What does the phrase "therapy is not for everyone" mean?

The skills aspect of therapy was honestly the most helpful to me. I know it seems "simple" and too routine or scripted (or something) to a lot of people, but the skills for healthy thinking, healthy coping, daily routines, self-care, etc., etc., etc., are the aspects of therapy that I fall back on over and over again now that I haven't been in therapy for over a decade. In the ability to help myself - because I have now finally internalized what is apparently so obvious to the rest of the world (lol) - I guess I can now sort of function "normally" without becoming overwhelmed and incredibly depressed and suicidal and all. I couldn't do that on my own until I was taught by a therapist, and those skills are my go-to's now when I recognize (another skill I wasn't previously great at) that I am slipping into depression or anxiety or whatever.

I was hospitalized over a dozen times due to serious mental health issues. My favorite classes in the hospital were the psychoeducational ones; I found them fascinating and helpful. I'm sort of a left-brained, logical, rational kind of thinker, and knowing and understanding is where I am most comfortable and feel safest. I guess that is where the skills work has helped me. Understanding some things about basic emotional coping wasn't obvious to me; somewhere I had missed some skills along the way despite having really good parents. There was a gap; and therapy, for me, gave me the skills to cope.

It wasn't all skills work. Don't get me wrong. We did a great deal of trauma work and all. But even there, my therapist knew me enough to approach much of that trauma work from a more cognitive approach - that's just how I tick and he was wise to tap into that.

Another person - apparently many others - lives more in emotions and tapping into the emotional is more effective for them. I think the best therapists figure out what makes a client tick and tap into that resource rather than trying to make a client approach therapy from a perspective that is completely foreign to them.

I don't know. I'm meandering around the topic at this point. Sorry about that.

I do think most people can benefit from therapy but the bigger question is are they being "matched" with the therapist who gets them well enough to tap into what they need, the approach that will work, etc. That takes a very wise and perceptive therapist WILLING to figure that out AND ABLE to make those adaptations. I've been fortunate to have several different therapists who met me where I was at and helped me progress, but I also think each one of them reached (or would have reached) a point of being less effective eventually if/when they didn't keep making those subtle changes AS I changed - and I did change.

My last therapist always said the ultimate goal was to get me to a place where I didn't need therapy anymore to cope with life. I do think I finally got there. Lord knows it took long enough, but I have managed to handle some really tough stuff in these last ten years on my own, things that would probably have led to severe mental health problems for me in the past. But I can nurture myself now. I have supports in place now. I know how to effectively communicate what I am feeling and needing now. I know how to monitor my well-being and have skills to utilize when I recognize a problem is kicking in - before the problem gets too complicated.

I see. Yes, I hope you'll get well, too.

And hmm what you said is interesting because for me relationship skills and self empathy skills would fall under the category of "mental health classes" the way I imagined it. Just mental health skills that you don't necessarily get to pick up while living your life and it's not taught anywhere really on a decent "advanced" enough level.

Hmm, I mean someone else mentioned this too about therapy helping with goal-oriented work. And you mention concrete skills too, like for daily routines. Kindof sounds like interpersonal and social rhythm therapy. I've heard that thing exists (for bipolar disorder).

But for me, it's not like that. I didn't even imagine "standard" therapy is supposed to help with discipline for goals (like another poster stated), or daily routines. I thought it was all about the psyche, the internal reality and emotions and feelings and mental processing of all the internal reality and really "soft" skills for all that.

Yes I've heard about self-care and other concrete skills things like that, but I've never understood the idea there either, why it would be part of therapy. It all seemed like normal things to do in life, whatever one enjoys doing and whatnot.

I get it that depressed people for example do need to relearn to enjoy things, but what I mention seems to be going beyond that. And yes I do have a problem in recent years with being able to relax and do those enjoyable things, but I know that comes from my tension and stress, rather than a lack of skill. I don't think I'll ever understand how this stuff is supposed to be mental health or psychological skills rather than just concrete skills.

The only one way I can imagine is that I have skimmed some self-help books about time management tricks, that was a more abstract approach with new ideas rather than the usual conventional time management skills that I've used my whole life. So these time management books also talked about habit building and used the same mental, abstract approach to that too. I found it all interesting but I think my approach to all of it just differs.

Yep, even good parents may not end up teaching all those psychological/emotional skills.

No worries

And yeah, I'm with you on this, I'm not a very emotional person either. I've found some CBT and REBT principles to be really grounding when having to deal with some emotions. It's basically things I'd be able to do on my own, rationally, but not when it comes to those new emotions in my internal reality in relationship contexts. I understand CBT is not really meant for relationships work though. Beyond CBT, I've found EFT useful for some more principles for working with emotions, at least.

I think I understand what you mean but I kind of have this impression that this requires a client that also moves very naturally in that world of mental experimentation. I'm not that kind of person. The mental experimentation is part of why I decided against ever going into any kind of deep therapy again. (The other part was me not wanting drama from countertransference on my most sensitive emotions)

Plus my realisation that a lot of my tension and stress comes from certain special external circumstances and that I need to change those external ones, and I'm looking for help with that too but that's not to do with therapy at all or deep psychology much. The best therapist in the world wouldn't have been able to help with that part.

That's awesome. While I've never been diagnosed with any specific mental illness properly, I somehow relate to your story (different specifics). I do feel I have picked up some mental-psychological "soft" skills on the journey, rather than the "concrete" skills that I just still do not understand why are part of some therapies. (I technically understand it for bipolar though, it makes sense they need to learn to regulate themselves really closely in the physical-material sense)

Well I don't know if this made a lot of sense to you, but I'll post this anyway, and thanks again, your perspective has been very useful.

Good post... they often have very little idea at the start and then blame the clients who don't find it helpful or who do not make ''significant change'' on the therapist's agenda. Those that a therapist does not help are not to blame. If the family of origin offers conditional ''love'' or worse then trust is often an issue which contributes to the less than positive experience with a less than optimally skilled therapist (the therapists I consulted were not as skilled or as compassionate as was desirable)

This has been pretty much my entire experience of therapy. (Like zero lol). I’m sorry you haven’t had that if that’s what you want. Have you been clear about the fact that you’re looking for this? Also you might have better luck with therapists who are not qualified to “diagnose.” Where I live only psychologists with PhDs and psychiatrists can diagnose. Masters level counsellors, social workers etc do not generally operate from an illness/diagnostic paradigm (unless they are working in a healthcare setting.)

Well this is what I want now. I wanted different things before, and never really found it in therapy. I did try to work with different kinds of therapists, from student still in training to clinical psychologist with 20 years of experience. None of them attempted to diagnose me as they didn't really see anything to diagnose. I do enjoy talking with my social worker but I did/do need more than what she can provide.

I will add, I realised that the problems in my current relationship, maybe one-on-one talks with a couples therapist who also talks with my partner could help. I was willing to think about simple talk therapy (nothing deep) to try and talk some of it out with an individual therapist, but I realised I feel like any kind of individual therapy is a vacuum where they are not looking at the people I have interactions with and the dynamics of the interactions, they only look at me and what I'm saying about it all and that doesn't feel like it would help me or that I would even trust it would work, so I would be unable to relax enough to talk about it.

As for talking about relationships in general (and not about the current relationship problems), I still think I would need someone to relax me about the topic enough first before I could even talk about it.

But again, like I said I did notice I was recently able to talk with an old buddy about less deep relationship issues, he was able to relax me and make it fun enough too. But the deeper ones, those I can't even start thinking about without getting really upset really bad. Unless I get lucky and have my thoughts just "floating up" and "floating around", then it's kinda nice while I'm relaxed enough for that. Have no idea how to make that "mode" come up reliably.

So just to be clear, sorry, I mean I don't want to talk with anyone about it when it gets that deep. I'd like lighter talk about relationships in general, whatever comes up, as long as it's kept light enough. If it's no longer feeling "right" to talk about it, it gets "too deep" to talk about, I don't want to and can't talk about it with anyone. Perhaps a couples therapist in that setting I mentioned but that's not all of the relationship talks I'd like to have.

This inability to talk about all this stuff does cause me a lot of tension that's stuck inside me, yeah but that's how it is for now

To put it best maybe: I'd really just like a way to be able to talk about relationships while the other person/people I'm talking with are able to help keep me stay on the surface, it not going too deep too fast. I've learned "deep" means bad, like it will mean there is risk of no containment of anything anymore and it gets too painful.

I do allow myself to go "deep" on my own anyway sometimes as I understand I may still need it a bit, but I understand I can't stay there long or it will become unproductive and not real processing and instead I'm just stuck deep in there and it's painful in an unproductive way. So I try to only visit that place for very short times only

So anyway I don't know if there's any support group specifically for relationship talks lol.

A competent humanistic/person-centred therapist will facilitate a space for you to have the conversations you need at your pace. You may find that you can get more from examining your own perspectives and processes in an environment where you can avoid going into that heightened space.

Thanks for the suggestion. I know about the Rogers stuff but it does not help me access productive emotional processing, it's emotionally too passive, and it does not help me access mental perspectives.

Have you read Melody Beattie? Codependent No More is a classic. It sounds to me like you are looking for an arbiter, someone to tell your partner that they are behaving badly towards you, and that they had better stop it because you cant stand it. Which sounds like RET - Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Therapy or theory, i forget which - might be informational for you.

Too bad its not the 80's, one could refer you to a support group in a second. ACOA and CODA meetings - adult children of alcoholics and codependents anon - met several times a week in many municipalities. Still, you might find their literature supportive.

Also the Serenity Prayer.

While it is helpful to look at prior relationships, i tended to draw a line between childhood and adulthood that wasnt really there. The relationship problems of childhood followed me into adulthood. Lack of respect, lack of affection, lack of support, attachment issues - all these childhood conditions still engulfed me.

I don't think couples therapy is about playing the arbiter. It's more like mediation for facilitating communication and working together on solving issues.

But in this thread I wasn't really talking about my bf. This topic is way more general and not about my bf.

Thanks, I am not looking for that type of support group.

The relationships I had in mind were a few years back. They still affect me so I have to process them fully. I do realise some of it connects to childhood too, yea