You Might Believe These Lies About Therapy

Okay, hi everybody. Um, thanks for coming back. We are doing a video that I'm super jazzed about today. We are talking about myths in therapy or like myths about therapy. I'm really excited to talk about myths about therapy because I think a lot of people have these misconceptions and I want to clear them up because y'all should be going to therapy if you want to be. Just, just, just go. But anyways, um, yeah, I think these are going to be really fun for me to talk about because again, I think a lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how therapy works because we as a society have stigmatized and shamed people who want to work on their mental health, which is a bunch of bullshit, which leads to a lot of misinformation. So, uh, let's talk about it. Okay, so, um, myth number one. I think a lot of people have fears that their therapist will force you to talk about your childhood and like some therapists do really believe that your childhood is really an important topic of discussion in therapy, myself included. But A, if you don't want to talk about your childhood, are not ready to talk about your childhood, don't feel like it's relevant to the issues that you're working through, you as the client have the right to say like, nope, I don't want to talk about that and your therapist should respect that. Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. So if your therapist does really want to talk about your childhood and you're not ready, don't want to, don't feel like you should, um, then don't. But also sometimes people's issues are linked to their childhood and sometimes they're not. So while it can be relevant for us to talk about childhood issues and like what your childhood looked like and all that stuff, it's not always relevant or necessary. And so it's not like if you go to therapy, every therapist is like, okay, let's start from the time that you were born. Let's unpack all of your childhood ----. Because again, some people's issues are like related to their immediate environment or their, uh, you know, relationships, like their recent relationships or like a trauma that has nothing to do with childhood or whatever. And so please don't feel like going to therapy means that you absolutely have to talk about your childhood. Um, you don't, if you don't want to, you don't, you know, hard stop. That's it. But also it might not even be relevant to the issues you want to work through. So myth number two, your therapist is just going to tell you what to do. This is my favorite because this is literally the exact opposite of what a good therapist is supposed to do. We are actually advised in school against advice giving. Our job as a therapist is not to tell somebody what to do or give people advice about how to make decisions or what way to make decisions and all that stuff. That's not our role as a therapist. It's not our job. It's not our place for several reasons. And I think we've talked about this before, but I think it was in one of the janky, poorly edited videos. So we'll cover it again. As a therapist, if I'm giving people advice and telling people what to do, first of all, even if it does work out, even if I gave somebody banging advice and they went and made a great decision, right? That interaction basically encourages the client that instead of looking to yourself and like looking inward, doing some reflection and making a decision on your own, what you should be doing is asking me for advice about how to make decisions in your life, which is not healthy because again, not about me as a therapist. It literally has nothing to do with my opinion or what I think you should or should not be doing. But also that's not helpful to a client in the long term because the goal for therapy typically is to have somebody work through their stuff, sort through their feelings, own and honor their stuff, develop some tools and techniques to help deal with their stuff, and then move on with your life. As much as I love my clients and as much as I really enjoy seeing them every week, the goal is not to keep them there forever. And so by encouraging this person to trust me with all of their decisions, I'm not helping them in the long run. And that's really just like not ethical, it's not helping them grow, it's not good for them or for me. Because also like I can't see new people, I can't make room in my schedule to help more people if I have the same people in my schedule all the time that I've kind of enabled to stay in therapy because I'm making all of their decisions for them. So like all around, bad idea, not good. But yeah, therapists, first of all, should not be giving advice, hard stop. But also if your therapist is talking to you in a way that makes you feel like they're ordering you around, A, feel free to bring that into the room and say, hey, listen, I'm feeling like you're really putting a lot of your own opinion into this and like telling me what to do and it's making me uncomfortable. Or if you're not comfortable doing that, you can just find a new therapist. But it is good conflict resolution skills to just talk about it with your therapist. So that's that. Therapists don't give advice and they should not be ordering you around. So if they are, get the **** out of there. Okay. Myth number three, therapists will push you to get on medication. Wrong. This is literally just not true. Not only is that not our field, as a therapist, I could sort of take or leave medication. Like I don't really care if somebody wants to be on it. Great. I'm happy to refer them to a psychologist or not a psychologist, a psychiatrist. I'm happy to facilitate them meeting with somebody who can prescribe medication but first of all, just as a social worker, as an MSW, even as an LCSW, I am not and will not be allowed to prescribe medication. I don't have any ******* education about that. I have no idea how that works outside of my own anecdotal experience with being on antidepressants and stuff like that. So again, if your therapist is like really pushing the issue with medication, like first of all, that's not cool because we should not be telling people what to do. But second of all, some therapists are really bought into the idea that like medication is like a necessary part of healing or recovery and like for some people it is. For some people, antidepressants are like life-changing and they will be and want to be on them for long-term or for their whole life. Good for them. If that's you, like I'm super happy for you. But that's not the case for everybody. And so again, if your therapist is like really pushing the issue, find a new therapist or have a conversation about it because this is not industry standard. This is not the way that therapists are supposed to behave. And especially therapists who are like recently educated are well aware that medication is not our wheelhouse. We don't really get to have an opinion about it. Going to therapy in a general sense, there is not and should not be pressure to get on medication, especially if you don't want to be. The next one I feel like I've seen more recently that I was kind of surprised by, but there's this perception that if your family and friends are really supportive and you feel like you can talk to them, that you don't need to be in therapy. And like first of all, this is not true because even if your family and friends are like super close, hella supportive, really healthy, in a great place, like first of all, I'm really happy for you. That's wonderful. But second of all, there is something to be said for having an objective listener in the room because as a therapist, again, it's not ******* about me. I don't have to live your life. I don't have to go home and make peace with the decisions that you've made. And so I don't have a vested interest in whatever you decide to do or not do. And this really impactful because it allows the therapist to help you see all sides of a situation or at least a lot more sides of a situation than you might be able to see if you're talking about it with, you know, your mom or your sister or your brother or your friend or your dad or whatever. Having an objective listener in the room can just be really illuminating for us to recognize our own thought processes that we didn't realize were going on, but also to kind of see how other people in our life, how their interest affects the way that they want us to behave. But also, again, even if your family is the most supportive, most healthy, most wonderful people, odds are that they don't have an education in, you know, like evidence-based therapy. And even if they do, even if like your mom or your brother is, you know, like a licensed therapist, it's unethical and they're not allowed to therapize you. There's a reason that I am not allowed to treat anybody that I have any kind of prior relationship with because it's impossible for us to be objective. And so even if your family does have an education in being a therapist, they aren't really able to help you because, again, they're not objective. And so the objectivity and the education that comes with a therapist is really where a lot of the change happens in therapy. And so there can still be a need for therapy. This last one is really big. I think a lot of people struggle with feeling like their problems or their needs aren't important enough, aren't serious enough, you're not sick enough to go to therapy, which is a bunch of bullshit. It doesn't really matter if your problems are not as severe as somebody else's or if your issues aren't the same as somebody else's because, first of all, you can go to therapy for what the **** ever you want to go for. Even if you just want to go to therapy because you're not feeling heard by the people in your life and you just need somebody to hear you out for a minute, that's super useful. I've had clients that I have seen literally for like three sessions and then they discharged because they had a big life decision, they weren't sure what to do, and they just needed an objective listener to help reflect what they were going through. And we can't really do that with people in our life because they are involved, they are invested in the decisions that we make. And so if you have super severe depression and anxiety and whatever and you want to go to therapy, go to therapy. If you are just not feeling like yourself and you're not really sure what's going on but you know that it's not normal, you can go to therapy. If you are feeling anxious, you can go to therapy. If you have like a little bit of disordered eating, you can go to therapy. If you just struggle with your relationship with food, you can go to therapy. If the relationships in your life are not really working for you and you don't know how to deal with that, you can go to therapy. Like I could sit here and list things all ******* day. And so please, please, please do not feel like your issues are not serious enough to go to therapy. Because first of all, they are. But second of all, there is something to be said for going to therapy before our issues become really severe. And again, I recognize that there's a lot of privilege and being able to go to therapy and afford it and all that stuff. But going to therapy for things when they're small is really useful because there's a whole lot less time and effort that has to be spent in therapy addressing those issues than if you were to wait until the ******* wheels fall off and then you show up to therapy and you're like, I don't know what's going on. Everything's garbage. If we treat issues when they're first beginning, when they're still small, and when they're not impacting every area of your life, it's a lot easier for people to work through that to get some tools and techniques and then to move on with your ******* life. So again, please don't feel like your issues are not serious enough for you to go to therapy. They absolutely are. And actually, I would argue that that's like a really smart decision to go before things become really severe and intense. So those are our myths about therapy. Like I said, I hope that this was interesting and or helpful to you guys. I really just want to encourage you guys to go to therapy because I know that it's not always attainable or easy to do. But if you want to go, if it's a feasible option for you, I would really encourage you to go because again, it can be really impactful and life-changing and wonderful. So if you have questions, comments, concerns, please put them in the comments. I would love to chat with you guys. And then, you know, all of the usual stuff. Like the video, subscribe to the channel, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Share the video to help the channel grow, to help each other grow. And that's it, I guess. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye.