Therapy Is A Slow Burn
Why do we expect it to heal us overnight?
A few months back I visited a dentist after a long time; I think the last time I visited one was back in 2017. I have come to realise that trips to dentists for regular check-ups is not an Indian middle-class family’s thing. Besides, there’s a myth that is fairly prevalent among my family and friends— “Once you go to a dentist to get your teeth fixed, you never stop going (so, if your have dental issues, suck it up!)” I am yet to prove this right for myself, at least. Anyway, I had to finally go because one of my upper molars was aching. And guess what? It was time for RCT.
Why am I bringing my tooth troubles here? Because that day I realised something profound. Here is goes:
The dentist I made a visit to was pretty cool, so I was able to tell him that the news had come as a shock to me because I am someone who has always been quite particular about my dental hygiene. Though he empathised with my stance, he made me understand something very important – we are not supposed to take care of everything on our own because we can’t (aiming to do so will only quadruple our problems in the long run). Further, he told me that for the past few years, dentists have been trying to increase the awareness around dental health, and the overall importance of visiting a dentist every six months or so just to check if everything is okay. Seems redundant to mention, but he made me realise that these regular check ups can help us catch a cavity when it’s starting to develop so that we do not need to go down the RCT lane. Lastly, he mentioned how a dentist’s clinic is a place (at least in India) where patients are likely to visit when they have tried everything else on their own. And after trying to heal the pain themselves for years, they finally give up on “hacks” and make an appointment with a dentist.
You see where I am going with this? I was instantly able to draw commonalities between dentistry and mental health. Since I have been in this field for a while now, I do empathise with the doctor’s side of the equation. Generally, with reference to health (both psychological and physical), we view the option of treatment as the last resort. We have the propensity to land at a point where we need treatment because of our negligence towards the subtle signs of issues that we witnessed (or not) early on. And anytime a doctor engages us in a conversation about preventive care, we often misinterpret it as their attempt to manipulate us and burn a hole in our pockets.
For the purpose of this article, I am going to focus on psychological health.
A majority of us; in fact, I would go to the point of saying: all of us deal with psychological issues. We are usually not well-adjusted to our lives. This holds true especially now — the pandemic has taken a toll on almost all of us.
If you have clicked on this article, I am sure you have (at least once in your life) wondered about being in therapy. But for reasons your own, you haven’t been able to take that leap of faith.
Let us try and understand why people do not believe in the power of therapy.
Nobody walks into a therapist’s office when they first notice a problem, one usually calls to make an appointment after years of contemplation on whether or not they should opt for this course of treatment. And once they finally convince themselves and start looking for a therapist, they have to go through the process of choosing the right one (the personality of the therapist, their hourly charges, the “word of mouth”, their expertise, and the like — these factors weigh in before we take the final decision). Now, people have a tendency to give up in this process, and I understand, it can be quite daunting. And until and unless an individual sees their issues as “worth” putting in so much effort for, they are unlikely to engage in this process. But let’s say that after giving up a couple of times and starting again, they finally make it to the office.
Into the therapist’s office walks a person who is already exhausted — this individual has waited till the point they were out of fuel and now they need something that instantly fills their tank back up. But guess what? They are not at a bar and there is no space for instant gratification in a therapist’s office. Also considering that they are paying a lot of money to this therapist, they are hoping that they will land upon a revelation in the first two-three sessions, but truth be told, this rarely happens. And god forbid they don’t like the therapist they have stuck around with for three sessions! What do we have on the plate now? An exhausted person who feels that therapy is a luxury and it will never be able to fix their problems!
And you know what? I empathise with this person because I have been this person.
But let us try and understand the process of therapy:
We are living in a time in which patience and delayed gratification are foreign concepts. We do not believe in the things that do not give us instant ROI. We have set the bar a little too high in today’s day and age. In therapy, we hope for a breakthrough in the first two sessions because it will give us the high that will enable us to keep seeing our therapist. But in reality, that breakthrough may or may not occur in the first few months of therapy. And sometimes, there are these consecutive months that bring a lot of pain even when we are regularly showing up to our sessions.
I believe that this parameter of “not worth it” is wrong on a fundamental level: What are we comparing therapy to? Are we making the mistake of demanding instant pleasure out of something that is supposed to be meaningful in the long run? Are we attaching too much worth on that hourly charge that we are paying? A worth that cannot be compensated by anything that the therapist can do in that one hour because here the worth of the money has more to do with the mindset and less with its realistic worth. Long story short, what are our expectations and are they rational?
The thing is, therapy is a long drawn process. It is slow, painful, and not fun. But why would anyone choose to pay so much money and go through so much pain? Because one needs to address that pain in order for one to heal from it. We start learning life from the moment we are born, and most of our early learning that forms the basis of our adult way of functioning is deep inside our subconscious. It is hard to figure that out, it is hard to recall it; it takes work and regular showing up. It not like popping a pill and getting rid of the symptoms, it is choosing to work on the cause that’s manifesting the symptoms. And once you break off the cause, you need to rebuild. IT TAKES TIME!
I think the myth of dentistry that I mentioned before is quite plausible here: Once you start seeing a therapist and wait enough to experience certain benefits out of the process, you never really stop seeing a therapist. This is not to say that you will become “dependent” on therapy to survive, no. It is about realising that you deserve a space that is safe, validating, non-judgemental, and accepting of the person you are. We often expect our friends and family to provide us with this space, and I don’t believe that there is something wrong with this expectation. However, it is not the same unbiased space that a therapist can provide us with. Besides, our dear ones are not skilled in psychotherapy to help us heal through our pain. And even if they are, sometimes it is not possible for them to be there for us.
Imagine if we all had a therapeutic space which made us feel accepted, and at the same time, helped us in perceiving reality for what it truly is, wouldn’t that be a world full of compassion?
I am not asking you to be in therapy even if you intuitively feel that it isn’t working out for you. But, on the basis of one or two experiences, don’t give on the hope of finding the right therapist. They exist and it’s possible to establish an amazing therapeutic dynamic with one. The process is daunting, overwhelming, and irritating, but it is worth it and I am here to affirm that for you. Besides, you were never meant to be an expert at everything. Choose what you want to be an expert at and leave the rest to other experts.
Thank you for reading.
