Would it be better if everyone did therapy?

Great Debates
1

Our current societal view of therapy is that it’s for people who have something wrong with them and that normal people have no need for therapy. As a result, there’s a deep stigma and hostility towards attending therapy as it’s an admission of not being normal.

Yet it seems like pretty much everyone, no matter how sane, still have reasonably important issues in their lives for which they need to engage in some deep introspection and understanding in order to fix. Their lives would not be incomplete without it, it would simply be better with it.

Now my question is not about whether decent quality, individualized therapy is a practical or affordable solution, but whether it would be more useful to treat therapy as something that would be of benefit to normal people.

Think of something like public education. We as a society has decided that primary and secondary education is something of value to every citizen. Should therapy be viewed in the same light?

2

Therapy should be reserved for people whose lives are severely impaired by their inability to figure things out for themselves. Normal, healthy people use the people around them, the tools at hand, and their own reasoning skills to sort through life’s hurdles. The answers don’t always come quickly or easily for us, but that’s ok. That’s life.

Depending on other people to “show you the way” is fine if you simply can’t function without assistance. However, I think people sometimes put unrealistic expectations on what “life” is or should be. We should expect life to be hard, painful, confusing, and unpleasant at times. Some lives have a LOT of unpleasantness. If you cannot function through the lows, then maybe therapy is for you. But if you’re distressed, sad, pissed off, disappointed, confused, or thinking these lows are “not fun”, then you’re probably doing it right and you don’t need a therapist. Life goes on.

By the way…while there might be something temporarily or permanently wrong with people who can’t get through life without assistance, I don’t think it’s a reason to be hostile or unkind to them. It’s like diabetes or nearsightedness. It just is.

3

There’s a lot of stuff I could potentially figure out on my own, if given enough dedication or time. However, I might still opt to take a class in them so that I can learn them faster and more correctly under the guidance of a professional.

Whenever people rant about obnoxious bosses or poisonous relationships or manipulative friends, maybe therapy would have helped those people get to a better place faster than doing it themselves.

4

Therapy is great for some people, and I’m glad for them. But the idea of paying some stranger to listen to my problems seems very close to my idea of hell. I’m a private person. If I have something I need advice on, I’ll talk to my husband or my best friend, not some dude I don’t know from Adam.

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
Yet it seems like pretty much everyone, no matter how sane, still have reasonably important issues in their lives for which they need to engage in some deep introspection and understanding in order to fix. Their lives would not be incomplete without it, it would simply be better with it.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I really don’t feel that I have any of those issues in my life. I’d like to find a better-paying job, but aside from that, I’m generally happy with my life and my relationships. Like Kalhoun, I don’t expect my life to be a rose-strewn path.

5

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
Now my question is not about whether decent quality, individualized therapy is a practical or affordable solution, but whether it would be more useful to treat therapy as something that would be of benefit to normal people.
[/quote]

It’s only of benefit if the cost of not getting therapy outweighs the cost of getting therapy. Taking the cost of providing that therapy out of the equation makes the whole question pointless.

No. For Joe Average, I very much doubt the benefits of therapy come close to the benefits of being able to communicate, calculate and understand the basics of how the world works.

6

I don’t think I would want to live in a society of people ‘normalised’ by therapy as standard. Therapy is no doubt useful for those handicapped by anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. But the psychopathology of everyday life - the neuroses, the irrational fears, the obsessions - provide much of the humour and character I enjoy in human beings. I can’t imagine going down the pub to endure a whole crowd of people admiring each other’s pro-active approach to realising their potential.

Would the pub even exist in a world of perfectly balanced individuals?!?

7

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
There’s a lot of stuff I could potentially figure out on my own, if given enough dedication or time. However, I might still opt to take a class in them so that I can learn them faster and more correctly under the guidance of a professional.

Whenever people rant about obnoxious bosses or poisonous relationships or manipulative friends, maybe therapy would have helped those people get to a better place faster than doing it themselves.
[/QUOTE]

This strikes me as not really living one’s life. It’s not a race; all these experiences (and their solutions) are part of what makes each of us who we are. I would be concerned that my life (and my memories) would become flat and lacklustre.

8

One of the things I learned in therapy was to quit lying to myself. Once I quit trying to justify behavior that wasn’t good for me, I improved a lot. I see a lot of “normal” people who lie to themselves and others constantly. I learned about a great many other bad habits that I have. Therapy isn’t just lying on the couch and talking about how your mom beat you and your daddy molested you, although that’s certainly worth spending some time on if it happened to you. Therapy, if it’s good, shows you what you’re doing that’s positive and what negative habits you have. Your family and friends might have the same negative and positive habits, so they can’t help you, and you might not even realize that you’re doing something that harms you.
I think that in an ideal world, most people would get some therapy every now and then, just like a physical checkup.

I still need medication for my mental illness, and probably always will. I’ll probably always need to take a thyroid supplement, too.

9

I would note there’s an assumption in the OP that a therapy will actually help people handle issues they might have. However, it doesn’t seem to me to be a given. A therapy can be fruitless, or even harmful. And there are a number of therapists out there who are just bad.
Therapy is much less reliable than, say, cardiology, hence should be handled with some degree of care, IMHO. Even though there’s an undeserved stigma still attached to seeing a shrink, on the other hand there’s currently IMO a too strong tendency to send everybody and his dog to a therapist just because there’s something slightly wrong in their life or even because there might be something wrong in the future.

10

There have been lots of studies that show that therapy has no better rate of improvement than no treatment at all for disorders that don’t require medication.

11

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
Our current societal view of therapy is that it’s for people who have something wrong with them and that normal people have no need for therapy. As a result, there’s a deep stigma and hostility towards attending therapy as it’s an admission of not being normal.

Yet it seems like pretty much everyone, no matter how sane, still have reasonably important issues in their lives for which they need to engage in some deep introspection and understanding in order to fix. Their lives would not be incomplete without it, it would simply be better with it.

Now my question is not about whether decent quality, individualized therapy is a practical or affordable solution, but whether it would be more useful to treat therapy as something that would be of benefit to normal people.

Think of something like public education. We as a society has decided that primary and secondary education is something of value to every citizen. Should therapy be viewed in the same light?
[/QUOTE]

I believe we do have self understanding and improvement available for everyone that wants it. There are self-help books a plenty. There are psychologists like Wayne Dyer that writes books and gives lectures anyone can take advantage of if they desire. Religion was supposed to help people live better, Jesus said: “I came to bring you life, and life more abundantly.” But that hasn’t worked well either.

The reason people don’t take advantage of all these life-improving paths is simply they don’t want to do so. Usually because they are convinced they know what all this stuff is and it won’t work for them. So it’s another catch 22. It takes an attitude of wanting to learn, a humility before knowledge that most don’t have at the moment.

12

Tell me, why do you think it would be better if everyone did therapy?

13

Everybody has issues. Therapy is not the only way to deal with them, and the last paragraph of the OP seems to come close to suggesting state-mandated therapy, which gives me the creeps.

I know people who are in therapy who find it very helpful. I also know people for whom therapy is just one entry in a parade of excuses for the condition of their lives. If they’re not motivated to solve their problems, hard as it may be, the therapy seems pointless.

In general I’d say increased self-awareness is a benefit to everybody and therapy is one way to get that, but it’s not the only one. And people in therapy shouldn’t be stigmatized, but I think there has never been less stigma attached to therapy - maybe the analysis craze in the '70s, but I wasn’t around for that. Lots of people are in therapy and/or on drugs for things like depression even at early ages, grief counseling is a standard thing at schools when a child dies, and so on. This stuff isn’t universal but these days I don’t think people find it all that weird, generally speaking.

14

[QUOTE=Staggerlee]
I don’t think I would want to live in a society of people ‘normalised’ by therapy as standard. Therapy is no doubt useful for those handicapped by anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. But the psychopathology of everyday life - the neuroses, the irrational fears, the obsessions - provide much of the humour and character I enjoy in human beings. I can’t imagine going down the pub to endure a whole crowd of people admiring each other’s pro-active approach to realising their potential.

Would the pub even exist in a world of perfectly balanced individuals?!?
[/QUOTE]

I find it disturbing and slightly odd that you seem to equate being balanced with being boring. Of course pubs would still exist, people would still enjoy each other’s company. I don’t think therapy is only or primarily a tool for fixing surface oddities. Some of the most “normal” seeming people I know who can seemingly hold their own in everyday social situations have some of the most deep rooted issues. These issues are often more serious because of how far down they’ve been repressed.

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
This strikes me as not really living one’s life. It’s not a race; all these experiences (and their solutions) are part of what makes each of us who we are. I would be concerned that my life (and my memories) would become flat and lacklustre.
[/QUOTE]

I see the same theme here as Staggerlee in that a “normal”, “functional” life is boring and flat. I completely disagree. Being healthy in mind and body gives you the opportunity to experience more and appreciate what you have when you’re mind isn’t constantly clouded by doubts, fears and insecurities. Understanding yourself leads to less frustrated spinning of wheels and going around in circles and more doing stuff.

lekatt: I definitely agree that it’s true that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves and that a real desire for self improvement is necessary before progress is made. However, I feel that for the majority of people, there is a genuine desire to improve aspects of their lives and what’s missing is simply the knowledge and guidance to do this. Again, friends and family obviously do help but there is also benefit to seeking professional advice. Friends and family could also help critique your poetry but that does not deny the benefits of a professional writing coach. Some people may never really desire to become good poets and no amount of help will be useful but quite a few people could stand to gain enormously from it.

E-Sabbath: My professional interest is in people and how they tick, but from a broader academic perspective studying online communities. Understanding people is a particular skill which requires time and effort to learn but also allows for greater and more accurate self reflection.

I’ve often helped friends in therapy like sessions where I work together to help people untangle the problems in their lives. Usually, the problem is quite simple, although subtle and it does require real training or talent to be able to successfully tease out the root causes. Issues to do with insecurity, self doubt, managing emotions and expectations, passive aggressive behavior and manipulation among other things.

Often, I hit upon the limits of my knowledge on which I feel uncomfortable venturing further because I know how much I don’t know and I would feel much more comfortable being able to refer them to a professional versed in those areas.

Last night, I was talking to a friend who has had a very successful therapy experience whether she feels therapy would benefit the average person and she seemed pretty certain that it would which is why I wanted to see what everyone else thought.

[QUOTE=Grumman]

It’s only of benefit if the cost of not getting therapy outweighs the cost of getting therapy. Taking the cost of providing that therapy out of the equation makes the whole question pointless.

[/QUOTE]

Therapy has many non-monetary costs as well. Apart from the time and effort spent, it’s quite frankly threatening to deal with deep rooted issues and can be quite painful. Furthermore, unhealthy therapy sessions can actually exacerbate situations by feeding into them and causing them to seem bigger than they are.

Society views therapy like a medicine, to cure a sickness in the brain. You wouldn’t take Tynelol if you were healthy, even if it were free. Instead, I’m asking if maybe we should be treating therapy like a multi-vitamin. If you have a completely balanced diet, then it won’t be of much use. But even a large swathe of “healthy” people could stand to gain something with a regular does of multi-vitamin.

15

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
I find it disturbing and slightly odd that you seem to equate being balanced with being boring. Of course pubs would still exist, people would still enjoy each other’s company. I don’t think therapy is only or primarily a tool for fixing surface oddities. Some of the most “normal” seeming people I know who can seemingly hold their own in everyday social situations have some of the most deep rooted issues. These issues are often more serious because of how far down they’ve been repressed.
[/quote]

I think he’s just pointing out that a significant portion of a person’s personality is shaped by “deep rooted issues” which are dealt with in a variety of ways. It’s not disturbing or odd, in my opinion, just an acknowledgment of the obvious.

We’re talking about things like people being “healthy,” and that has different meanings for everybody posting here.

16

Luckily, seeking therapy is a voluntary endeavor. I truly believe therapy helps many thousands of people every year. And yes, some people do need it.

Some people through biology or environmental issues get out of whack emotionally and cannot get their lives back on track and need the assistance of an unbiased party to aid in their “recovery”. Some people are alone and need assistance from someone because of their solitarious lifestyle.

For people to poke fun, or jab at another seeking therapy is not only rude but almost a non-issue in that they lack empathy for those who need it.

Also, if everyone who needed therapy were in therapy there would be a shortage of therapists out there.

17

Speaking as a person who spent many years in therapy and went to school with the firm intention of becoming a therapist, I would say that while therapy can definitely be beneficial, it runs the risk with some people and some therapists of helping the patient become more narcissistic and mentally mastubatory. I found in school that there was no scientific basis for a therapeutic system; basically anyone who came up with a plausible sounding idea could find people to agree, could find patients who would turn out to be ‘helped’ by it, and could found a new therapeutic school of thought.

By the time I finished with some twenty years or more of off-and-on therapy, I’d come to realize that what I was doing was paying someone for an hour a week or so of guilt-free talking about myself, with any discussion firmly focussed on my favorite topic: me. You usually can’t get that from friends, and would feel embarrassed doing it even if you could: it’s too egocentric. But in therapy, it’s what you’re supposed to be doing, and you’re wasting your money if you don’t talk about yourself.

This can be both a wonderful and a terrible thing. Have a second objective and intelligent pair of eyes to assess what you’re doing in your life and help you evaluate your choices and figure out where you’re going wrong can be a wonderful thing, if you’re prepared to deal with that and try to change the one thing you can change - yourself. It can also be very helpful to have that second pair of eyes to help you understand the viewpoints of the people around you, to gently help you recognize that things that hurt you are not necessarily motivated by malice - and when they are, and what to do about it if they are.

But if you find a therapist who is inclined toward victimhood or utter passivity him or herself, and/or if you are a person who tends toward some degree of self-indulgence, it can reinforce some of the worst aspects of one’s character. Instead of learning to deal with your issues, you can learn to get increasingly indignant and unhappy about them, to play an ever mounting blame-game, with no end in sight. Such people can be far better off without therapy at all.

I’m such a person. After twenty years, I realized that primarily what therapy did for me was to give me one more reason to feel sorry for myself. It wasn’t that I had bad therapists, although not all of them were great therapists for me personally. It was the very fact of having someone to moan about myself to once a week that was in itself a dangerous thing for me. I do far better without it.

So, no, I do not think we would all be better off with therapy. Perhaps if we came up with a universal therapy techniqe that always worked, but I wouldn’t expect that in the next millenium; there are too many variations in people.

18

[QUOTE=Shalmanese]

I see the same theme here as Staggerlee in that a “normal”, “functional” life is boring and flat. I completely disagree. Being healthy in mind and body gives you the opportunity to experience more and appreciate what you have when you’re mind isn’t constantly clouded by doubts, fears and insecurities. Understanding yourself leads to less frustrated spinning of wheels and going around in circles and more doing stuff.

[/QUOTE]

First, no two people have the same “normal.” We are all products of our environment and what hits us as “normal” on any given day. It’s really not a useful word in this context. One of our beloved posters around here was “corrected” against his will, simply because his version of normal didn’t match up with everyone else’s. It isn’t up to someone else to define “normal” for the rest of us. We all find our own level. Universal “therapy” would most certainly take the spice out of life’s vast array of characters.

Secondly, I mentioned that people who are not functioning should probably seek help if they wish to become functional.

I realize that some people are incapacitated by doubts, fears and insecurities. Those people should take advantage of drugs, in my opinion. If you can’t get through your day, you need to find a way to do so.

However…I happen to enjoy life’s doubts, fears and even the occasional insecurity. Part of life is overcoming those negative emotions, learning to navigate around them, turning hurdles into opportunities, and growing through experience.

Now…you can pay someone to tell you how to do all that, but when it’s all said and done, only YOU can live your life. How do you know you won’t be afraid to take the advice of a professional? What guarantee do you have that that professional’s judgement is informed or sound? It’s all about you. You’ll either get there or you won’t. A shrink doesn’t guarantee a better you.

19

I am a psychiatrist who does therapy, and I have also been in therapy myself for some years. My primary motivation in going into therapy was to improve my own skills through having the experience of being on the receiving end, so I guess I would be a good example of someone who went into therapy without having any obviously distressing symptoms that I wanted to resolve.

I have found it a very valuable experience that has helped me to understand my own psychological workings and the ways in which my previous experiences shape the way I understand the world today. The goal is not to eliminate unpleasant emotions, but to understand where they are coming from and why they take the particular form that they do. I definitely feel that therapy has made me happier and better able to function in the world, although I would certainly not have described myself as unhappy or nonfunctional prior to entering therapy.

So, I do feel that almost everyone could benefit from therapy, and that there should not be any stigma attached to people who choose to enter therapy for the sake of self-understanding rather than for the purpose of dealing with symptoms. However, my answer to the OP would be “no”, because the benefits to any given person will not necessarily outweigh the considerable costs in time, psychological energy, and money, so I would also not wish to criticize or shame anyone who chooses not to do therapy. As a matter of public health policy, I think we have a lot of problems that should be a more pressing priority than funding exploratory psychotherapy for people without disabling symptoms.

20

During couples counseling, I learned very valuable things about feelings and interactions between humans. Things I had absolutely no idea about. My relationships have improved due to this. I’m able to deal with conflicts with my kids, co-workers, my ex and my current, in ways that are far more productive and better at preserving the relationship in difficult situations.

Seems like this educational aspect would be valuable for many people (maybe add to public schools?).