why therapy (and therapists)

Hi folks, hope you're doing alright .

Before talking about therapy, I'd like to share with you some kind of feeling I've been having most of my life: isolation. It was like being wrapped by a suffocating plastic cobweb, unable to establish the most basic connections with others. Are you familiar with this feeling?

The first T that ever saw me told my parents I had a "mild adolescent depression". I realize today that my therapist was hideous and made me feel totally ridiculed when sharing things with him. He did something illegal, in the sense that deemed my case not important enough for a psychiatrist to directly intervene and decided to comment my case to a colleague and act as a buffer for my medication with the pdoc never actually visiting me. He would decide when to increase and decrease my meds and he would do it so irresponsibly that after years of that game, getting better and worsening, I




After that, one of the best psychiatrists I have the pleasure to have met, rescued me and I realized how tricky the mind can be and how nefarious the wrong professional can turn out to be for the MI.


My first therapist "helped" me lose much time and effort and since then I've timidly tried some others (4 or 5) but haven't found anything that works for me as I think it should. I lack a social circle and maybe that makes my need for somebody more acute, but do you think I should keep trying or reading books on psychology may even prove better, cheaper and more satisfactory in the long run? What's your personal experience? Do you think a T is something more than a wall with eyes that reflects your own ideas or I have just had "bad luck" in my search? Are friends more important than professionals?

Thanks for your input

I think there's two sides to this:

1) there are things that friends just cannot help you with. I have experienced people trying to help me while I was suicidal. This is not something a friend can effectively do. It's also not fair to expect of from your friends. Yes, if I was suddenly actively suicidal, I would call my friends. But they cannot be there every day, every hour of the week, and holding that boundary in friendships is hard.

2) there are boundaries to being a T as well. If there's an emergency on Saturday, the earliest I could possibly reach my T is Monday, but that would be quiet a big deal. Otherwise it's no contact between Friday and Wednesday.

I think this all really depends on both your T and the environment besides therapy. If you have a good social life and struggle and get care from a good therapist, you're unfortunately more likely to be okay than if your friends or T suck.

There's good and bad eggs in every batch. I personally find therapy to be helpful, it's the only place I've ever felt secure in. I find that while sharing things with friends is important, I don't want to talk to them every day about all the bad things, I want to share the high while being open to talk about lows when it is required.

Hi NoodleSoup, I'm sorry you found yourself in such a desperate situation as well.


Yes, I've kept many things hidden from friends from college, since I was deserted by a friend during a crisis. I guess that doesn't happen with a T (or it shouldn't happen) but I haven't been able to truly "connect" with a specialist in psychology. The last one I tried was a psychoanalyst: I expected so much... maybe I've read the wrong books and this kind of analysis and interpretation doesn't happen in real life any more... but I clearly saw myself becoming old and still babbling on his couch


Anyway...I'm glad I've been able to find this forum and I'd also like to thank you for your answer . Best regards from Spain

The therapy I had fit me like a glove. I enjoyed it. Digging deep is a pleasure to me. Not everyone feels that way.
There are times I wonder was it worth while? And my reaction to life events since I had therapy seems to confirm that yes it did enable a resilience where none existed pre therapy... I'm sure I had other ideas of what I expected therapy to give me. But it seems resilience was my biggest take away. I don't always value that in the moment.... But in the minutes, days after I can feel the benefit.... But I don't think it's for everyone and I don't believe in life changing books ior films. So for me f2f therapy was a must

I believe books can be great for skills. But practicing skills, learning how to relate to people, learning how to process thoughts and feelings... I believe therapy is the best route for me. My goal in therapy is not to "grow out" of it, but to build on everything I've learned. I'm a "lifer" and do want to grow old with L. She will retire one day, and from then, I don't know what our relationship will look like. But I do know we will still have a relationship. And for me, knowing that there's at least one person who knows me and still wants to be with me, is so healing.

I like what the above comment form scarletpimpernel says. Right at the end. "knowing that there's a least one person who knows me and still wants to be with me, is so healing". That's so true for me, and I think many.

There are tons of different types of therapy out there....tons of different personalities in therapists themselves. Maybe you just haven't found what works for you? I would encourage you keep looking and try a few different people/ modalities. It took me a while to find the right person for me, but when I did, it was truly helpful.

Thanks so much for your answers, they gave me food for thought and it was good to see that, for some others, therapy works as it should. I'll try it again when my economical situation improves, right now I go to a private pdoc and we chat a bit, but I know it's not quite the same. I'm very disappointed on T's (as you can see), so I don't know where I'm gonna start looking, but if it must be, it will be. Cheers

I can't speak of your experience or what is best for to. But books were never enough for me. I needed someone that understood the damage I had experienced. Not every therapist is a good therapist. I got lucky as I fellbthrough the cracks...in hindsight it was like I was being directed in the directions I took..

I got a lot more out of books, volunteering, hiking, exercise, and playing in a chamber group than I ever got out of therapy. I found therapists completely useless.

I posted this on reddit earlier, but I will repeat it here because I am of an age when I am on repeat ...

Not all therapists are inherently bad, whether we mean bad at their job or bad people. Some of them are abusive or harmful people, many of them aren't very skilled. However, I think that therapy itself is harmful due to its structure and application.

Paid for intimacy (often occurring when the client is at their most vulnerable) does not serve our search for meaningful connection, either with ourselves or others. Ironically, relational depth is one of the experiences which therapy claims to offer yet that kind of relationship undercuts itself due to the power imbalances, the financial/consumerist transactions, the necessary absence of elements of the therapist.

Emotional commodification cannot help us explore ourselves in a free way. Therapy has become necessary for so many of us because our lives are so fragmented, families toxic, communities dispersed. We live amongst violence and harshness, there is brutality around us. We don't have the means to connect with each other and our generational links are being lost. We are adrift and therapy offers something which is better than nothing.

I don't think individual therapists consciously take advantage of this existential fracture (they are living in it and are suffering its effects - no matter what they might claim, they are just ordinary). Nevertheless, the therapy model feeds into these fractures and the ever growing big business of therapy profits from them.