Therapy?

[Anonymous]

I read this forum quite often. To be honest, I feel like I am one few males who does so. I come here out of morbid curiosity and a desire to try to avoid the pitfalls that some of you folks have experienced or, worse, had thrust upon you.
I am by no means a perfect dad and I realize it and rely on my wife to help me when I feel like maybe I am being too lenient or severe and she does the same with me.
We, thankfully, don't seem to have the experiences some of you have had; we both have parents who have their faults but we are close to. Of course, it is possible that our kids think we are crappy parents, but if they do we are unaware of it now. They seem to like us!
My question is does therapy REALLY help people?
I don't mean this to be condescending, but I just don't see how simply talking to someone can help much, especially if you don't know if the person you are speaking too isn't conducting their own trainwreck.
I know a lot of people who call themselves "life coaches" and they are all a mess. It seems like they can't coach their own lives and have business coaching anyone else's.
I know licensed therapists are different and some have medical degrees, but I just don't get it. The human race progressed before therapists, and at the end of the day I guess that whatever happens to a person it is ultimately their decision what to do about it.
I would love to hear how therapy had positively impacted people. I would like to have more faith in it. Thanks

[Anonymous]

IF and only IF you find a really good therapist, OP - which can be difficult in this geographical area, OP.

[Anonymous]

I think it's probably useless unless each spouse has their own and a joint couples therapist who can coordinate all the info to get to the real bottom of things.

[Anonymous]

It can. I agree 100% with PP -- you need a really good therapist. Unfortunately, in my experience, finding a good one is like locating a needle in a haystack. I finally found one (just got lucky, really), but have had many bad ones. The bad ones are a waste of time and money at best.

And finding a "good one" depends on multiple things in addition to whether or not the therapist is actually good at providing therapy (I'm convinced most are not) -- like what kind of therapy you are looking for and who you click with. It's tough.

[Anonymous]

I have always been pretty skeptical/reluctant about therapy, but my husband wanted to do couples therapy and I feel like that some thing you should never say no to. I feel like one person in the relationship think you need therapy, then you absolutely need to be working on your relationship. I kind of got talked into going to individual therapy. The relationship and couples therapy have fallen apart, but I actually have come to love my individual therapist and sessions.

I feel like it’s helpful to get an objective third-party perspective on nonconstructive aspects of your personality or upbringing. Like for example, my mother has certain personality quirks that affect my reactions in emotional situations, and also caused me to react in disproportionate ways in certain triggering situations. I can’t change my mother, but I can work on my reaction to the triggers or trying to understand what is causing the problem. I feel like it’s reduced conflict in my life and improve my ability to communicate before I get really frustrated and say unconstructive things? I guess that’s a long way of saying I fight with my mother less now. Mostly by having learned to voice my issues or concerns before I am irate. And I can be better about making sure I don’t repeat those patterns with my own kids because they’ve been more clearly identified to me.

[Anonymous]

I was veeeery slow to commit to therapy, and I am still frequently uncomfortable at just how much work I'm discovering I could stand to do on myself. That said, therapy has helped me profoundly, including:
- understanding why I react (or over or under react) to events, frustrations, situations...
- profoundly increasing my ability to be patient with my spouse and kids
- learning how to forgive myself for being human (I have a massive perfectionist complex as a result of a dysfunctional childhood)
- improving my ability to set boundaries around what I promise to others, or get dragged into

I am definitely a better version of myself for having spent time trying to figure things out. And I am much calmer more of the time and more able to feel in control of my emotions.

I got lucky with a great therapist who is a good fit for me. I thank the gods for making that happen. A huge amount depends on the people involved (on all fronts).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was veeeery slow to commit to therapy, and I am still frequently uncomfortable at just how much work I'm discovering I could stand to do on myself. That said, therapy has helped me profoundly, including:
- understanding why I react (or over or under react) to events, frustrations, situations...
- profoundly increasing my ability to be patient with my spouse and kids
- learning how to forgive myself for being human (I have a massive perfectionist complex as a result of a dysfunctional childhood)
- improving my ability to set boundaries around what I promise to others, or get dragged into

I am definitely a better version of myself for having spent time trying to figure things out. And I am much calmer more of the time and more able to feel in control of my emotions.

I got lucky with a great therapist who is a good fit for me. I thank the gods for making that happen. A huge amount depends on the people involved (on all fronts).

Agree to almost all of the above.

Fit is extremely important. My DC and I both have wonderful (different) therapists who are psychologists. The therapists are safe spaces for us, and for various reasons, having friends and family to vent to/share with is just not adequate.

My DC’s therapist continues to help with anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, and ADHD.

Mine has helped me deal with grief/loss of a parent in early childhood, sexual abuse and emotional abuse in childhood, a mid-life crisis, work stress, my DC’s mental health struggles, and an immature and self absorbed elderly parent with likely ADHD.

We are so fortunate. Affordable access to mental health resources in the US is such a disgrace.