My therapists helped me put my life back together after over a decade of spinning my wheels and struggling with PTSD. Sorry about your sister, and it’s not like I haven’t also seen shitty therapists, but that’s definitely not everyone and I think it’s a bad idea to discourage anyone from reaching out for help. People should leave therapists they don’t click with even if they’re not bad per se, because if you don’t like them or they don’t respect you then nothing productive is going to happen.
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sanitation@lemmy.today 2 days agoDon’t do it. They don’t care. My sister in law has a masters in this stupid field and was working doing these therapies, and I can assure you she herself is a total nutcase
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
But also there are a lot of alternatives to talk therapy.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Talk therapy is 1 ingredient in the mental healthcare burrito.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
People have existed long before therapy has. Do you think people 500 years just suffered in misery until someone invented therapy?
The problem with therapy, I find, is what you can teach people. You can teach people facts. You can’t teach people what it is like to be someone else. If you have a therapist that can ONLY relate to you in terms of theory, you’re going to have a bad time. So that depends on who you are and what problem you are bringing.
An easy example, that the field is just now grappling with, is existential depression. That is to say, a depression that doesn’t come from distorted thinking but thinking TOO clearly. Unless a therapist has been through it themselves, they might try a bunch of tools to “fix” the depression, trying to convince you that you are having distorted thoughts, etc…
But to come back to my historical point: therapy will just take tools from existential philosophy and recycle them as “therapy”, thereby continuing their monopoly. There are entire fields of therapy that have been entirely lifted from other philosophies. CBT is basically stoicism. ACT is basically Buddhism.
There are great therapists out there, but I think they are DESPITE the systems in place to train and certify them, not because of those systems.
As Daniel Mackler has said, “it is easier to become a good therapist, than to find one.”
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
I never said there weren’t. Art therapy, equine therapy, music therapy, there are plenty of options that aren’t ’sit on the couch and tell me about your mother.’ But for a lot of people who feel like they can’t talk about their mental health struggles, talking about it is exactly what they need.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Yes.
My issue is that a lot of times, talk therapy is presented as the ONLY option, and, as you have pointed out, it isn’t. There are also things that aren’t officially “therapy” that can be hugely therapeautic. But everyone is different, and I think learning to tune into yourself is an important skill that can be learned through therapy or just as well independently.
just2look@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Just because you know one shitty therapist doesn’t mean that there aren’t excellent therapists out there.