Do you consider that doing therapy means one is brave or anything of that nature?

I said I feel brave for doing therapy, because being alone in with a man terrifies me, and talking about what I feel terrifies me, and showing my emotions terrifies me. Because I do these things despite the fear, I feel brave.

May I ask, what do you see that as then?

I find it very interesting to see the different viewpoints on what constitutes ones own acts of bravery. Thanks for yet another great poll.

Or wants to go or should go but never starts at all.

Those guys have been know to sell it as brave or courageous
https://bravetherapy.com

https://therapists.psychologytoday.c...Colorado_53474

Individual Counseling & Crisis Intervention | Columbia MO |*65203

Courage, Vulnerability, and Strength: How Therapy Empowers Us

It Takes Courage - Conexus Counselling - Winnipeg Manitoba

http://affinitycentre.co.uk/therapy-for-men/

https://familyshare.com/marriage/goi...-your-marriage (this one has brave and demons both in it)

I know for some people it takes courage to see a doctor or a dentist or financial advisor or apply for a job or get behind the wheel, for some it takes courage to open the door and go outside so yes I believe that for many people attending therapy in order to get better takes a lot of courage. For me personally it wasn't a big deal, but I see how it could be.

Yes, as a general rule I consider that going to therapy and sticking with it involves bravery and strength, but not necessarily. It really depends on how one is using therapy. It takes courage to be brutally honest with yourself and with another person and to be open to very new insights and experiences of your self and the world, but it doesn't take as much effort to keep going to therapy if you use it as a quick fix or hope the therapist will "rescue" you. For some people therapy can be a very big step in a different, better direction; for others it may be more brave to get out of therapy and invest in applying what has been learned and integrated during therapy in the outside world. I think context makes a lot of difference in what it means to go to therapy.

Can I just say that courage and bravery are not synonymous, though they are usually taken to be so? Bravery is doing something risky, often so risky that it seems stupid or foolhardy. Bravery happens in that split second when a soldier decides to throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades. Courage is more ongoing - that same soldier showed courage by enlisting, serving, going out on patrol in hostile territory, etc. With courage, one is frequently afraid. An act of bravery happens so fast and under the influence of adrenaline that fear doesn't play a role.

Sorry for the lecture. But it is an important distinction.

This has been a really interesting, sometimes annoying, discussion for me. I find it difficult not to hear minimizing in some of the voices of those who say therapy involves neither bravery nor courage (and I'm willing to accept the distinction between the two, but would say that bravery propelled me into therapy, courage kept me there, and moments of bravery led to turning points within therapy.) I would also say that I have no memory of my T ever using these words at all, but I think my willingness to endure despite pain was probably a quality my T respected in me.

The idea that the experienced risks of therapy may be in proportion to the emotional investment in it rings true for me. Low risk/low investment may be appropriate and possible for those seeking consultation for minor issues that one can hold at arm's length; but for deeper issues of relationship, attachment, etc. I tend to think that whether bravery/courage is recognized or not has less to do with external concerns and comparisons and more to do with the character of internal defenses and their strength or weakness.

I never meant for any of this to be used judge/ castigate/label/put down each other and how one sees it in relation to themselves - just how one saw it for one's own self or how one saw therapists as selling it. I think therapists use such propaganda for manipulation purposes and it never has fit anything I have done. To me, I am wary because I consider the language to be used by those people to reassure clients about being in therapy and possibly even to bolster themselves and their profession in their own eyes. But, as I stated, I am not often the norm here in how I view those guys and was wondering how others saw it for themselves.

I understand. I use "minimizing" to refer to self as much as to others. It isn't necessarily minimizing "against" others, but rather because minimizing is often so much a part of the circumstances that led to pain originally, I find it difficult not to hear those echoes. I haven't experienced Ts use the words explicitly to manipulate, but rather as part of general glommy language used by those I would avoid like the plague for many reasons. Thankfully, my T didn't engage in "Hallmark moments."

This is an interesting perspective - But I want to point out that there are a lot more ways of doing therapy than the ones you've outlined, and it might be a tad unfair to suggest that those of us who are saying that our therapy experiences don't involve bravery are using it as a quick fix or hoping for rescue. I suspect you didn't mean to imply that!

My therapy involves a lot of hard work and learning to take care of myself. I have no rescue fantasies- quite the opposite: one of the effects of my traumatic experiences was to believe that no one, including myself, could or would help me. And in being more honest with myself, it has been a release from the brutality with which I formerly used to assess myself. For me, therapy has been a difficult path to a much kinder and gentler interior world.

I've experienced a lot of pain and grief in my past. I went through all that alone. Getting help dealing with all that is not what has required my courage.

Yes, I have encountered that implication. Seems related to this idea that therapy is obligatory for anyone whose life is not perfect. I found it took more courage to stop than to keep going. Nowhere to hide.

I hear voices of others trying to define my reality and the reality of others.

Whether or not a person feels brave or courageous is related to a person's sense of self (how one view herself and the world) and not qualities defined by others.

It is entirely possible to invest oneself in therapy, work hard, have a trauma history, be brutually honest with oneself, etc., and still not consider therapy as courageous or an act of bravery.

Personally, I have done things ever since I can remember that I was scared to do, and don't consider even half of them as having required bravery. I have my own criteria that might be totally different than yours. Overall, I do consider myself a pretty brave person--with rescue fantasies and all.

I have no argument against people who say their therapy requires bravery or courage. Just quit telling those that don't feel that way that it is because they are doing things differently or have different qualities or histories. Thank you.

Actually bravery and courage are synonyms.

But your original question didn't specify that this was in any way about how therapists "use such propaganda for manipulation purposes" and that has NEVER been my experience. I don't remember a therapist ever using the term to me. I applied the term to my own situation (which is what the original poll question seems to be asking about).

Or vise versa: Telling those that do see their work in therapy as an act of bravery shouldn't have their personal viewpoint and experience discounted because it doesn't meet others' definition of bravery.

This is personal perspective and personal internal experience. You'd think by now around here we'd understand that.

Yes according to both the oxford dictionary and Webster's they are synonymous.

They are similar but not the same.

Stupid and ignorant are also synonyms, but I would never interchange the two. I would always use ignorant in context with lack of knowledge, but would never use stupid in that same context.

Yes, exactly. Like you said, its about perspective or internal experience. Now that you pointed this out, I think much of conflict on this forum is related to this issue. And conflict isn't necessarily 'bad'. For example, through this thread, we are learning of one another's internal experiences. That is a good thing; at least in my view.

But SD used strong/brave/courageous in her answer options; thus, using them as synonyms or at least allowing that we had the option to use one or all of those synonyms in our interpretation and response to the poll.

They are treated as synonyms now by today's sloppy English standards, which dictionaries are forced to record because that is their purpose. But they are not synonyms and were not always taken as such by English speakers. Check the etymologies and you'll see the argument (which is not unique to me).

This thread has gone waaaaay beyond the poll, it seems to me.

I made the distinction because there were posts that used them as synonyms. They are different qualities. Courageous would be a much better description of going to therapy than brave, if one thinks that going to therapy is either of those.

And when has there ever been an SD poll where someone didn't question her definitions?

My therapist does say I'm brave sometimes, usually in reference to an action I took outside of therapy. The act of going to therapy itself, she hasn't called brave. I don't always agree that what I did was brave but I recognize that her intent is to encourage my actions so I take it in that spirit. As encouragement.

I gave the list of strong/brave/ courageous as options of the sorts of things that might be in the same category as similar even if not completely synonymous. I was allowing (or trying to - it seems to have been less successful than hoped) for those terms to be used synonymously or not - as the reader chose.

I was gonna say this but i didnt know how to.