/feels/ - Advice & Venting

absolute scam, create a tulpa instead

I sometimes like to read r/therapy abuse to stay away from this gaslighting cult called psychotherapy.

It's a life-saver if you find a good one who suits you, but good luck doing that. Even if you're picky, you may end up with a charlatan who's just telling you what you want to hear instead of helping.

>>106040
I've been to like 10 sessions and it was completely useless. They never criticize you about anything - it's just a lot of you ranting about things and them superficially sympathizing with you or finding you rationales to make you feel better about yourself even if you did or are doing something maladaptive or morally wrong. I've had partners and friends probe the depths of my psyche to much deeper levels and prompt much more significant personal transformations and I didn't have to pay $180 for each conversation

>>106040
>>106044
i just spent 5 minutes on there and i see what u mean

>>106047
yeah that's exactly what i'm scared of- i feel like i'll just end up telling them what to say lol thanks

>>106043
does that actually help? it sounds scary

Therapy is a meme for weak people

>>106053
what do the "strong" people do about their problems? i don't really feel inclined to start therapy, but i don't know what else to do

>>106055
"Strong" people end up with unresolved traumas and develop serious narcissistic or psychopathic traits with stunted empathy and infantile defense mechanisms.

What do you need help with by the way?
For example, do you experience intrusive thoughts that involve fear of people removing their pants in front of you?
There's Exposure Response Prevention Therapy for that. Do you have a habit of wrist cutting? There's Dialectical Behavior Therapy for that, and so on. Therapy is so much of a hit and miss that what works for one person will never work for someone else.

>>106055
if you're a woman you just avoid men and will probably be left relatively mentally resilient and happy. if you're a man you turn to substance abuse

>>106056
crippling insecurity, probably.

>>106058
Crippling insecurity… Can you explain more, maybe with examples?

>>106059
well I'm very socially anxious and desperate, which comes off to ppl when they interact with me irl, so I've never really had any friends. I cringe at everything I do but I'm not sure how to change my behavior

>>106060
Hmm… a good therapist will help you figure out how your childhood experiences and your relationship with parental figures had lead you to develop an anxious and desperate personality, and how it's okay to mature out of these thought patterns, and you'd also learn to develop healthy boundaries and how much to share to someone, that way you don't come off as desperate.
I cringe at everything I do too, and I guess it's kind of a pre-emptive uh… way to diminish yourself, like… if you did something bad it's your fault, but if it's something good then it's luck or you just feel embarassed because you're not supposed to feel good according to your thought patterns. Therapy helps you to identify these maladaptive thinking patterns too, and I feel that sometimes just figuring out what's wrong is enough to let go of a bad habit. Sometimes it isn't enough.
Again, GOOD therapist is very important for all this, and it'll take months, maybe years too.

>>106060
I used to be like this but then I had to take on a teaching job at a college. I kept doing it and eventually completely got over my social anxiety. Nothing else worked other than regular public speaking/interacting with people.

>>106040
it only works depending on what you need it for. imo that cbt talk therapy shit is useless

>>106061
i appreciate u listening <3 this is good advice too, i think i'll look into trying to find a good therapist if i can. it's nice to know other people struggle w/ this stuff too.

>>106067
yeah, i think that's true. i recently got a new job where i'm actually around coworkers and peers and i've noticed a significant difference after just a few months.

therapy made me gay. just shitpost and lurk online all day, itll make you feel basically the same as if you went to therapy

shit

shit is inevitable huh

>>106069
>it's nice to know other people struggle w/ this stuff too.
Yep, and that means a lot here could even help you with it. Maybe a create new thread about it and you're going to get free therapy session. :P

>>106040
I did CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) and DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) to deal with an anxiety disorder, recurring depression and PTSD. It took about a year and half to finish and it took me maybe like 2.5 years to find a therapist in my city. I genuinely recommend especially CBT, which is not 'talk therapy' like the kind some anons above have criticized. There are specific steps to the treatment and you have to do homework exercises every week. It was honestly really hard, they ask you to write descriptions of your assault several times for example, it's a lot of confronting painful emotions. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I would say I have significantly decreased negative symptoms of my issues (anxiety attacks several times a week to now maybe once a month), though I also take an SSRI. I would highly recommend it.

>>106040
It can help to get things off your chest and help to get to the bottom of your issues, but ultimately it only works if you actually want to change. It's not a magic cure all where you'll suddenly be cured of depression or feel less anxious after a few hours of talking and you really have to be willing to put in the effort yourself to improve.
I had about 6 months of CBT and I was keeping it up during that period and was starting to see improvements, but after it ended I started to fall back into my old habits.

I've tried it many times in the past and it's a total scam. It's not any kind of real science or medicine. You are paying them for the hope that they might fix something they can't fix, maybe wasn't broken to begin with. They're just getting paid to listen to you talk about anything and they really don't even care about you as a person or what you're saying. There's no logical techniques, procedures, or tests involved that could be any indicator of a problem or solution because they are literally just making up nonsense as they go along. Thats why they never have any good advice and just keep making vague statements like 'what do you think would help?' without any answer because they don't have an answer. Because the human mind isn't that simple you can evaluate it and fix it just like that. Therapy will actually make your mental state worse because you are forced to dwell on your problems repeatedly, because if you didn't they wouldn't keep getting paid. And the more corrupt therapists will convince you onto addictive drugs that are really bad for you and damage your mind and health making you feel even worse so you keep going back to them hoping for a fix. Just cutting those drugs out of my life made me feel so much better. And what really helped was getting far away from any therapist and focusing more on myself. It took a long time but it was as simple as forming the habit of paying more attention and responding to my own needs. Negative emotions like depression, anxiety, fear are a normal human response to unfavorable situations and rather than supress or avoid why you are feeling that as a therapist would have you believe, we should figure out the root of the issue and how to eliminate it or at least cope with it in a healthy way. What good and healthy activities and thought processes make me feel better, even a little, focusing on doing those things more. And the opposite, what are negative influences on me, cut those things out of my life or minimize them, even if I need to start one small step at a time to do so. This along with listening to different advice online on how to go about taking those steps, there are many resources that explain these things, and incorporating that thinking everyday. There are a number of techniques and habits you can practice to get your mind in a good place, I won't go into every one it would take too long. For me a few of the things that helped were simple as more frequent exercise, more time spent towards meaningful hobbies and activities that make me feel good, not dwelling too long on unecessary negative thoughts, and cutting certain negative people and influences out of my life. No therapist ever told me how to do this or ever gave me any practical or useful advice, it took years and was not an easy process but I had to figure it all out on my own and I firmly believe every human has the power to do the same.

>>106055
“Strong people” subject other people to the worst of their neurosis. They’re unapologetically tyrannical and that’s unironically good for their own mental well being because it gives them consistent catharsis.

i have been on therapy for the past 6 years of my life, and i would not recommend. i have changed terapists many times because i didn't felt comfortable with them, they are just so superficial and don't help on anything. therapy doesn't work, i think that people that says that it works its just a collective hallucination

>>106169
To it's just very effective journaling. I tell what's bothering me, and I find the solution mostly on my own. It's no different than rubber duck debugging (but it works better with a human).

>>106169
why keep doing it for 6 years?

>>106169
Mind if I ask what you're diagnosed with?

I think it probably works for people whose problems come from the inside, like having trauma or some sort of destructive behaviour due to how they were raised, etc.
For me therapy is only treating some of my symptoms, not the underlying issue.
Also, this girl who bullied my friend in middle school before I became her classmate became a therapist, make of that what you will.

>>106214
yeah I've been looking into therapists and a majority of them look and speak like the mean girls from school

>>106215
Almost every therapist is a an otherwise useless noncontributor to society. Most of them have no business giving you any advice. One of my longtime friends wants to be a couples' therapist . . . she's had three failed marrriages. It's a bit of a grift. Most of our trauma is meaningless. 'Digging deep' to understand it will get you nowhere, because there's nothing to be understood. CBT and other actual plans of action for changing your behavior are good, but otherwise just save the money and teach yourself to compartmentalize.

>>106216
yeah that's why I'm so conflicted on it,, it really does seem like a noskill useless job, but I am hopeless and need to change my behavior which the only thing I feel would give me genuine help with that would be cbt. idk.

>>106100
Hard agree. Also, the number of therapists I've heard of who've (sometimes successfully) encouraged my friends to break up with their partners over the most trivial nonsense is truly astonishing. I honestly think they do it because they know the more socially isolated and distrustful you are, the more you'll need to depend on them. Its isolating and individualist effects on society are troubling.

>>106113
As someone who's actually of this nature I can confirm it's not good for their own mental well-being - most people don't appreciate living under tyranny (for long) and tend to leave, so it's a very isolating and deluded way of going about the world. It also stems ultimately from a place of fear - until that's gone, all your ostensibly 'strong' tendencies are ultimately cowardly reactions and you end up living a life not really of your own.
>>106169
Their superficiality is one of most remarkable features of therapy - I've felt stronger connections to my friends, supervisor, hell even students than therapists I spent $1800 on in total. The problem is they give the impression of having the authority of a legitimate medical professional who can prescribe objective advice, but the nature of therapy is that it's not just some sort of exercise in a descriptive, empirical study of reality. It's a deeply value-laden exercise and the thing about values is that they're open to negotiation and deep philosophical discussion - practices most therapists are simply too stupid to be able to substantively engage in. For instance, say you're experiencing relationship difficulties because your moid lashes out in arguments. A therapist could gently nudge you towards breaking up because he's 'toxic', or they could encourage you to have a certain kind of discussion with him or to take space from him to encourage him to regulate his emotions. Therapists vary wildly on their suggestions because 1) they don't recognize the underlying values motivating these varying perspectives and so can't engage in a meta-discussion about these values. they just uncritically adopt them and forward them without realizing it and 2) there's 0 regulation in this industry.

I think the people who claim it helped them are typically either very isolated (something therapists often subtly encourage; see my other post: >>106219) or are effectively looking for someone to indulge them in their own self-aggrandizing delusions, which is never a long-term solution to pain.

>>106040
Not trying to meme, I want to just add to this post for people who are seriously mentally ill like myself or on interested in going on psychological disability. I've been in therapy since I was 8 on and off and I'm in my 20s now. My mother was a victim of the xanax epidemic of the 2010s after her doctors kept feeding her pills. While i'm not going to sit here and act like when i go to my therapy sessions I don't feel patted on the back in some way and that that isn't some benefit to my life, I think its also important to recognize that therapists and especially psychiatrists have numerous financial incentives to not actually help you get better or give assistance, especially in America. I've never been helped in a material way by therapy. You probably won't either.

Shit has nothing to do with being "strong" or "weak" or whatever the fuck, simply the capitalistic incentives that continue to motivate psych. Like i am actually disabled and have never really been able to hold a job due to my mental health and physical ailments, but when i told my therapist and psychiatrist i wanted to go on disability they switch up from that nice "i'm sorry that happened to you uwu" to "you LOOK fine, you should pick yourself up by your bootstraps unless you want literally nothing to come out of your life, cause that's what happens to people on disability."

Your therapist will probably slot into being a payed friend cause modern work schedules under capitalism keep people isolated. Your therapist does not have the power to stop the systematic issues you might be facing, they'll really just attempt give you skills to deal and get back into the workforce and if you still can't deal after learning deep breathing or something seriously good luck to you. Also if you have a rare disorder and are living in a major American city like me, specialists will charge you more out of pocket. This is because working with insurance is mildly annoying for them. My specialist would literally charge me $200 out of pocket a fucking week for my highly stigmatized condition.

I'm not going to say there are no benefits, I feel sometimes therapy helps me in a vague way, but please be aware of what you're paying for and set your expectations to a reasonable level.

>>106216
>Digging deep' to understand it will get you nowhere, because there's nothing to be understood.

I found meditation to be considerably more helpful than therapy (which I spent $1800 on) for this reason. Sure your reactive patterns might come from your mom being overly controlling or screaming at you or whatever but in the end you need to be aware of when those reactions occur to you in particular in order to stop chimping out. Speculating on the causes of your various neuroses won't actually make them go away but they will help you construct an identity as a fundamentally broken person who only a person who charges $180 an hour can fix.

People are obsessed with therapy because it gives them mental release and makes them "feel" like they are valid or something.

Its all just emotional masturbation to me tbh.

The therapy shills in this thread are laughable

>>106055
They find the root of their problem themselves and cope with it

>>106222
Mark Fischer.
I like that quote.

I was forced to talk to a therapist. She was a dumb bitch and therapy is completely useless. Never would have done it if I had the option not to but normies can’t allow weird women to exist near them without trying to correct them.

It’s pointless and I hate how people constantly try to gaslight me into believing it works, while experiencing myself how it doesn’t

>>106040
You have to make a distinction between if you actually have brain problems, OR if it's your life circumstances causing issues, OR if it's deep seated problem with the nature of existence, which can fall into garden variety depression or something more pernicious.

If you actually have brain problems like schizoaffective disorder, genuine bipolar, etc, you need a psychiatrist not a psychologist and you probably need meds.

If your life is fucked up, you should see a psychologist who specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Their goal is less to address your symptoms but to try to get you to change your environment and circumstances that are creating your issues.

If you have garden variety depression stemming from no particular root, you'll probably get taken for a meandering years-long ride by a psychoanalyst that will end inconclusively. They WON'T help you.

If you have deep seated issues with the nature of existence, the unfairness of life, mortality, the banality of modern life, there's probably nothing they can do for you, especially if your issues are for rational, well defined reasons. They CAN'T help you.

Test

Never went to one and have no desire to after some friends of mine got pathologized for the most ridiculous shit.
Usually I just deal with stuff by myself or venting to friends.

I was lucky and found a good therapist who helped me with my OCD. To the point that my OCD symptoms do not impair my life anymore.

I am biased due to having a good experience and due to being a therapist myself, but I have noticed that when I talk to people who disliked therapy and discuss their reasons, they are usually people who don't want to to the work associated with therapy and call it a scam. Some do get bad therapists and I've met bad therapists in the field, but I've also interacted with people who refused to do any work to improve on their condition. It may work for you, it may not, but most people do admit that having an outside person to vent to can be helpful.

>>106283
what weird thing did you do that they tried to correct?

even the American Psychiatric Association admits psychotherapy is going to be useless for 1 in 4 people. the "EVERYONE can benefit from therapy!!" crowd know nothing about what they are parroting propaganda for.

"About 75 percent of people who enter psychotherapy show some benefit from it."

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/psychotherapy

One thing I’ll always be grateful for is being born in a thirdie cunthole, where therapy and psychiatry are still stigmatized. Mild mental illness is conflated with ward dwelling.

More to the point, as a girl, the pressure NOT to do wrong, and thus not to shame the handful of blood relatives who happen to share your name. It’s an unexpected blessing, but I admit that being an easily cowed, impressionable, girl in this shithole actually protected me from caving under the terrible impulse of my mental illness. I isolated, i procrastinated, i never drank or did drugs (though i felt very drawn). In the end, when i tried to kill myself, i was put on a vanilla script of mags and lexapro. 3 years after, no meds, evidently my brain’s wired itself back to that state of constant neurosis, but now that i’m older, I think I’ve cultivated the faculty of self control. I’m fine.

Anyways, my brother goes through a similar trajectory. Copes with drugs. Induces psychosis. Gets put on antipsychotics. One variable is that he is male. One other variable is he got sectioned in a first world country. When i think back on the day after my suicide attempt, when i was sobbing in the doctor’s office, and his smug little smirk “you’ve just got a mild depression. Don’t worry.” And the exasperation i’d felt at not being taken seriously, by anyone, ever, because i hadn’t caused enough damage. And the petulant impulse to cause damage, just to prove that while it was contained in my head, it was real. But the truth is, it wasn’t some universal conspiracy to marginalize the duress of my hardship. It really, really, really wasn’t that serious.
/blog

I came across this video because I searched for something else and… is this something they actually do in therapy?

They make a sexual abuse survivor relive her horrible experience by asking her to read/think/write about getting raped by two moids, and they call this "prolonged exposure therapy". It makes no sense. How will this even work?

The video has some sensitive stuff so trigger warning!

>>106055
Strong people find people in their lives they can trust with their issues and ask them for help with responding to them.
Identifying them can be hard so usually you have to build your own mentor out of different people on different issues.
Most people can't be trusted to know what's in your best interest, so they will respond with standard advice to try and make themselves sound wise.
Avoid those people, you can tell by how pleased they seam with themselves when they think they're helping.
If they have first hand experience with the problem you're facing their advice is more valuable, so always ask how they came to know what they're offering.
Also don't confide in people who won't confide in you.
The only reason therapists should be better is because they're not supposed to share what is said, but they keep a record, which is way worse, because it can be used against you if subpoenaed.
Why would you run you're mouth off on record, even if it's nothing illegal, it'll establish you're mentally unwell legally which can make getting certain jobs impossible.

>>106055
Usualy I am forced to keep them to myself. I rarely have someone IRL to ask for help. I can only vent to online randos ir friends who cant do shit. Thats as much as we can cope. Thats the point of being strong after all. Burden yourself for the sake of everyone around you. Be the pillar that others wil rely on.

>>106040
Medication > therapy.
There are no answers some random therapist can give you that you can't figure out yourself. Most of their advice is the same stuff you would find in a self-help book at the library.

>>107373
It's to help process an experience that wasn't really processed at the time because it was so mindbreakingly horrific and awful that they mentally checked out to get through it.
Checking out helps at the time but also prevents processing it, filing it away and ever really getting over it to a manageable degree so that they can move on with their lives.

Survivors often can't bring themselves to discuss the experiences at all because they'll completely unravel with the fear and horror hitting them at full blast. But if it's done slowly and carefully, they can reach a point where they can bear to talk about it, get more of a grasp on their experience, directly express emotions and opinions which they badly need to do in order to vent and process.

Also sort of works like desensitization and reminder that "this isn't still happening or at immediate risk of happening" which hasn't sunk in because part of the survivor's mind is still stuck on that event and reacting to it.

>>107373
Out in the world triggers will just hit you without warning. Exposure therapy is supposed to help identify triggers in a safe setting so that people become aware of what they are and how they can avoid them. Also to get them in an elevated state and use the tools and techniques to help talk themselves down so that if it happens outside of therapy they have some grasp of things they can do to help, awareness around being triggered and some confidence they can overcome it from practicinv in a safe setting like therapy

>>107373
Yeah it's not the sexual assault per se, but something involved the brain fixates on.
Another way to deal with it is EMDR.
The theory goes like this:
Trauma is a memory issue: during trauma, the brain cannot form memory because of all the adrenaline. So it gets stuck on being half a memory, and when the trauma-bearer remembers, it feels like it's happening right now.
They realized normal memory are formed during a phase of sleep, one where your eyes make some specific movements.
They eventually discover that if you make the eye-movements while awake, you can still form memory.
So EMDR is that: they make you look at a pen or a light and move your eyes while you talk and remembers about a trauma, it helps re-encode it as a memory; and it works.

Yes but you have to put in actual work. Don’t go to therapy looking for a diagnosis or meds or anything. Just go cause you wanna talk to someone and let the rest come naturally. Yeah I have to great kind of an authentic relationship with a therapist. So they can properly get to know you and diagnose you. I went to therapy back in august and I find it very helpful. I got on meds and it really helped my quality of life. (The medication I’m on actually has helped me orgasm with another person and not just myself)

>>106040
I was put on CBT for a few years as a teen, and I think that it helps you develop hyperawareness of your cognitive process, it's not supposed to treat trauma or anything like that. My therapist would use the socratic method a lot. Also understand that internet tough guys are usually very susceptible, and most of their input is boderline baseless retardation.

I've had positive experiences with therapy. I was really depressed in college after being assaulted. Therapy helped give me courage and made me feel less alone.

therapy only works for people that dont actually have problems. psychiatrists dont give a fuck about you. The only person you can trust to help you is yourself.

who are you quoting?

>>109080
Not even remotely what she said, shill.

Cognitive therapy technics have worked for me, but I was trying to do my own therapy as I could not afford a therapist.
I believe that even if the therapist is really good, you still have 95% of the workload to do yourself, everyday.
That's what worked out for me.

Therapy is too expensive. I already feel like I don't deserve anything, I'm not gonna shell out a couple hundred bucks a month for someone to listen to me.
I went to therapy a few years ago, when my parents still paid for it, and it did help, but then I had to switch therapists and the new one was a dumb cunt. I never tried again after that.

>>106609
>If you have deep seated issues with the nature of existence, the unfairness of life, mortality, the banality of modern life, there's probably nothing they can do for you, especially if your issues are for rational, well defined reasons. They CAN'T help you.

THIS. I feel like therapy is trying to pull me into a delusion so that I can live in some sort of blissful ignorance.

talking to a therapist felt like lying to myself. started taking meds and they helped. both wayyy too fucking expensive. my current psychiatrist advises me to start therapy again but i can't afford both.

>>106609 >>109482
exactly

>>107582
>Also don't confide in people who won't confide in you.

why do you think this is a bad idea?

>>106040
Wasted a lot of money for no benefit.
Would recommend if you actually have the budget to use it instead to travel abroad for your free days. Helps we way more.

>>106055
Actually solve them.
Oh sorry this is malebrained I didn't realize.

Therapists genuinely do not care about fixing your issues (in my experience), I'm sure there are a few who genuinely want to help (even then they often times are incapable of doing so)

They make money off of you being mentally unwell enough to see them, I don't see why they would have any incentive to actually fix you. My last one would constantly say "Oh wow I can see you're doing so much better!" like every week, non stop, despite me not doing better (at least not because of her)

She would also constantly plug this retarded meditation app and told me all my problems would be fixed if I "breathed with my belly" rather than idk my fucking lungs. Any time I seemed unenthusiastic to meditate during my ridiculously expensive sessions with her she would get so defensive (I think meditation is useless, at least in my circumstance). I stopped seeing her because she was enraged by me saying I don't think meditation is the way to go about solving my problems.
BTW, this is an allegedly highly educated therapist with a PHD not some weird hippie friend of a friend.

My therapist before that would show me youtube videos to "help", eventually my friends started seeing her as well (we were like 13 so no real issues), she broke her code of conduct or whatever and literally told me that my friend said I was bi,
She had no reason to bring this up, nor could she legally. She also tried to tell me I had issues with my mother (I didn't?) and made her join one of my sessions where I literally had nothing to say.

TLDR I'm sure therapy is helpful for some people, but a lot of therapists suck, also if you have anxiety it is likely they are not going to tell you anything you cannot get from the internet
(breathe deeply ! look at photos of your fear !)

Waste of money honestly… i wasted money and some sessions i couldnt get it all out and the time was short when i need hours.

Therapy is an incredibly mixed bag. I've been lucky with the good therapists I've found, but when I've had bad ones, they've been absolutely nightmarish and have made me actively worse. When you do have a good one, they are great for helping to break repetitive thought cycles and do give good advice. Even so, the best thing you can do for yourself is to stay active, get good sleep, take your vitamins, spend a little time outside, and journal when things feel like too much. Making a habit of these will have a cumulative effect. If you have anxiety, there's good cbt workbooks out there, but solving your own problems is the only way to actually get better. Good luck nonas, healing is hard but small steps forward are still steps forward!

waste. I've tried multiple therapists for a long time. I try to stick with them always for a few months even if I don't feel like we are getting anywhere. I've told multiple therapists I have obsessive thoughts about death since i was around 7 and it prevents me from doing anything that isn't highly over stimulating and distracting because what is the point if it's all going to be meaningless in the end. Their solution is always deep breathing for anxiety and to reassure me that my family all has lived to their 90's so I don't need to worry about death for a long time.
I told another therapist about my paranoia of being looked at and she told me I was average so I need to stop being so vain.
Saw a therapist when I was 12 and after one session he told my grandma there's nothing wrong with me and I'm just dramatic.
Of course they always recommend I get on SSRIS to "cope before the therapy helps" even though ssris have given me psychosis multiple times and I tell them this.
They don't treat you like an individual and try to understand your perspective. You're just a group of symptoms to them that can be controlled with some magic rules from a textbook.

I don't recommend therapy unless you're rich and can afford to just have someone to tell you what you want to hear or gaslight you for an hour a week. Talk therapy and counseling for trauma has been the biggest waste of time and money, it's put me in debt, it isolated me from friends and family, it made my PTSD worse, and when it came to trauma therapy I was their first client with the issues I described. "Talking about" bad experiences over and over to 10+ different therapists only to be told "I'm sorry" doesn't magically undo my mental issues from growing up poor with neglectful parents and assault. I think the only forms of therapy that are useful are ones with a specific goal and not one-size fits all advice of "medication, mindfulness, breathing exercises". EX. Exposure therapy for phobias, group therapy for addiction, etc. Otherwise you're better off journaling, finding creative outlets like art and music, or finding community where it's not taboo to talk about "triggering" things.

Literally got sexually harassed by a therapist as a child so yeah. They're shitty people, never had one help me. Just wanted to make my parents happy by putting me on medicine for a paycheck than actually helping me when I confided in them I was being abused.

>>106040
I work in an adjacent field and have tried it. It depends a lot on the situation and on the people involved (Therapist and Patient)

Never trust a therapist's qualifications at face value. The field/market itself is fucked. Most of the 'therapists' that graduate are dipshits that just skim through their 'training' and just go at things either on a purely surface level or are horrifically stuck in what they were taught and either don't care or are too stupid to notice. The issue with 'great' therapists is that they both need to actually care and be intelligent enough to adjust what they do to fit the patient. (Especially if the patient is someone who is the type to post here as most of it is made for normies who do take everything at surface level)

Unironically if you're smart enough and can afford it/have the time/mental ability to, dig into the textbook they learned from and read it yourself.

But therapists do still have uses, having someone that you can vent and bitch to without any worry about em ghosting or damaging a friendship can be useful if you can use what you gain to help yourself, and sometimes you can take the simple crap one size fit all 'solutions' they try to peddle and adapt it to your own self in your own way. But I can only suggest doing that in good conscience if you still have some mental fortitude and abilities left.

TLDR
They suck usually but you can squeeze some good out of them if you know how to

It’s my job right now kek. I thought it would feel meaningful to have a job where I could help people feel better or at least help them feel listened to and understood. And since I know what it’s like to have shitty mental health, maybe I also want to be the kind of person that I wish I had when I was going through hard times. I don’t know if I’m helping anyone, but I hope I am. I do feel really disillusioned with the mental health system though. I also don’t think therapy is the only way for people to deal with their issues, although that seems to be the common consensus nowadays.

Ironically, most of my personal experiences with therapy have been unhelpful kek. One of my therapists asked if I ever considered Christianity when I was talking to her about my depression. I can’t even remember much of what I talked about with the other two therapists I tried.

>>111162
as a therapist, do you know resources for finding a good one? it sounds like a really mixed bag, and i want to find a good one that actually cares about people's health (like you)

>>111165
I wish I could give some concrete advice, but I guess there's no way to guarantee that a therapist you meet will genuinely care about the work until you actually meet them. I don't know how helpful this is, but I think it's a misconception that therapists make a lot of money. Of course some do, but as far as I know it's mostly people who either own their own practice or have some super specialized degree. I imagine that if you find a therapist through a group practice (as opposed to someone who works completely independently), you might have a better chance of meeting someone who isn't in it just for the money because honestly you don't even make that much lol. The other benefit of finding a therapist who works at a group practice is that if the therapist isn't a good fit, they can refer you to someone else who works in the practice so you don't have to do extra work and find another person on your own! But yeah, your mileage may vary. I wish I could give more helpful advice.