Venting What’s the point in getting therapy if I don’t believe in it?

[Dr Iron Arc]

If I may ramble a bit: I'm well aware that one of if not the most common answers to most internal problems just ends up being "seek therapy lol". I can't even resist the urge to offer this useless advice myself when asked for suggestions about someone else's challenging mental health issues. It's such a ubiquitous thing to recommend yet many of us here know it isn't the miracle solution it promises to be.

Today I was supposed to try getting a new therapist for myself to stop having panic attacks at work. The therapist I was previously seeing a few months ago dropped me after two sessions because she claimed I needed a psychiatrist. Well I spent the next couple months seeing a psychiatrist only for him to not prescribe me any medication beyond an antihistamine and for him to also drop me and claim that only talk therapy could help me. I ended up wasting today away not getting anything useful done but my managers at work strongly suggested I try again to get a different therapist after my last panic attack on Friday.

I think that process was such a pain in the ass. I already got rejected from the therapy services my primary care hospital provides. I guess because they don't believe anxiety is real or something. It's just as well. Like the title says, I just don't really even BELIEVE in therapy.

From what I can tell, it does nothing to actually solve people's problems. All it does is trick people into thinking their lives are good enough without fixing anything. It's like brainwashing and gaslighting to the extreme. What makes it even more egregious is anytime you try to point out the genuine flaws in being forced to cope with an irrational system, you just get hit with "Nuh uh, maybe YOU need to stop gaslighting yourself lol". They really can't come up with anything better than a "No You!"?

Sure therapy can be useful for some people, but so far it hasn't proved helpful at all to me. Continuing to feed everyone else's delusion isn't going to solve my own. Knowing all this, is it even worth it for me to even try? I don't think a therapist really can help me get over my crush. The only thing that can would be moving on to someone else or dying. I don't have anyone else to move on to at this point and dying is also not an option yet because I still have CTB plans to prepare for.

 

[willow115]

I think deep analytical therapy can impact the psyche. The provider needs to really evaluate your mind and know human nature, our ultimate needs and motivation. I prefer the jungian style. The small, mundane chat therapy style can open up some place of being heard and shared humanity but it's greatly limited. Little chats don't work, but deep psychological mind dumps and processing can. I'm pretty treatment resistant but I still have experienced that. That would analyze why your mind has focused in on the crush or why work in particular is a place closing in on you. Our driving forces and absolute fears can become fully revealed and known. That helps gain some control. In my experience, it brings a tiny bit of peace to know my psyche more at the very least. It brought me forgiveness and less shame. A lot of people try to do a massive awakening and download of this with psychedelics.

These providers also can't meet our needs to cure us. If we're touch starved, psychologically tormented by real experiences, have a negative existential perspective, etc all they really do is open up our minds to that. From there we need to be open to potential shifts of perspective. We also still have human needs that may or may not be met. We can't pay for that anywhere.

I personally would get some benzos if the therapy journey isn't for me. There's not much a good benzo won't fix. I have extreme anxiety and it can shut my nervous system down. That can have longterm problems but benzos have saved me at my worst.

 

[alienfreak]

I feel similarly. Maybe we have to waste our time and energy on it just to make the psychiatrists realise it wont work on us so we can get better medication. I also wonder how it affects interactions with other people since they think you 'arent trying' or something if you dont go to therapy. I suppose these are reasons to do it even if it has no real effectiveness or worse.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I feel similarly. Maybe we have to waste our time and energy on it just to make the psychiatrists realise it wont work on us so we can get better medication. I also wonder how it affects interactions with other people since they think you 'arent trying' or something if you dont go to therapy. I suppose these are reasons to do it even if it has no real effectiveness or worse.

Most of the people who shove therapy in my face can't even admit it actually benefits them, and they also can't admit that they only offer it as advice because they're out of ideas.

Even people who have therapy seemingly can't absorb its full benefits because the field itself is overwhelmed with the masses.

 

[alienfreak]

I personally would get some benzos if the therapy journey isn't for me. There's not much a good benzo won't fix. I have extreme anxiety and it can shut my nervous system down. That can have longterm problems but benzos have saved me at my worst.

The only reason im dealing with the medical system is to try to get a continuing prescription to take on the worst days and/or important events

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I think deep analytical therapy can impact the psyche. The provider needs to really evaluate your mind and know human nature, our ultimate needs and motivation. I prefer the jungian style. The small, mundane chat therapy style can open up some place of being heard and shared humanity but it's greatly limited. Little chats don't work, but deep psychological mind dumps and processing can. I'm pretty treatment resistant but I still have experienced that. That would analyze why your mind has focused in on the crush or why work in particular is a place closing in on you. Our driving forces and absolute fears can become fully revealed and known. That helps gain some control. In my experience, it brings a tiny bit of peace to know my psyche more at the very least. It brought me forgiveness and less shame. A lot of people try to do a massive awakening and download of this with psychedelics.

These providers also can't meet our needs to cure us. If we're touch starved, psychologically tormented by real experiences, have a negative existential perspective, etc all they really do is open up our minds to that. From there we need to be open to potential shifts of perspective. We also still have human needs that may or may not be met. We can't pay for that anywhere.

I personally would get some benzos if the therapy journey isn't for me. There's not much a good benzo won't fix. I have extreme anxiety and it can shut my nervous system down. That can have longterm problems but benzos have saved me at my worst.

I feel like being able to go deeper with a therapist is also a dead end since most roads tend to lead to suicide anyway for me and if I say that most of them are just gonna have me hospitalized.

Benzodiazepines was something the psychiatrist specifically said he didn't want to prescribe me. I can't remember the reason why but maybe it was because I mentioned I'm awful at remembering to actually take medicine most of the time until it's already too late. He did suggest SSRIs but I've seen enough horror stories on this website to know I will never let those horrible things anywhere near my body.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I think deep analytical therapy can impact the psyche. The provider needs to really evaluate your mind and know human nature, our ultimate needs and motivation. I prefer the jungian style.

Psychoanalysis is literally bullshit. It isn't practiced that much anymore because there isn't much evidence to back a lot of it up. A lot of the stuff by Carl Jung isn't used by most professionals for a reason.

 

[Unspoken7612]

I do think CBT is useful for helping to challenge unrealistic thoughts and cognitive distortions, as well as allowing yourself to let go of passing thoughts. I'm not saying that is what you are experiencing, but it is common for people with anxiety.

Behavioural activation can also be really useful for some people. Mindfulness can be a game changer. I even learned some stuff from ACT, where I had a really confrontational therapist.

Therapy isn't going to solve all your problems, unless your problems all stem from cognitive distortions or something like that. What it might do is make it easier for you to solve your problems, or take steps towards solving them, yourself.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I do think CBT is useful for helping to challenge unrealistic thoughts and cognitive distortions, as well as allowing yourself to let go of passing thoughts. I'm not saying that is what you are experiencing, but it is common for people with anxiety.

Behavioural activation can also be really useful for some people. Mindfulness can be a game changer. I even learned some stuff from ACT, where I had a really confrontational therapist.

Therapy isn't going to solve all your problems, unless your problems all stem from cognitive distortions or something like that. What it might do is make it easier for you to solve your problems, or take steps towards solving them, yourself.

I hate mindfulness stuff. Tried it once and it just gave me a headache. I don't have the patience for it.

CBT might as well be equivalent to C and B Torture with how useless and painful it is. My thoughts and feelings may be unrealistic, but changing them isn't going to solve anything because the circumstances that create these thoughts will continue to exist. I don't know about other people but to say I have control over my thoughts is wishful thinking because I don't. Nothing I do actually controls them and whenever I am presented with alternate theories, they're usually even more idiotic than what I came up with.

Even if there is some magical obscure therapy technique that would work for me I'm sure the average therapist themself is ill-equipped to deal with me. The fact I've already been dropped by two professionals in quick succession just goes to show how I can't be helped.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I hate mindfulness stuff. Tried it once and it just gave me a headache. I don't have the patience for it.

CBT might as well be equivalent to C and B Torture with how useless and painful it is. My thoughts and feelings may be unrealistic, but changing them isn't going to solve anything because the circumstances that create these thoughts will continue to exist. I don't know about other people but to say I have control over my thoughts is wishful thinking because I don't. Nothing I do actually controls them and whenever I am presented with alternate theories, they're usually even more idiotic than what I came up with.

I like the issue here is your mindset. I don't have any real experience with therapy (I've only had a bit of counselling before (and that was back when I was in elementary) along with some surprisingly extensive experience with child social workers) so excuse my ignorance, but for these things to even have a chance at working you probably would have to come at them with an open mind and an actual willingness to change. Not bothering to try just because of a lack of patience and a lack of open-mindedness is obviously going to lead to nothing happening. Therapy is something that probably requires that you put in the work and give it an actual chance. This sort of stagnant mindset ("I have no control over my thoughts", "nothing will change", "I only tried it once and now I'm going to give up") is unproductive. You can't potentially be helped if you don't want to even try in the first place. And I'm saying all of this as someone who never wants to even go near a therapist (yuck!).

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I like the issue here is your mindset. I don't have any real experience with therapy (I've only had a bit of counselling before (and that was back when I was in elementary) along with some surprisingly extensive experience with child social workers) so excuse my ignorance, but for these things to even have a chance at working you probably would have to come at them with an open mind and an actual willingness to change. Not bothering to try just because of a lack of patience and a lack of open-mindedness is obviously going to lead to nothing happening. Therapy is something that probably requires that you put in the work and give it an actual chance. This sort of stagnant mindset ("I have no control over my thoughts", "nothing will change", "I only tried it once and now I'm going to give up") is unproductive. You can't potentially be helped if you don't want to even try in the first place. And I'm saying all of this as someone who never wants to even go near a therapist (yuck!).

You're right, and I guess it's the problem I originally had in mind when making this thread is that how am I even supposed to have therapy work for me if I just don't believe in it? It's the same problem I had with church which is that it seems like God only cares to help people who actually believe in him. Therapy is even worse though because it's also asking me to believe in myself and I just don't see that ever happening. I am at least aware I have a mindset issue but I just can't see a world where I ever actually change mine willingly.