It helps to be old and to have been around there when Eliza was hot. 
Interesting. I read them all, of course, but I never considered them therapy. I don’t think I was self aware enough to have realized I needed any. Maybe if self help was big back then, but I don’t think I’d have read any of it.
The OP is like wondering if everyone would benefit from going to church. Yes, many people benefit greatly by going to church every week and doing all the things that go along with church–like prayer, Bible studies, and spiritual retreats. But these people are always willing participants. They believe it will work, so it works. For them. But for other people, church would make them crazy.
I’ve been in therapy for the past few months. I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. Sometimes I leave the office with self-clarity and understanding. Other times, actually most times, I leave feeling worse than I did before I went in. But I keep going because there are very few options available to me. I don’t drink. I don’t have friends who I can cry to. And there’s only so many times you can rant and complain to family members before they get tired of you, because they either can’t relate or you’re simply a broken record. And you don’t want to make people worry either.
Sometimes I think going to therapy is too much of a luxury for me–not just financially but also because it doesn’t seem 100% necessary. After all, my problems aren’t keeping me from taking care of myself. I go to work every day and successfully wear a “normal” facade around people. It’s not like I spend hours rocking back and forth in a dark corner, babbling to myself (though sometimes I’m tempted to give it a try). If someone were to ask me why I’m going to therapy, I wouldn’t even be able to articulate an answer. Sometimes, like when everything’s going alright in my life, I feel like I’m just looking for a place to navel gaze, where I can feel special and non-invisible and connected to someone else. But then a bad day comes and I remember that I actually need serious help.
I purposefully sought out a cognitive behavioral therapist so that I wouldn’t be constantly mired in the “why” behind my feelings. I think “why” is an important question–personally I’m kind of interested in why I’ve turned into the person I’ve become. But equally important are pragmatic strategies for dealing with feelings and stressful situations. It would be easier to argue that more people would benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy more than classic psychoanalysis, because I think all of us occassionally encounter situations that leave us so stressed out that we don’t perform optimally. But not everyone is capable of submitting to the kind of soul-baring one generally does on a psychoanalyst’s couch. I also think it’s counter-productive to link every problem and personality quirk to some facet of childhood. I know someone who does this all the time and it’s annoying.
Outstanding post, monstro! But I’m here to tell you that I can take a cognitive behavioralist and make him/her cooperate in navel gazing, and so can anyone. It’s always a danger in therapy. Which doesn’t mean it’s bad. Sometimes that’s just what you need.
I don’t have any outlet either, but I’ve reached a point in life where I haven’t wanted one for about twenty years. Conversation, yes, and I get that here. Love, yes, and I get that from my family. But expressing the results of deep introspection? I’ve had enough deep introspection for a lifetime, and realized that one of my problems was that I spent too damn much time introspecting, and not enough time extrospecting (to coin a word).
Therapy is like anything else. It’s good for some, some of the time.
I think there’s a misconception about how objective therapists are. My therapist isn’t really all that objective, in that she doesn’t refrain from issuing her own opinions.
Like, she’ll often say things like, “What a horrible thing that must have been!” Or “It sounds like so-and-so is a pretty lousy friend.” She’s also (gently) judged my actions. “If you did that to me, I’d be angry too.” I imagine many therapists are like this. So it’s not like you’re talking to a note-taking robot.
Sometimes I’ll detect bias in her interpretation of whatever I’m rambling about. Correcting her actually gives me some objective perspective, so in that way it’s a good thing.
I can see how being a subjective listener would be unprofessional (she also talks freely about politics…if I were a conservative, we wouldn’t be getting along at all). But I actually find it useful to have a sounding board that talks back in a human way. I don’t want someone to just agree with whatever I say and constantly pat me on the head.
I have to admit to feeling guilty for all the “navel gazing” I’ve been doing, especially since I can’t point to any results. Like I said, it feels like a decadent luxury. And for an over-educated introvert, navel gazing isn’t an exercise I need to be taught .
But then I look at the people around me and I realize that instead of burdening one person with their problems for 50 minutes a week, they spread their pain around, both in space and time. I’ve heard coworkers complain about everything in their personal lives–much of it very graphic and workplace inappropriate. The only difference between what I do and what they do is that I’m paying someone to listen to and help me with my issues. Most other people just want an audience for theirs, and don’t really care for advice.
The last few years of therapy, that’s exactly the way I felt about it; I was paying someone to listen to me, to get an objective opinion and to spare the rest of the world.