Contemplating Therapy? This Is For You!
Are you underestimating the value of an examined life?
Allow me to begin this with a cliché: If I got a penny for everytime I heard people say “What can talk therapy do anyway?”, I would probably be on a world tour right now.
I don’t even understand what “talk therapy” even connotes. So you think your therapist’s job is to just listen to your rants? And once you’re done with your “talking”, you get to leave and they get to chill?
Psychotherapy is anything but a casual, arbitrary, redundant, senseless, and (dare I say) “expensive” conversation you engage in. And, as a counsellor myself, I feel responsible to settle the qualms one may have around starting therapy.
The difference between intuition and a subconscious fear is that intuition is extremely subtle (it needs conscious tapping), and a subconscious fear is rather alarming. Intuition would never want anything bad to happen to us, and fear? Well, it almost always intends to limit our potential by making us think that it’s trying to “save” us. It is possible that you are confusing a subconscious fear of being in therapy for intuition. It’s not your viscera telling you that you shouldn’t be in therapy, it’s your fear of oblivion operating here. So, if you are someone who has been ruminating over making that appointment but aren’t sure enough, this article is for you.
Concerns Around Psychotherapy
1. “Ugh, how can talking about my problems fix them?”
If I were to be crude, even the definitions don’t overlap. I really don’t understand what your concern is here. But if I were to still pose a counterargument to this irrational argument, I’d say:
Any psychotherapy (e.g., CBT, DBT, EMDR, ACT, etc) is an evidence based therapy. This means that the therapy didn’t come into practice because some random individual theorised it. It came into practice after an expert in the field formulated a theory and tested its efficacy by running multiple experiments. Only when the therapy proves to be viable for a particular condition, it is used in practise.
Every therapy comes with its own steps, goals, methods, exercises, and the psychological condition(s) that it caters to. For instance, if a therapist figures that a client’s chief concern is anxiety, then the therapist would start Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with the client, and not Logotherapy. Now, the approach that the therapist uses also plays a role here. In general, an eclectic approach (i.e., an amalgamation of various techniques) has proven to be more helpful than using a sole approach. Hence, a therapist’s job is to first gauge the concerns that the client has, and then formulate the best intervention plan.
Since the therapeutic process is dependent on the kind of feedback we receive from the client (in terms of improvement we notice, and the client’s judgement that the intervention is working/or not), we constantly go back and forth on this plan and reformulate it. That said, there’s no linear path to therapy for a client. We don’t know what we’ll discover one month, six months, or one year down the line (should the client continue taking therapy). The intervention continues to be eclectic and ever evolving. And a therapist’s wisdom comes is integral here.
There’s a lot of work that goes into it conducting therapy. Therefore, the next time you think that it’s just “talk therapy,” remind yourself that no one studies for seven to ten years in college to learn how to talk.
2. “Why are therapists so expensive?!”
Now that we’ve cleared the air that therapy IS work, we can segue into this concern. I understand that it seems a lot when you hear a therapist quote their hourly charges. But let’s try and change our lens towards this a tad: Do you think it’s possible that when we don’t have an understanding of a service’s worth, we feel taken aback when it claims to have more worth than we have given it in our minds? What I’m trying to say is, (perhaps) because we don’t realise the power of therapy, we don’t think it’s worth the money that it demands in return.
When it comes to our respective vices (everyone has some, gluttony counts!), we don’t mind spending that money because we feel that the outcome is worth the cost. However, when it comes to things that are a “value addition” in actuality, we dismiss it with “so expensive!”, “it’s for the rich!”, “I can’t afford it!”
I do agree that some therapists are exorbitant, but now more than ever, therapy is becoming reasonably priced. We are becoming more mindful about the way we price our sessions. In my opinion, a session’s cost shouldn’t be equivalent to that of a cup of coffee (because you wouldn’t gauge it to be worthy then) but it also shouldn’t be as expensive as AirPods Pro! Resources are more available now. But acknowledge that it requires you to save some money; not for the therapist’s sake, but for your own sake. It is a gift from you to you.
3. “I don’t have the luxury to work on myself, I have too many things on my plate!”
I don’t want to throw around an adage for this one, but it really is a matter of priority here. This actually is a feedback loop: You think you don’t have time to invest in your headspace because you’re laden with other responsibilities. But, being so intellectually dessicated, you cannot perform these responsibilities to your fullest potential. You realise how the “No therapy for me because I’m drowning in expectations!” is actually veiling the insight that you will stop “drowning” if you start therapy.
It isn’t a luxury, it’s a need. Please acknowledge it.
4. “My folks will never agree with me being in therapy!”
Don’t tell them.
If you don’t want to go through this tough conversation, it is absolutely okay for you to hide it from them. It’s something deeply personal to you. And, you have the right to keep it to yourself. I am not asking you to betray your morals and “lie” to them. I am just asking you to be a little pragmatic here. More often than not, our parents aren’t welcoming towards the idea of us being in therapy. So, it is okay if you want to keep this information away from them. Please pick your battles wisely, if you think convincing them for it is worth the effort it’s going to require, then do it! But, should you think otherwise, not telling them is also acceptable.
I have never seen a parent who is suspicious about their kids being in therapy, there are other things in their list of worries. I know it’s easier when you have your folks on board when it comes to significant decisions in your life; still, let’s not attach this “this is my identity and you better accept it” platitude to therapy. What matters is that you remain true to yourself. It’s just an hour in a week, I am sure you can manage that! And if you can’t, I am sure there’s someone you can confide in and ask for help.
6. “No therapist can fix my financial/work/boss/love life problems!”
I’ll keep this one really short:
It’s true, they can’t directly fix your external world. But you know what they can help you with? They can facilitate your healing, which will make you fix your problems yourself (yay, empowerment!). The sortment of our milieu is an epiphenomenon of the work that we do in therapy; the internal work ripples to the external world.
Conclusion
I can’t stress enough on the meaning self-awareness adds to our lives. Though introspection is powerful, it can’t do what a facilitator’s presence can do. A well-examined life might not center around impregnable happiness, but it is meaningful.
Love,
Ritika
