Myth #5: Therapy Fixes Everything
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: Therapy fixes everything.
Similar to our discussion a few weeks ago, which proposed that not all people need therapy, today’s discussion highlights another common myth that has resulted from therapy becoming overtly ubiquitous in recent years—the myth that therapy holds all of the answers.
So, today we are challenging this idea—that therapy is an ideal one-stop-shop for all of life’s problems.
Over the past decade, therapy has become destigmatized and culturally popular, however, the downside of this change is that therapy has also become an easy recommendation to make whenever people need help or are feeling alone (even when it’s unnecessary or a less-than-ideal solution for the problem at hand).
For instance, as people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of therapy, it’s more common for people to recommend therapy as a quick and mindless suggestion for just about everything:
Are you…
Disorganized and stressed? Go to therapy!
Feeling uninspired? Go to therapy!
Isolated and alone? Go to therapy!
In other words, therapy is often being touted as the panacea to a better, happier life—even when that’s not necessarily the case.
And while I happen to be a fan of therapy (because I am a therapist, after all!), it’s still important for people to understand that therapy is rarely the cure-all that many people are currently being led to believe.
Therapy helps a lot of people, and it might be exactly what a person needs—but it’s still good to know when the opposite is true.
In fact, not all therapy is created equal, and, if a person finds a lousy provider or refuses to put in the work, then going to therapy might even make their situation worse (i.e., therapy can be iatrogenic).
As I have said before, while therapy can be very helpful, there are many avenues to a better life, with therapy just being one of them.
Therapy can, of course, help people process the past, make sense of the present, and prepare for the future, but it’s still important to know when therapy is truly the best solution for a person’s presenting set of problems.
Many people who go to therapy find that therapy simply helps them heal enough to reconnect with a part of themselves that is wise and already knows how to achieve a good life… at which point, they no longer require their therapist’s advice.
Therefore, consider that you might not need therapy in order to live YOUR ideal life, even if everyone around you seems to be outsourcing their better judgement.
Ask yourself: Do you really need another person’s guidance in order to navigate this stage in your life, or do you already have a strong sense of who you are and what you need from yourself in order to make progress happen?
In summation, therapy is not supposed to be a panacea for every problem in the world, because therapy can’t and won’t fix every problem that we ever come across.
Even therapists can’t save us from the curveballs of life, and therapy will also fail to teach us how to move independently through the world if we depend too much on our providers to keep us going in the right direction.
This concludes our recent series on 5 of the most common myths about therapy.
Over the past several weeks, I am aware that I have been ripping quite a bit on therapy—sorry!—in an attempt to explore the challenges that can come from over-glorifying this type of work.
However, starting next week, we will return to exploring the upsides of personal development and healing, in continuance of my goal to use this blog to share with you the most practical solutions that I know of for achieving true mental health and self-improvement.
Happy Thursday, everyone!