Quote:
Originally Posted by Rayne_
I think therapy as a 'treatment' is way overrated. It is a good service to understand oneself, but treatment for MH conditions--I don't believe it is all that effective.
It's overrated, it seems, not by consumers/clients, but by authorities who are promoting it as a treatment for mental disorders. (But I also can't stand Western healthcare and put MH services in the same category.)
The way therapy is promoted now, the status quo seems to be go to therapist after therapist until you find the "right match", while spending years and hundreds or thousands of dollars, sometimes ending up worse than before or completely deteriorating. Then they are told "it can happen to you", "just find the right match", "I got lucky; you can too" or you hear someone say it has worked for them, but it took them 20+ years to get there. It just seems so crazy to me.
One reason it's oversold is because the research is highly flawed for many reasons. I don't think we can extrapolate the research results from such studies to the clinical world, so nobody really knows its effectiveness aside from the antecdotal evidence. It's next to impossible to understand, measure, interpret, and apply 'effectiveness' the way it's done now.
MH treatments are in the dark ages, and I can only hope for my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and their children, etc. that it will change soon.
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Your feelings are similar to mine, Rayne. I did a degree in psychology, and I came out feeling like mental health treatments were half guesswork. My impression was that while they <i>do</i> help more than harm on average, and it's worth seeking help from mental health services if you are ill, the chance of a treatment not working for a given individual was pretty high. When you consider the amount of money treatment often costs, and how many treatments you might need to try before you find something that works, it will undoubtedly lead to some people being left worse off. Perhaps too many for us to call it 'treatment'.
I've been in therapy twice. The first time was to deal with depression. I was very ill at the time. It did help, but what ultimately 'cured' me was my life situation changing for the better. Not therapy. If my life was still the same as it was then, I would become depressed again. I wouldn't be able to outhink a daily, disheartening experience.
I recently returned to therapy to deal with a bereavement--I've stayed to sort out longterm issues. This time round, I feel like I'm sorting out problems and doing general self-improvement, not treating a debilitating medical issue that is wrecking my life and leaving me unable to function. Therapy is no longer treatment - - it's now one thing out of many things I do to improve my wellbeing, along with swimming, walking, spending time with my husband and reading.
I saw a documentary once where a psychologist observed that 'no one ever thought their way out of depression'. There are no truer words.