therapy

[Kalden]

Hi forum, I've watched many of Stefan's videos about therapy and have been wondering about it for myself, but I have a few questions about it:

 

How do I know if I need therapy?
Is therapy worth the time and money required to find a good therapist and work through your issues?
What could a therapist tell me that I don't already know or could more cheaply find out?

And most importantly, does it even work?

 

Any information will be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[Kevin Beal]

Psychotherapy is to mental health what physical therapy is to physical health. Nobody "needs" therapy per se, just like they don't "need" physical therapy (I really dislike the word "need"), it just makes healing much easier.

 

If you have deficiencies in mental health (as we all do to a certain degree), and you don't have the knowledge, awareness, motivation or tools to heal yourself (as very few of us do), then you should consider seeing a therapist. Depression, anxiety, poor or fragile self esteem, etc. are symptoms of poor mental health. If you experience those enough that they interfere with your ability to get what you want out of life, to the degree that is true is the degree to which you should go interview therapists.

 

Certain bad mental health habits contribute to depression, anxiety, poor self esteem, etc. that you'd be working on in therapy. In order to work on these bad habits, false core beliefs, maladaptive behavior, etc. you may have to:

• explore how these habits formed originally, like in childhood
• do some kind of exposure therapy by pushing past your comfort zone
• examining how it is exactly you think about yourself and the world

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Whether or not it's worth the money is only something you can determine. It was definitely worth it for me. In this post, I write about how to be efficient in finding a good therapist who will be worth the money, in my own opinion.

 

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This podcast is an interview with a researcher who looked into the effectiveness of therapy, defining success and making a case for going:

 

[KidBlondie]

Therapy is 100% worth the money.

 

The catch is you need a good therapist and those are hard to come by. I think for people who have never gone it's difficult to understand how paying someone to listen to you is actually helpful. I think there is a good about of evidence for therapy helping people process and better understand the root cause of their behaviors.

 

I haven't done a full sprint into therapy. But I've gone a number of stints when I needed insight into why I do the things I do. Sometimes it's hard to be objective about yourself. A therapist can help with that.

 

How do I know if I need therapy?

 

 

It takes a certain amount of self-knowledge to know whether you're stuck in a loop. 

Once I realize I'm in one, therapy helps get to the source and sort it out.

[Pod]

From what I've read it's a good way to get external feedback on your thoughts.  Like I'm still fighting my false self back, so its signals are probably mixed in with those from my true self and I can't always pick them apart with my beginner philosophy brain so consulting an expert is probs a good idea. 

 

As soon as I actually start putting money away again I'm gonna invest in some therapy.  I'm already steam-rolling through FDR podcasts and writing a lot in journals and recording thoughts on voice memos, so that'll probably speed up the process which = more $ for the savings.