Myths about Psychotherapy

Do you ever feel like therapy is not for you? Maybe you feel like you are already self-aware and therapy would not add much in terms of solutions, or that you have already tried therapy and found it unhelpful. Or you simply cannot be convinced how talking with someone should offer any help at all, considering we talk to others about our problems, and they don’t go away. These are all valid concerns regarding therapy and deserve to be addressed. In this mini sketch, we will focus on some reasons people tend to be suspicious of therapy and address common misconceptions about it. With this mini sketch, we also wish to celebrate Counseling Awareness Month, observed in April, to highlight the role counselors play in the mental health field and address and reduce the stigma associated with seeking help, and we hope this mini sketch will contribute to this in its own way.

Common internal barriers to seeking therapy 

1. I tried therapy in the past, and it didn’t work

Starting and continuing therapy takes a great deal of effort. If you’ve shown that kind of determination in the past but felt that therapy wasn’t helpful, it can shake your trust in therapy and therapists, and you might feel reluctant to try again. There are many reasons therapy may not be effective. To understand this, it helps to first look at what makes therapy effective. 

Research suggest that what makes therapy effective isn’t so much the technical details such as the therapist’s background (social work, counseling, psychology), the approach they use (CBT, DBT, psychodynamic), or even the specifics of your situation (your level of motivation, life circumstances, or the nature of your concerns), but rather the relationship you form with your therapist (Flückiger et al., 2018). This includes the collaborative decisions you make together about what you want to get out of therapy, a shared understanding of how to get there, and the sense of trust and emotional bond you feel with them.

This can also help explain why therapy sometimes doesn’t feel effective. In some cases, that therapeutic relationship may not have fully developed for different reasons, which can make the process feel unhelpful. But that doesn’t mean therapy will never work for you. Connecting with a therapist who truly understands you, sees you, and works with you can open the door to the kind of change you’re looking for.

2. How will talking help my real problems?

Sometimes therapy can feel like just venting about our problems, and we may find it hard to believe that this will help our problems. This may be because one of the main ways therapy works is quite subtle and not always easy to notice at first. In therapy, much of the psychological change we experience comes from the relationship we build with our therapist. Just as many of our struggles are rooted in relationships (or become difficult because they affect our relationships), their solutions can also be found within another relationship. 

In some ways, your relationship with your therapist will mirror your actual relationships. The ways you communicate, the unhelpful patterns you fall into, and the triggers you experience with others will likely also show up in therapy. For example, if you tend to idealize someone in the first few months of knowing them and then suddenly lose interest or start feeling irritated by them, you may surprisingly find yourself relating to your therapist in a similar way. Or, if you tend to become dependent on others and struggle to make decisions, you might also start to expect your therapist to take the lead on everything. 

What’s different from your everyday relationships, though, is that your therapist isn’t there to judge you or cause you to hurt more. They’re there to help you notice when these patterns show up, understand why they happen, and work through them with you. This process of connecting, experiencing misunderstandings or tensions, and yet still repairing them can create new emotional experiences that support real psychological change. And often, this all is aided through talking.

3. I already overanalyzed everything in my life. There is nothing new my therapist can tell me about me.

Sometimes we may already feel self-aware and therefore, think therapy will not help us. Interestingly, however, our self-awareness is not always enough to help us feel less stuck and bring about change in our lives. Often, this is because thinking about and understanding our problems at a cognitive level is not, in itself, enough to create change. Most of the time, we also need to understand things on an emotional level and actually “feel” our emotions.

However, there may be things in our lives that prevent us from fully feeling our emotions. In fact, even self-awareness and thinking itself can become defenses against feeling our emotions. For example, intellectualization is a common defense mechanism in which we overthink to avoid uncomfortable emotions. It happens when we focus on the logical aspects of our situation and distance ourselves from its emotional impact. For instance, this can happen when we try to explain the psychological reasons behind experiences like grief or loss instead of actually connecting with and allowing ourselves to feel emotions such as deep sadness.

Although useful and protective at times, when overused, defenses not only shut down unwanted emotions but also the joy, intimacy, cheerfulness, and love, the very feelings we often want to experience. While gaining intellectual insight into our experiences is a transformative part of therapy, it is not the only kind of insight it offers. Therapy also provides us with emotional insight and creates a safe space where we can truly feel our emotions, which, together with intellectual insight, can bring about the change we desire.

Takeaways:

• We may feel therapy isn’t for us because we’re already self-aware, have had unhelpful therapy, or don’t believe talking helps. While valid, these concerns don’t always reflect what therapy can offer when the fit and process are right.
• Research shows that therapy’s effectiveness depends most on the therapeutic relationship. Past unhelpful experiences may reduce trust, but they don’t mean therapy won’t work. 
• Self-awareness alone may not always lead to psychological change. Therapy helps us gain emotional insight and experience feelings, not just understand them logically.
• Therapy differs from simply talking by involving a collaborative relationship in which patterns emerge, are understood, and can be worked through in real time.
• Connecting with a therapist with whom we can build a safe and strong therapeutic relationship can help us experience the psychological change we wish to experience.

References

Flückiger, C., Del Re, A. C., Wampold, B. E., & Horvath, A. O. (2018). The alliance in adult psychotherapy: A meta-analytic synthesis.Psychotherapy, 55(4), 316–340. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000172

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At Roamers Therapy, our psychotherapists are here to support you through anxiety, depression, trauma and relationship issues, race-ethnicity issues, LGBTQIA+ issues, ADHD, Autism, or any challenges you encounter. Our psychotherapists are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Acceptance, and Commitment Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, and Gottman Therapy. 

Whether you’re seeking guidance on a specific issue or need help navigating difficult emotions, we’re ready to assist you every step of the way.

Contact us today to learn more about our services and schedule a session with our mental health professionals to begin your healing journey. To get started with therapy, visit our booking page.

First, decide if you’ll be paying out-of-pocket or using insurance. If you’re a self-pay client, you can book directly through the “Book Now” page or fill out the “Self-Pay/Out-of-network Inquiry Form.” If you’re using insurance, fill out the “Insurance Verification Form” to receive details about your costs and availability. Please let us know your preferred therapist. If your preferred therapist isn’t available, you can join the waitlist by emailing us. Once your appointment is confirmed, you’ll receive intake documents to complete before your first session.

This page is also part of the Roamers Therapy Glossary; a collection of mental-health related definitions that are written by our therapists.

While our offices are currently located at the South Loop neighborhood of Downtown Chicago and Lakeview on Chicago’s North Side, Illinois, we also welcome and serve clients for online therapy from anywhere in Illinois and Washington, D.C. Clients from the Chicagoland area may choose in-office or online therapy and usually commute from surrounding areas such as River North, West Loop, Gold Coast, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Rogers Park, Logan Square, Pilsen, Bridgeport, Little Village, Bronzeville, South Shore, Hyde Park, Back of the Yards, Wicker Park, Bucktown and many more. You can visit our contact page to access detailed information on our office location.