Therapy can be a powerful comfort
While I do sometimes call therapy “Complaining Hour” — often, instead of focusing on “the work” of therapy, I just talk — therapy is my favourite, most powerful comfort, even after having been fired by two different therapists. (Once, because she realized that I knew her boyfriend, and once because she felt that I knew as much as she did, and that she wasn’t helping me.) I’ve been going forever, ever since I realized that I generated thoughts and ideas and, mostly, worries, at about twice the normal rate. Getting help always seemed like this obvious thing to do to make life slightly easier.
That’s not the case for many people who still associate going to therapy with either weakness or self-indulgence. Author Lori Gottlieb says, “We value our emotional health differently from how we value our physical health. So, if somebody is experiencing chest pain, they’re going to go to a cardiologist and get that checked out before they have a massive coronary. But if they are having any kind of emotional pain, they often wait until they’re having the equivalent of an emotional heart attack before they go and get some help. And then it’s harder to treat, and they’ve struggled unnecessarily for a longer period of time.”
Gottlieb’s new book about her work as a therapist is called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed.
Gottlieb is probably best known for her semi-controversial book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, which encouraged women to consider some brutal truths about age, men, marriage and family.
I asked Gottlieb why people are still resistant to therapy, as attitudes around mental health, especially depression, anxiety and addiction, are moving in the general direction of acceptance. She says that the resistance is “partly” about the stigma associated with mental-health issues, and also “about letting people know that it’s really normal to struggle, that (it’s) part of the human condition.”
She says, “I think that people imagine that they’re going to go to therapy and they’re going to be stuck there for years, rehashing their childhood. And that’s not really what the experience of therapy is like.”
Gottlieb says that some people considering therapy don’t go because of it’s not a part of their cultural background, while some people “minimize their pain” by focusing on what they do have, like food and shelter, but “pain is pain.” Ultimately, though, Gottlieb says, “I see all kinds of different people with all kinds of different family histories, different problems, totally different issues.” She says that starting therapy is often triggered by something being “off.” She says, “You’re maybe experiencing a low-level depression, or you’re feeling anxious, or you’re having trouble making decisions, or you find yourself having trouble relating to yourself, or the people in your life.”
So, what’s it like? For me, having someone who knows the whole story of my life, or as much as can be subjectively retold in 50-minute increments but has no stake in it beyond my happiness, and who can reflect myself back to me when I’m not always sure who I am, is as important as having a best friend or a great boss . The first session, Gottlieb says, will be a consultation. “It’s really an opportunity for you to get a sense of what it’s like being in the room with us. If you leave that session feeling like the therapist understood you and was easy to talk to, that’s a sign that you probably will want to go back.”
Gottlieb says that a common first question from a therapist to a new client is what brought you there, but adds, “I always want to know not just why are you here, but why are you here now.” She says that she is looking for strengths: “What made them ready now? Something in them made them ready enough to come and seek help. I want to know what that is, because I want to build upon that.”
Gottlieb says, “I think the biggest challenge is that some people think you go to therapy and you gain insight, and then boom, you’re going to change your behaviour. But we always say that insight is the ‘booby prize’ of therapy ... You need to use that knowledge (and) understanding to make real changes out in the world. Part of therapy happens in therapy, and part of it happens outside of therapy.”
If you can do that, therapy can be a superpower.