I wouldn’t say it’s essential, more one option out of a whole bunch you could use to improve yourself (though we pay for many essential things like housing, water, food… Welcome to life as we know it).
Therapy isn’t going to “fix” anything. It’s a way of helping you reflect on yourself, see where your problems are, give you some perspective and start to see things differently. It can help you understand why you have certain behaviours and traits and work on unpicking them or unlearning them. But like I said, lots of other things can help you get there too, like meeting new people and having good chats, taking drugs that change your perspective, travelling, reading books. All of the above combined.
FRYD@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Therapy isn’t brain medicine. It’s different for lots of people, however to me it was an opportunity to practice skills I otherwise wouldn’t in a safe environment. The main skills I was able to practice were self reflection and emotional expression.
If I hadn’t gone to therapy, I would still be practically unable to open up to the people closest to me and I would still have my self image corrupted by delusions of self hatred from depression.
It’s sounds like fru-fru bullshit, but it does slowly make a difference. Eventually I realized that all my relationships became more healthy and my self confidence was significantly improved.
Lots of people -especially men in my experience- have no experience opening up and have a lot of deep fears about it and they end up self-isolating way more than is healthy. Therapy is the only real way where you can express yourself and get a sanity check without any kind of blowback.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
So what I would just go there and talk about what for 150 dollars? They would sniff it out what I need or…?
FRYD@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Generally when you start out, they have to get a feel for how you think and it’s mostly just you complaining about what stresses you out. After a few sessions, a decent therapist will have figured out some patterns in how you think and will be better able to direct the conversation so you end up talking about more of the situation than you typically think of on your own. From this it’s up to you to figure out how you want to solve the problem and/or what you want your goals to be.
I get the never ending struggle for more money. That’s a tough one let me know if you figure it out lol.
Fearlessness is probably a pretty unhealthy goal imo. Fear is a normal, healthy response that keeps you from making bad decisions. I think what you would really benefit from is: increased self-confidence, stress management skills, and good planning. You could definitely tell a therapist that you’re looking to become fearless or at least less fearful and they would be able to better look for what you might be hung up on.
I personally suffer from pretty bad anxiety and I know it holds me back, but I’ve become more confident in my own judgement and I’ve become better able to seek support from the people in my life thanks to therapy. Things haven’t turned around for me yet, but I feel better about the future, which is a massive improvement on its own.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
No I don’t want fear. I don’t want to feel fear ever again.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
A good part of therapy is having the problems accurately identified with possible realistic goals for how to improve your mental situation.
Self diagnosis often leads to the wrong conclusions. A perfect example is that there are already many rich, powerful, fearless assholes. Not only is adding you to their ranks unrealistic but it may not lead you to a future where you are content with yourself. Therapy can help you find whats wrong, and help you with the tools to know what to do about it. They aren’t going to “fix” you though. If you’re going into it with that mindset you’re going to come out exactly as you went in. Therapy is work. Be prepared to put in the work. It can be difficult, but its always worth it. The alternative is what you are now or possible even a worse version of yourself if you go down the wrong spiral.
JulieLemming@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I want money and want to have a mindset that will allow for a swift and easy accumulation of it so then I don’t need it anymore and can focus on higher luxuries