How is therapy effective when you (typically) only talk for one hour per week?
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Contrarian/personal take: therapy once a week for an hour doesn’t really work/didn’t do much **for me.**
When I was dealing with depression last year, I decided to seek therapy on one of the online sites. I talked to a therapist once a week. For the most part there wasn’t much follow-up inbetween sessions as she was mos tlikely seeing dozens of other patients.
It did kind of feel like every week was mostly an open forum for me to share how I was feeling, what I was up to, etc. That could have just been my experience though, I was trying to pintpoint the root of my depression.
The other challenge I found was that by the time I came to a realization after the session or sometime during the week, I pretty much forgot about it by the time the next session came. Or it no longer seemed as relevant.
Eventually I did fix my problem with depression by stopping a medication.
**I just think therapy as it stands is kind of shitty for a multitude of reasons:**
* There’s just not enough therapists. It’s how you end up with these online sites where someone is seeing most likely dozens of patients a week. I don’t expect anyone to remember details about me or be able to make much progress if they’re juggling a dozen other people at the same time.
* There’s not enough/frequent contact. Once a week for an hour really isn’t much time. Especially if you’re dealing with serious/strong feelings or an actual mental disorder. By the time you get into the flow of opening up, it could be 30 minutes gone.
* Video chats suck. I noticed one of my therapists was scrolling on FB or some other site while I was talking. I could see the reflection in her glasses. Once I was done talking she’d make a generic comment/question. Beyond that, I don’t think the experience of talking to a human on a screen and through your camera is the same as talking to someone in a closed room in person. At the very least, your therapist won’t be scrolling through pinterest or whatever during your in-person session.
* Personal/mental problems are highly complex. It’s just hard to find someone who specializes in helping you with your specific problem. It’s also hard to find someone who understands your unique background (race, ethnicity, gender, class, etc.). Compounded with the shortage of therapists it just exasperates the issue further. I remember trying to find a male therapist and they were probably 10-20% of the overall pool of available therapists.
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