Myth #3: Everyone Needs Therapy

Hi there!

Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Today, we will continue our current series on debunking some of the most common myths about therapy. YAY!

The myth that we will be discussing today is that: Everyone needs therapy.

I hear it a lot from people, especially clients, who have been to therapy before—they will say, “Therapy was so helpful for me, I think everyone should do it!”

I can totally relate to what they are saying… because I used to think the same thing!

But here’s the reality…

Therapy was initially designed to help people overcome specific psychological ailments (i.e., mental disorders).

It was never intended to be a cure-all for life’s many challenges, which is, unfortunately, how it is starting to be perceived.

Please don’t misunderstand me—I love that therapy has become less stigmatized over the past decade, and that more people are getting help for their mental health.

But in popular culture, the pendulum has definitely swung too far in the opposite direction (at least on social media).

Nowadays, having a therapist is a status symbol.

Going to therapy has become ‘sexy’—and, especially for Gen Z, it has become a bragging right to have a therapist.

If you go online, you will see this phenomenon all over the place—people are encouraging one another to go to therapy for any issue under the sun (even when it’s likely unnecessary).

For instance, does a teenager really need to go to therapy when she goes through her first break up?

(Better Help, an online therapy service, sponsored this video and ran an ad cut at minute 3:06 to suggest that it probably wouldn’t hurt…)

Put another way, because therapy has become so popularized in recent years, it has also become watered-down.

As people continue to become more isolated in today’s society, we are leaning more on therapists to provide the support that people would have previously found through other means (i.e., coaches, mentors, spiritual leaders, parents, teachers, neighbors, tutors, friends, etc.).

In short, going to therapy has become a crutch for some people who are failing to exercise their capacity to help themselves on their own.

But it’s important not to assume that everyone needs therapy when they are going through a difficult time in life.

Therapy was initially designed to act as a substitute, surrogate support system for people who didn’t have the means to develop or heal in their original, organic surroundings.

Therefore, therapy never used to be advertised to the public as a tailor-made service to help people deal with distress at every single stage of life—because therapy isn’t often necessary for all people all of the time.

Of course, it's understandable that people who have experienced growth from therapy want other people to experience the same thing, too.

Just keep in mind that there are plenty of people who don’t actually need therapy because they are sufficiently functional on their own and are totally content with their lives already.

It’s important not to pathologize human nature or prescribe people therapy before they really need it.

All people make mistakes, need time to learn about themselves, and require guidance from others—but this does not mean that they have to spend time in therapy in order to gain these insights.

In summation, not everyone needs therapy, and therapy need not be the scapegoat for every person’s presenting problem at every single stage of life.

Therapy is only one of many options for people to consider when seeking out social and emotional support during life’s more difficult seasons.

Therefore, I encourage you to challenge the idea that most people need therapy in order to function, or that all people require therapy in order to truly know themselves.

Even as a therapist, I’m delighted when I meet someone who has never been to therapy and probably will never go—these people do exist and usually lead very independent and interesting lives, believe it or not!

So, if you’ve been to therapy before and it’s been helpful for you, that’s wonderful—just know that not everyone’s path looks the same, and that we all arrive on our own time, in our own way, to the places we eventually need to go.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

I’ll see you back here next week.

Image credit: William de Kooning