Edit: so please also help me understand this- if a person doesn’t have family and friends to support, sounds like therapy won’t really help this person unless they change their living conditions, or they relapse?
In: 68
Source: I am a therapist.
There are many different reasons why someone might want or need therapy—likewise there are many different kinds of therapists. For the sake of ELI5, I’m going to assume this is a very general question about very general therapy.
A person(client) will come in and say, “I’m having trouble with XYZ” and the therapist will attempt to work with them on that problem. That’s the absolute short version. Therapists are there to help someone solve a problem.
Sometimes these problems are … complex. Often, these problems came about because of something else—a personality trait maybe, a refusal to acknowledge something, repressed feelings or memories, etc. A therapist may try to help the person untangle all of this information in such a way that the two of them together can get to the root of the problem.
A good example of this (so I’m not speaking in riddles) is relationship/couples/marriage counseling. There is a problem (not many people go to see a therapist for funsies), the therapist tries to help clarify where that problem is coming from, and ultimately how to resolve it.
In general, a therapist’s job is to make themselves unnecessary. We are trying to build capacity in the person(client) so that they can work through these or other types of problems without our help in the future. We will be happy to help, but will be even happier to see them stand on their own.
Like I said at the beginning though, there are many different reasons why therapy might take place and many different approaches to therapy. The most basic version is really just to help develop problem-solving skills (with the added bonus of self-trust, self-confidence, and self-acceptance along the way!).
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