I think there is a misconception of “normal”. Normal isn’t a single behavior or attitude, but a wide range where people can cope with life very well. Is it clear that therapy for those in the “normal” range is actually going to make them any happier or more productive? I’d say the mark of being “normal” is not the lack of issues, but the ability to deal with issues either by yourself or with the help of friends and family. Not to mention that certain issues might be tied to being especially productive or intelligent or a high achiever. I don’t think we want the world of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” do we?
For myself, telling all my deepest feelings and thoughts to a stranger (or anyone, actually) sounds awful. I’d hate it. However, everyone has issues, being the dumb ol’ human beings that we are, and a good therapist can be a great way to work through them and come to better insights.
Last year I went to a seminar given by a writer/educator whom I greatly respect. In the course of her talk she pointed out that many of us are under a lot of pressure to do certain things or be a certain way. Sometimes we are surrounded by people who, though they love us, are also not particularly objective about us and may want us to be different than we are. A good therapist functions as an objective, uninvolved sounding board–she doesn’t want anything from you and just helps you get clarity about what you’re doing and feeling. That sounds pretty good to me, actually, though I don’t want it for myself.
So–does everyone need therapy? Nah. But it can be a good tool (among many possible tools) and shouldn’t be stigmatized as something only sick, twisted people need.
The more people I get to know well, the more I conclude that almost everyone is pretty screwed up emotionally. So while perhaps “normal people” don’t need therapy, I’m not sure most people really are “normal”.
Then again, I may have a totally skewed sample, because my family is crazy (nice people, but crazy), my wife’s family has been through a major tragedy, and most of my wife’s friends are social workers (who seem to have had disproportionately crappy childhoods.)
For about 6 years, I was a member of an intentional community (you can say “cult”, if you like, although we were awfully poor and powerless for a cult ) where therapy was mandatory. I learned a lot about myself in that time period. I learned that I tend to use sarcasm as a distancing technique (no shit.) I learned that I have trouble expressing anger and that the extreme anxiety I feel when other people are angry around me (not even at me, just in the same geographic area) is likely due to my parent’s utter inability to express anger. I learned that my husband and I can argue and it doesn’t mean the marriage is over. I learned that I’m the sort of person to say, “sure, I’d love to help out” even when I don’t, and I learned some very successful techniques to stop doing that without hating myself.
I also learned that it’d be awfully nice to get through an entire party without helping someone “process” the “issues” they have “a charge” around in “safety”. I learned that buzzwords make me stabby. I learned that sometimes the best “contact statement” is “you’re being an idiot” and sometimes the only “I statement” possible is “I feel like you’re being a total bitch.”
Exhausting, it was, being around people, and being a person, so completely self-aware all the fucking time. Then again, my life was a lot more interesting as a result, and I do miss that.
Not sure that we all need a professional tune-up because we already do it naturally. Drew Carey had a way of summing it up and there is some truth in his words:
“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There is a support group for that. Its called EVERYBODY and they meet at the bar.”
We often talk out life’s frustrations with friends in a cathartic combination of general venting and mutual support.
I couldn’t agree more. And if you go to a shrink rather than venting with your friends and/or family (or simply pondering your options), are you going to react differently to your situation?
Shalmanese, thank you for the honest answer. Voyager, thank you for getting the joke. (I was going more for Eliza, to be honest. Non-directional therapy is surprisingly useful sometimes, and you can even do it to yourself.)
I will not lie, I have been in therapy. It didn’t help the eight year old me as much as reading Robert Heinlein did. I understand what was intended, but I wasn’t in a place to learn. Truthfully, I wasn’t the person in the family who needed it.
That said, therapy is a useful tool, it can help people examine their life, encourage them into better behaviors, and make them better people. The thing is, it’s only one tool of several that can do it. (I’ll be honest again. I actually pulled myself out of a depressive cycle once by asking ‘What Would Superman Do?’ It may seem trite, but it did show me I knew the right thing to do… so why wasn’t I doing it?)
There are people and cases it can help, but it is not the only way.
Everyone should ideally have some folks they can open up to and communicate with about deeply personal stuff, and receive thoughtful and wise feedback and guidance of appropriate sorts.
I think it’s healthier when that can be an egalitarian and mutual arrangement rather than paying for a piece of ear.
I figured saying “Dr. Eliza” would be too obvious.
For those totally confused, Joseph Weisenbaum at MIT wrote the Eliza program, which simulated what I think was called Rogerian therapy, basically echoing back the statement as a question. This takes surprisingly few lines of code. Though often considered an advance in AI, it was really written to show how easy it is to simulate seemingly intelligent behavior without any deep understanding. He was upset at how Eliza was received, especially when he found his secretary confessing to it. He wrote a pretty much anti-AI book in the early 70s, I believe.
Back on track, KCBS has a ten minute John Madden segment every morning. This morning, someone asked him if he ever thought of having a team psychologist for the Raiders. He said he had broached the subject once to the team doctor, who said that sometimes a players skilled is tied to a quirk, and did he want to risk losing the skill? Madden immediately dropped the idea forever.
Voyager: Should have gotten it, didn’t, good one. Anyhow.
Actually, just Heinlein’s juveniles helped. People who I could sort of relate to, who got in trouble, and worked through it and were rewarded with a better life. The idea of having a moral code, and goals for life.
The point some people are overlooking is that yes, we can all complain to our friends and family, etc., but the real benefit of a therapist is that you can say things that you CAN’T say to your friends and family. You can speak out loud the things that would be too horrible and hurtful for your friends and family to hear. You can talk about things that you might barely be able to admit to yourself, etc.
And you get to talk only about yourself, and the therapist talks only about you too, and you never have to feel like you’re being a selfish clod for doing so, because that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, and it’s your own money and time you’re wasting if you don’t.
ETA: On the downside, this can become highly addictive and ultimately, counterproductive. At some point, you have to realize that understanding why you do such and such is not enough. You have to stop doing it.
Oh, sweet Jesus. At a party? Sometimes I think repression gets a bad rap.
When my sister-in-law–who is truly a lovely woman–was getting her PhD in counseling, she went through a phase where she liked to diagnose friends, family members and acquaintances. (Fortunately, she’s over that now.) “So-and-so has narcissistic anti-social disorder.” No, he doesn’t have a disorder. He’s just a total fucking asshole.
I have to say, I pretty strongly disagree with the notion that therapy is only for those who can’t function without it. If going to therapy would make you feel happier than you are able to feel without it (and you have affordable therapy available), you should get therapy.
Obviously, life is not always pleasant, and everyone is unhappy sometimes. But there’s nothing wrong with using whatever tools are available to try to make it more pleasant than it is. For some people, therapy is a useful tool.
You seem to be saying people who can function alright without therapy but are able to achieve greater happiness with it are “wimping out” by seeking therapy – that it would be better for them to just tolerate unhappiness as well as they can. If so, I think that’s ridiculous. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the people who’d rather be unhappy than swallow their pride and ask someone for help that have a problem.
To be clear, I’m not trying to malign everyone who’s not in therapy with that last sentence. What I’m saying is there are plenty of people who are able to get through life just fine, who are even fairly successful, but who are significantly unhappy much of the time, and haven’t been able to find a way on their own to become happier. Why the hell shouldn’t they try therapy before resigning themselves to a life of unhappiness? They don’t need it to get through life, but they’d potentially feel much happier with it, and the only thing stopping them is the fact that they feel too proud to ask for help from a stranger (even though they’re paying for help, it’s not like asking for charity.) I think that’s a lousy reason to choose a life of misery.
Well, that’s what happens when everyone is in therapy all the time. Sure, I might be having a good night, but with 30 of us involved, someone’s likely to be having a meltdown in the kitchen. And because we’re all so “enlightened” and “aware”, we’re not allowed to roll our eyes and shove them out of the way to get to the spinach dip, even if (especially if) this is the 32nd meltdown today.
But, you know, what goes around comes around and sooner or later it’d be me sobbing into the spinach dip, and it sure was nice to have a whole boatload of sympathy and support and simple time to figure shit out. I never had to search for a babysitter in those days, either. Community has its advantages.
Back in those days, “Hi, how are you?” was a real question, not a rhetorical one. Sometimes I miss that.
It’s interesting that you say that, because I’ve always felt a much overlooked benefit of therapy is you don’t have as much temptation to whine to all your friends about your problems, because you have someone who’s paid to listen to you.
However, my experience is only with individual therapy. Were you all doing group therapy together? Because I could see how that would give people the idea it was OK to constantly be sharing their problems with everyone around them. I hear group therapy really helps some people, but I think the idea of being in a therapy group with people you see on a regular basis outside of therapy is a pretty bad idea.
) where therapy was mandatory. I learned a lot about myself in that time period. I learned that I tend to use sarcasm as a distancing technique (no shit.) I learned that I have trouble expressing anger and that the extreme anxiety I feel when other people are angry around me (not even at me, just in the same geographic area) is likely due to my parent’s utter inability to express anger. I learned that my husband and I can argue and it doesn’t mean the marriage is over. I learned that I’m the sort of person to say, “sure, I’d love to help out” even when I don’t, and I learned some very successful techniques to stop doing that without hating myself.