How does talking to a professional about your problems help you in any way? I’ve been in and out of therapy for years and I simply don’t find any use in it. I just tell the therapist about my emotions and my life, they try to be understanding and offer some very basic advice I already knew about. Why is therapy often recommended more than medication and thought of as a better solution when it’s literally just normal discussion that can’t change brain chemistry?
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Talk therapy won’t make an improperly developed brain stop being depressed for no reason any more than physical therapy will help an amputee’s leg grow back. But physical therapy WILL help someone who’s been in a car accident with both legs learn to walk again, so I think the answer to your question lies in another question: Are you recovering from a traumatic experience or experiences, or is your mental illness chronic and without any triggers (i.e. otherwise great life with good housing, friends and/or family, steady job, hobbies, decent physical health, no real traumatic experiences, etc but still feeling hopeless and depressed)
Medication does not fix anything about your past or the way you perceive it or yourself. Medication merely attempts to stabilize imbalanced chemical processing. A good way to look at medication when dealing with past trauma is that medication can *get you* to a place where your mind is stable ***enough*** to actually apply what you learn in therapy, and thereby heal the root issue with a clear mind, but it is not and never will be a replacement for the healing work we all must do after painful experiences.
Therein lies the crux of alcoholism, actually. Alcoholism, gaming addictions, or hard drugs are all attempts to numb the pain and try and survive the thoughts and feelings we don’t want to remember or process. Anti-depressants, when used under the guidance of a medical professional, and used in conjunction with therapy, are more likely to produce sustainable long term results. Medication can also produce negative side effects as well, so it is not always a desirable path for some people. But if your brain consistently does not produce the correct chemicals for reasons entirely unrelated to abuse/trauma, then medication may be the way to go.
Talk therapy however is helpful for people who do not have a chronic, developmental issue and are the kind of people that merely need to reframe a traumatic experience or series of events in order for their subconscious mind to take over and heal from the events. Sometimes people experience something awful and then as a form of survival (or due directly to the abuse suffered) will form destructive thought patterns to mask/justify/perpetuate the painful state of thinking. It’s not logical and that’s why therapy can help people in that kind of trap. Sometimes all it takes is good friends you can talk to who can do the same thing. But in short, talk therapy is most beneficial for people whose depression/anxiety/pain is rooted in the paradigm they have about the trauma, and the thoughts they have about it, and if those thoughts can change, the pain can largely dissipate and heal over time.
For people who have don’t have negative thoughts about themselves, and/or are just angry something happened to them and feel like they’ve lost control of their lives, talk therapy might not be helpful and may only confuse it. People in this situation typically fight back against the trauma by doing small things they *can* control, like working out, running, taking up a new hobby and excelling at it, etc. Most men tend to fall into this category because, typically, men are psychologically wired to be more action oriented (or have been socially conditioned to not process their emotions, as there are emotionally aware men as well) and if they can fix/improve something else in their life, it will give them evidence they don’t have to repeat the traumatic experience they just went through. This kind of “therapy” is honestly helpful no matter what camp you fall into, and people in this camp usually end up having some form of talk therapy once they face the emotions driving this behavior, though it’s usually like tying up a loose end instead of the lengthy process of a typical talk therapy pathway.
Talk therapy is recommended before medication because some people think they have a chronic illness when in reality they’ve just been abused/neglected for so long that their mind adapted and it needs to un-adapt to work right again (look up neuroplasticity). Medication can be risky, and so for people who don’t appear to be in extreme danger to themselves, therapy makes sense as a first line of effort before getting into medication.
Hopefully that helps. And, of course, I am not a mental health professional and you should seek help from licensed medical professionals for help with whatever you’re dealing with.
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