Go to Therapy!
I’m a big fan of therapy. Am I in a Master’s program to be a therapist? Yes. Is Pepperdine paying me to make the above statement? Unfortunately, no, but they should be. But in all seriousness, as someone who has:
- Been learning the ins and outs of the art for the past two years
- Had multiple stints in and out of therapy offices
- Been the person asking the dreaded, “So what brings you in here today,” question,
I can definitively say that once you find the right fit, the benefits of therapy are pretty massive.
One of the biggest roadblocks to seeking therapy or mental health services I’ve heard from friends, family members, and the general public is that there is a lot of information about the process circulating out there, some of which is true and a lot of which is false. This fake news is rather convincing, and if I didn’t know about what therapy entailed, I would also shy away from it. In fact, before I learned about what goes on in the therapy office, I employed the same “I’ll tough it out” attitude that people tend to use with their issues. But I gave it a shot, and my past, present, and future self thank me for it. I like to think that my future partner, children, friends, family members, and coworkers will also. Even the next idiot that cuts me off In LA rush-hour traffic will thank me, as I can now feel the anger that comes from being cut off, acknowledge its presence, and let the moment pass without feeling the need to chase them down to exact my revenge.
This post is the first installment in a four-part series debunking some of the most popular myths about therapy/mental health. Hopefully, it will answer some of your questions about what *really happens when someone starts going to therapy. If you’re not quite ready to take the leap into having someone hold up a mirror to you/your life and question you about it, this series will help you know that you, along with plenty of others, are not alone in your worries, confusion, or misconceptions.
Myth 1: Going to Therapy is Shameworthy/ Makes You Weak or Crazy
This is by far one of the most common myths out there concerning therapy. Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding mental health/illness has been around for centuries. Wulf Rössler speaks on this in his journal article about the stigma of mental disorders. In the Middle Ages, mental illness was seen as a punishment from God. The church felt they were being called to rid the “mentally insane” of their demons by burning them at the stake or throwing them in penitentiaries where they could rot, chained to the wall and deprived of all social interaction. During the Nazi regime, the mentally ill were senselessly murdered and sterilized, lest the perfect Aryan race be infected by them. Even the word “stigma” has historically negative connotations: “in ancient Greece, a ‘stigma’ was a brand to mark slaves or criminals”[1]. It’s no wonder that when people hear someone they know bring up therapy, their first inclination is to distance themselves as if insanity or weakness is contagious: that’s the narrative society has been fed for generations upon generations.
Although public attitudes have lightened considerably when it comes to people with psychiatric mental disorders or who seek mental health services, there is still an unbelievable amount of discrimination surrounding anything to do with a psyche that isn’t functioning up to society’s standards. However, if you were to look around your workplace, lecture hall, place of worship, or even your dining room table at Thanksgiving, there’s a high chance that someone you see would be dealing with things not inherently visible to the naked eye. Heck, even celebrities have mental health struggles! Do the names John Hamm, Kerry Washington, Gwyneth Paltrow, or Kourtney Kardashian ring a bell to you? These are figures in the limelight who have admitted their struggles with mental health/illness and all gone on to sing the praises of therapy and the perspective it offers that so many of us are missing in our daily lives.
Ultimately, you have no obligation to tell anyone you’re seeing a therapist. And since therapists must stick to a strict ethical code of confidentiality, they’re not talking about it with anyone either, save for a supervisor or colleague if they need some guidance on how to best serve you. However, if someone you knew was to discover the help you were seeking and have an adverse reaction to it, their response has everything to do with their own fear and ignorance and nothing to do with your resourcefulness in reaching out for help. Therapy is your decision, no one else’s.
Myth 2: Therapy is Expensive
Jk, this isn’t a myth. “Underinvestment in mental health is a global phenomenon, despite the apparent significant need for people to access mental health and psychosocial support services and often despite legislative and policy mandates for parity between physical and mental health”[2]. Underinvestment leads to underfunding, and underfunding leads to scarce resources, low wages, pay cuts, burnout, and other negatives. According to a 2019 report by SimplePractice, the average cost of therapy in the United States ranges from $100 to $200 per session (depending on the state). However, I’ve personally seen session prices as low as $65 and as high as $300. As the mental health stigma is becoming more graceful, services are becoming substantially more available and affordable than they used to be.
On a much brighter note, in recent years, some initiatives have been set in place to bridge the mental health treatment gap:
- 2015: the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, most commonly known as the Sustainable Development Goals. This was historic, as it was the first time a major global development promoted mental health and well-being as an objective [3]. The goal also proposed that the prevention and treatment of substance abuse are mental health-related, “suggesting that the nexus between mental health and development had finally been acknowledged at an unprecedented level and scale” [4].
- 2016: the World Bank and WHO organized “Out of the Shadows: Making Mental Health a Global Development Priority,” a conference pushing the need for improved mental health financing to support efforts to close the “treatment gap” [5]. How exciting that the World Bank finally recognized “the substantial developmental and economic costs of the ‘mental health burden,’ highlighting the need to help states recognize the human capital-related costs of unattended mental health conditions” [5]!
- 2018: the Lancet Commission on Mental Health and Sustainable Development and the First Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit “called for increased attention to mental health in global policy and financing spaces and have recognized the substantial need for states, particularly those where there is a lack of clinical treatment options, to address vast ‘treatment gaps'” [6]. Both of these initiatives committed to funding the Countdown Global Mental Health 2030 in their monitoring of mental health determinants, mental health system and service components, and mental health outcomes and risk protection [7].
In the meantime, From the Clinical Char is doing its best to help lighten that burden on people. If you can’t go to therapy, at least reading about it in an accessible, digestible, and, may I say, captivating way will give you some steady ground to plant yourself on!
Myth 3: Therapists Dole Out Advice
Picture this: you’re watching a tv show, and the main character is on the verge of a menty b. The therapist is sitting in a chair wearing glasses and dressed head to toe in neutrals. They speak in soft tones and give the character the wisest advice, almost as if it was written beforehand. They tell the character exactly what they should do or say, acting as more of a spiritual/life advisor than anything. And then, after one or two sessions, the character is “healed’ of whatever affliction they came into the office seeking relief from. Although this representation of therapists/therapy is great in a sense, as it helps to normalize mental health services and those who seek them, the representation is slightly off. Contrary to popular belief, therapists DO NOT just give out advice. In fact, any therapist or therapy program worth their salt will abstain from/warn against it.
Carl Rogers was an American psychologist who helped found the Client-Centered approach (also called the “Person-Centered approach”). Rogers believed that “…the individual has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes, and self-directed behavior…these resources can be tapped only if a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided” (1989, p. 135). Essentially, Rogers challenged the long-held and hierarchical assumption present in psychotherapy that the therapist knows best, positing that the client, as the only person who has lived their life, is the true expert on themselves. Therefore, the therapist serves as a guide to help the client exact the change they want in their life. They create an environment that is safe enough for the client to be vulnerable, ask the right questions, challenge the client on beliefs that are incongruent with who the client claims or wants to be, and “mhmm” and “I see” a lot. And ultimately, they do not get into a habit of offering advice, as it takes away from the client’s personal choice to do what is best for them (which they know, whether they’re aware or not).
Myth 4: Therapy Solves All Your Problems
We as a society have been seeking answers to all of life’s problems since our conceptualization. We’ve looked to the stars, to art, to math, to money, to religions, to gods, to drugs, to nature, to advisors of all sorts, and just about everything and anything else. I think it’s just in our human nature to ponder about everything under the sun. And if you think about it, history’s greatest explorers, scholars, scientists, and philosophers have a crucial thing in common with almost every three-year-old to ever exist: they just keep asking the question, “Why?”
It’s common for people to come into the therapy office asking why they are the way they are and how to fix issues in their life, wanting ready-made answers to all of their questions. Therapy can bring about insight into a vast array of things, offering knowledge and psychoeducation that someone with a more objective view of your life can provide. However, I think people often leave disappointed to find out that therapy isn’t like an episode of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” or “Iyanla, Fix My Life.” Therapy isn’t a magic wand you wave that fixes everything, and your therapist is certainly no wizard. To be human is to have struggles and unanswered questions. The therapist’s role is to help you find solutions to the problems that can be solved and peace and acceptance for those that can’t. No one’s life is free of troubles, and any service that claims to be to do that is fraudulent.
Myth 5: Healing/Resolution Will Be Immediate
Have you ever had a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth for days? What about when there’s so much pressure in your sinus cavity that you think your head might explode? Or how about that feeling after you overeat at dinner and your pants become uncomfortably tight? This is what a lot of therapy/healing feels like. The American Psychological Association researched how long the average duration of treatment for people who seek therapy is and found that:
- “…on average 15 to 20 sessions are required for 50 percent of patients to recover as indicated by self-reported symptom measures.”
- “There are a growing number of specific psychological treatments of moderate duration (e.g., 12 to 16 weekly sessions) that have been scientifically shown to result in clinically significant improvements.”
Yet still, therapy can be frustrating, painful, and flat-out annoying. It takes a lot of you (physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc.). And no matter how much you want to escape from it, it insists on taking its sweet time bringing about change (wreaking havoc on your life). But once you have THAT breakthrough with your therapist where you realize you’re repeating the same pattern over and over again, it’s like the elusive kernel dislodging itself one morning while you’re brushing your teeth or your nose finally leaking like a faucet after it’s been stuffed up for a week. It’s like finally unbuttoning those pants and sighing the biggest sigh of relief you think you’ve ever sighed because you’re finally in your element. It’s called the “a-ha moment” for a reason, and for most people, finally arriving at it is worth the headache! Therapy, healing from a painful season of life, getting out of survival mode, or whatever great psychological health endeavor you take on will show itself to be the antithesis of immediate gratification. But as Sam Hinkie, the former Philadelphia 76ers general manager and president who encouraged Philadelphia fans to be patient while he transformed the moribund Sixers team into championship contenders, once said, “trust the process.” I’m Sam Hinkie. You’re the 76ers. Therapy is the process. You do the math.
So now you see, myths aren’t just things of fairytales and folklore; they’re in our everyday discourse. Next week, we’ll cover more of the most common ones!
From my chair you your screen, Charity 
