30 Things I Have Learned About Therapy for My 30th Birthday: Part 2
Welcome to part two of 30 things I have learned about therapy after turning 30 recently! I’m feeling a little angrier and emo this time. The following ten reflections expose some frustration and sometimes even cynicism I have towards the field of mental health in general, especially after the cultural changes in the past 5-10 years.
PART 2
11. I believe the most valuable thing we can gain from therapy is self-understanding. People often feel internal conflict and chaos because they are not able to make sense of their thoughts and feelings. We can create pockets of peace when we can understand and validate ourselves a bit more.
12. I have a love-hate relationship with confidentiality. I’m glad that privacy helps people feel more able to share hard things, but I feel frustrated that we can’t create more sustainable and more accessible avenues for care. Confidentiality creates safety but it creates siloes.
13. We gotta stop suggesting therapy as a solution to everyone’s problems. First of all, a lot of the work done in therapy can be done with other trusted people and even some of it, on your own. Secondly, moral judgments on whether or not someone has accessed therapy totally ignores all the barriers to accessing good care.
14. In the same vein… there are SOOOOO many bad therapists out there. I feel so sad about how often I am processing with clients the hurt or even trauma they have from past therapists. We certainly should not be suggesting therapy as the solution to all your problems when way too many therapists are seeking power and influence instead of providing care and support.
15. The therapist is not the Knower of Things and the client is not the One Who Does Not Know Things. There is an inevitable power dynamic in therapy as people are paying me for a service, but as much as I can I try to minimize this. I improve my skills every day because clients teach me so much.
16. Therapy does not replace the need to rely on other relationships. Talking to me about a fight with your partner will feel different than talking to a friend or parent. This scratches a different itch and meets a different need than other relationships.
17. Clients are the gatekeepers of information to therapists. I can only know what they tell me which can mean I only get one perspective, which can be limiting at times.
18. Therapy is not the best system of accountability by far. Those safe siloes can’t really hold us accountable as well as our larger community can. Creating support webs and networks outside of therapy will always be important!
19. Stop outsourcing friend responsibilities to therapists! Show up for your friends goddammit! Sure, there are some things to save to talk about in a clinical setting but plenty of other things like grief support or thinking through a dilemma or venting that friends can and should absolutely do with us!
20. Social media can be such a wonderful tool for distribution of information and exploration of self-identity, and also I will never forgive influencers and social media landscape for what they did with attachment theory, personality disorders, or for the creation of the word “trauma-dumping.”
Despite my anger and disdain, I really do love what we do at TRC. Therapy, like many things, has a messy history and has been co-opted by capitalism, especially recently. I have to acknowledge that these are the dynamics I am working within and remind clients too.