental illness, even if they don't, if because they use it as an excuse for their actions. They do things like procrastinate or are lazy or whatever and then say it's because they have ADHD. Of course, they have never been diagnosed with ADHD, and they probably don't even have it, but it sure is a convenient excuse.

It's concerning to me when people are constantly using their mental illness (or whatever mental illnesses they claim to have diagnosed themselves with) as excuses for their actions, because like I said, it traps you in a box. You suddenly start to believe that since you "have ADHD," you are just destined to forever be a procrastinator or forever be unable to do certain things well. And that's really sad, especially if the person doesn't even have that disorder, that they have just sat down and accepted that they are incapable of change and can't possible better themsleves.

Now, of course self-diagnosing isn't always a terrible thing, if people are careful about it and have a clear head. I'll be honest, in studying the way ADHD manifests in women, I've realized that it might be possible that I have that. My husband actually showed me a video once and was like "this sounds like you." At the time it kind of offended me I think, so I was too defensive to agree. But later, when I looked into it on my own, I realized he might be right.

But I understand that I don't actually know if I have that disorder. And I also believe that even if I do, it is not a box that I'm trapped in. Some disorders are more debilitating than others, but I think there is a big danger in diagnoses where the disorder has so many symptoms that are just normal human experiences and that can be improved upon and changed.