Therapy Isn’t About Finding a Lucky Fix
We’ve all thought it about someone or another in our lives “if only they would just go to therapy!” Every time you hear your partner talking to their mom or when your best friend starts dating yet another dud or when your dad makes another passive aggressive comment… “If only they would go to therapy” (none of these examples are from my own personal life at all ;)
If only they would go to therapy…
They would stop talking to me like that
They would start making better decisions
They would make up their mind about what they want
They would see things more clearly
They would finally be the person I need them to be
The truth is though, in a society that has continued to stigmatize mental health care, we can make assumptions about it that aren’t necessarily true. Here are three common misconceptions we tend to make about therapy:
Therapy is a fix-all. If I can guarantee you anything about therapy, it is this: it’s not going to fix all of your problems. I know, worst marketing strategy ever by someone who owns their own therapy practice, but I just can’t lie to you. Going to therapy will never fix that traumatic thing that happened to you as a kid, but it will validate your feelings and help you find coping mechanisms. Going to therapy will not fix anything about the amount of stress in your life, but it will encourage you to set boundaries and utilize self care. Going to therapy is not going to change your partner’s mind about that one argument you just can’t agree on but it will give you helpful communication tools to use in conflict-resolution. Therapy actually doesn’t automatically fix anything, it just empowers you to do the fixing.
Everyone needs to go to therapy. Hopefully I don’t get cancelled for this one, but I truly believe this needs to be heard. Therapy (and especially therapy alone) is not for everyone. While I am an expert on therapy, I am not on every individual in the world. I am sure that there are people who are not ready and unfortunately never will be to face their unhelpful patterns. And, doing so would only make their life more difficult and chaotic. Therapy is not magic and it is not all-knowing. Therapy is only as good as the therapist sitting in the room and because we’re all human, there is no way we could ever be helpful to every person ever.
Therapy will improve your relationships. This is perhaps the most common misconception I notice when working with clients. The thing about this one is, the inverse is actually true… therapy can uproot a lot of your relationships. Especially when you’re showing up to do the work and seeing results. The people who are most problematic in your life are going to be the most unhappy when you start to make strides on your mental health. Because they no longer benefit from your lack of boundaries, they’re not going to appreciate you and will probably let that be known (again, none of this is from personal experience at all…)
Truth to be told, therapy is anything but lucky. Therapy at its best is intentional, difficult, and relational. Therapy, when done well, is going to bring about some uncomfortable changes in your life and in the lives of the people around you. In fact, don’t go to therapy if you want everything in your life to stay the same. And, don’t ask other people to go to therapy if you haven’t been yourself.
So, the next time you hear your partner talking to their mom or your best friend says, “you’ll never guess who asked me out” instead of resorting to the “if only you would go to therapy” mindset, take these steps instead:
Speak directly. Brene Brown says clear is kind and I couldn’t agree more. If thinking “if only they would go to therapy” is a pattern, maybe it’s time to say it (in the right context and with lots of kindness, of course).
Speak from experience. Again, we probably shouldn’t be encouraging others to go to therapy if we haven’t been ourselves. And, this is a great way to encourage them to do so - “you know what my therapist said the other day?” If you’re my client, you’ve actually probably heard me encourage you to bring up a hard topic by saying, “My therapist said this to me and it made me think of you.”
Speak Carefully. It is not your job to get everyone in your life into therapy. Assuming they are adults with fully functioning brains, you simply cannot force the issue and continuing to force it might actually turn them more off to therapy or other forms of help. Choose when you broach the topic wisely.
Remember, therapy is not going to luckily fix any of your problems, but it will empower you to do some fixing yourself.