[THREAD] one of the questions I often get asked is how does therapy enable recovery? It is basically just talking to your therapist, how does that enable us to feel better? A lot of people who are skeptical about whether therapy will work or not use this argument.
Let’s dive into the why. One benefit for therapy is the setting. We can’t find in real life a confidential environment, where the listener offers empathy and understands fully what the other person is going through. While they seem simple, they don’t really exist organically.
Furthermore, while talking is the main method that therapy uses, it is not the only one. Many forms of therapy such as CBT rely heavily on written exercises, especially outside of the therapy session. Those exercises enable the client to continue working outside the session.
We also focus a lot on changing the way we think and behave in order to help our mental health. Learning those skills and making those changes unlocks changes that will stop those spirals of depression and anxiety and enable a slow upwards trend towards recovery.
Often we think that a therapist is the main reason why improvements occur. It is actually the client. The best a therapist can do is teach the skills and motivate the client to do the work. It is the client who then applies those skills and works towards their own recovery.
We are enablers. They are the ones who do most of the lifting. There are also many studies of people who had an MRI while undergoing therapy and it showed that therapy increased certain chemicals and activated regions of the brain associated with recovery. There is something
biological that happens when we undergo therapy. Whenever we are feeling depressed or anxious, we have a hard time getting out of those spirals by ourselves. We are psychologically stuck. Getting out of on our own is often very hard to do. A therapist will help untangle it.
These are some of the ways in which a therapist can help enable recovery. However, when recovery happens, it is not the therapist who did the most work but the clients who use their own resources and the guidance they receive to recover. They are the true heroes 💚💚
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