Therapy: A Review
Apart from some one off counseling sessions throughout high school and college, I had never focused on treating my mental health too much. I am one of those people who believes I can think myself out of most negative situations and I have a pretty strong network of friends and family to rely on when I need support. So I never really thought of therapy necessary for myself even though I recognized its merits for others.
But a little while ago, I found myself in a situation that resulted in me trying it out. I had been feeling generally unsatisfied with my life, and someone close to me pushed me to look into it. Now it’s been almost two months of weekly sessions so I thought I’d give it a little review.
First things first - I was completely overwhelmed at the prospect of even finding a therapist. Even with the limitations of my insurance provider there are still so many out there and they each have endless credentials and areas of focus. In the end, I enlisted the help of a service called BetterHelp to match me up to a therapist and facilitate sessions. This ended up being the best option for me personally, and if you want more information on this service, you can click here.
If you’ve never tried therapy and don’t know anyone who uses it, then you may picture a sort of derivative situation involving laying on a couch and being asked how you feel incessantly. In reality, therapy is just a conversation. The sessions usually begin by my therapist asking if there’s anything that I want to talk about that has happened this week. If so, we talk through it. Sometimes we end up on topics that take multiple weeks to work through so we make sure to take time to revisit those as needed. I share what the situations are and she asks questions and provides devices for me to use to process or provides perspective where necessary. Pretty straightforward, and not as scary as you might think.
Now for the meaty stuff. Luckily for me, I don’t suffer from really any sort of mental or emotional illness. All in all, I’m a decently well adjusted, secure person. If anything, I thought therapy would be good, but ultimately a dispensable, irregular occurrence.
Obviously, I stand corrected, hence this post. Therapy is not necessary in the strictest terms for someone like myself, but I have found it to be indispensable for me now that I’ve started.
You may think to yourself, similarly as I did - “I have some amazing friends and family who have the incredible ability to listen to me bitch endlessly and offer advice and support, so isn’t therapy the same thing?” but no, it’s not and here’s why -
Paying a professional for this service changes the game.
Ultimately, therapy differs from my other relationships in the sense that it is supposed to be one-way. My therapist is there to listen to me and offer me support and advice only. I do not have to do the same for her, as I would for friends or family. Sure, I know tidbits about her life from small talk, but at the end of the day, I owe her only money, not energy and support.
This may seem inconsequential, especially if you have amazing friends like mine, but trust me, it makes a difference. Knowing that this time is only for me and my issues is very freeing. It’s like I’m paying someone to be mentally selfish for an hour every week. Money well spent.
It is like going to the gym for your brain.
There’s a reason people use this analogy when it comes to therapy. You work out to maintain your body health, so why wouldn’t you work on your mental health, right? I worked on my mental health by myself before therapy, and it worked pretty well, but starting therapy kicked it up a notch.
I could do a lot by reading and working through things myself, but having a professional provide support to my current work has been a true improvement. It’s like putting together workouts in the gym by yourself, but then also doing some sessions with a personal trainer - it takes everything to a higher level because they have a better understanding of this work since they’ve made it a career pursuit as opposed to a hobby. My therapist has insights and techniques that I can’t see by myself and I often find myself in silence at the end of every session because she’s given me so much to think about that I’ve already started trying to process all of it before we end our time.
Scheduled time.
Similar to the gym analogy, having an hour set aside each week for therapy helps free up my brain the rest of the time. Instead of allowing something to nag and distract me, I can set it aside to work through that week in my scheduled session. For someone like me who thrives on schedule and routine already, this is a huge perk to therapy. I can make an appointment and actively set aside that time to work through whatever I need to and that helps my mind let go of it the rest of the time.
Therapy is a mirror.
A therapist's job usually isn’t to tell you how to live your life, it’s to help guide you through processing and working through things on your own which means all they are ever going to do is reflect what you’ve said back at you.
For this reason, it is infinitely important to be honest with your therapist. When I talk to friends or family I find it hard to be truly transparent about the situation because I am always trying to paint myself in the best light. I will omit little things or explain away behaviors because I don’t want my friends or family to think too differently or badly of me (even though I know this too, is just in my head), but with therapy it’s different.
Because the whole goal of therapy is to work through things, it does me absolutely no good to put up false pretenses. And because my therapist is only my therapist and not a personal relation, this environment allows me to truly work through things without focusing as much on perception.
Therapy has come a long way but it still frequently gets a bad rep. People still like to exclusively associate it with mental disorders or with the bastardized imagery the media might portray of therapy (Hannibal Lecter anyone?). But it’s simply yet another way to take care of your mental and emotional health. Had I not started therapy, I probably would’ve been just fine. I had been taking care of my own mental health for many years already, but this has been a huge step up in my self care.
On top of all the reasons I listed already, with everything that’s going on with COVID-19, it’s also been the perfect time for me to be doing this. Like everyone else, this pandemic has thrown my emotions and anxieties for a loop so my timing could not have been better with regards to focusing on my mental health. There are many reasons to not do therapy - the price tag, finding a therapist, and the general stigma might throw you off - but for me, this has been the single best investment I’ve made in my self care, maybe ever.
If you’re curious about it, my experience with it, or the service I mentioned, don’t hesitate to drop me a DM, I’m more than willing to share more if you need more information.
PC: Clara Yu