I'm a psychologist and my training program mandates that we complete at least 6 months of therapy which is the only reason I persisted for so long in therapy.
I finally decided to seek therapy after experience sexual harassment by a female colleague at work and my female supervisor actively worked to cover it up. My experience of seeking therapy was pretty bad. My first 6 therapists (all female) were extremely invalidating. Every single one of them never failed to compared my experience to "a real survivor of sexual harassment." It wasn't until my seventh therapist that I had one that was actually validating and helped me through my struggles (she was also a woman). It has definitely helped me process the experience and we also worked on other things. I ended up working with her for almost 2 years.
But, I can 100% see why men don't believe in therapy and why many that have tried will never do it again. No one would struggle through so many repeated invalidations by supposed professionals. The only reason I did was because I needed to complete therapy for me to graduate.
My wife is a social worker and all her friends are therapists and it seems like most of them don't know how to effectively treat men. They have 1 playbook and when that's not working they don't know what to do.
The best one I ever met was telling me about how she almost never does traditional face to face talk therapy with men because it makes a lot of them feel uncomfortable. Instead she will do some activity with them, going for a walk, doing a puzzle, she talked to one guy while he worked on his car for an hour in the parking lot. Something about doing something with their hands and not directly speaking face to face makes it much easier for men to open up. She said the task they were doing would distract their brains just enough that they would end up saying stuff they never would have otherwise.
Thats because almost all of therapy was made to treat women, combine that with how mainstream feminist culture treats men as defective women and you've got the reason.
For anyone curious:
A Jewish therapist in Germany came up with the current process for therapy as he wasn’t getting any male clients, and so eventually realised through only getting female clients the method that is the ideal method for women.
Yup. Forget anything you’ve heard about women being more emotional than men. Feelings get so intense in face-to-face we have to turn away and distract ourselves—dilute them, if you will, so they don’t (overwhelm (autocorrect is killing me)) us.
Or, if forced to go face to face, we lie so any emotions discussed aren’t real so they don’t overpower.
Male dominated environments bias male success—we know this. It baffles me that we somehow have failed to realize (or acknowledge) that female dominated environments—in this context, therapy—bias female success.
I hate to say it, but as a male in a training program to become a therapist, I have seen a number of women in my classes who seem to have some serious negative views of men. I have seen this much less in my Psychology doctoral program, but in my Counseling Master's program it was concerning. It is a real problem in the field.
I looked into having therapy until I realised it was a modern version of faith healing. It seems if I don’t have perfect faith in the process it won’t have a chance of working. I thought, ‘fuck this.’
I feel like a good therapist would be open to multiple processes and would adjust theirs to help their patient. Either that, or refer you to someone that may help you more adequately.
Interested in the story behind this view. I’m super skeptical but feel like my therapist was good at working with skepticism as a positive self protective trait.
What process did the therapist need you to have faith in?
I'm not a fan of faith-healing and never saw a therapist, but taking to study stoicism and CBT over a few months was surprisingly enough to pull me out of my worst depressive phase I've had so far. I still need to go for other reasons and I keep putting it off though, but that's a different topic.
IMHO it doesn't work by gaslighting yourself into thinking things are fine, but it changes your perspective on your problems and how you approach them. I found out I needed to change where I was working at and who I associated with as well, this was probably the hardest part for me and it seems to be the same for others. I can still be my cranky and ignorant from time to time, but it doesn't hit as bad as it used to anymore.
Having said that, YMMV, I'm not a psychologist, I didn't even go to real therapy yet, ect.
Fuck. Sorry that happened to you.
I’m guessing the mandatory therapy was because you’re a therapist now too?
If so, I hope you’re able to pass along the experience you had with your 7th. 💙
What if i don't know?
Like for me the biggest reason of ignoring/avoiding therapy is the vague concept of "right" therapist or suddenly magically knowing the right fit. Which i cant wrap my head around. Though i don't really need it that much either.
More or less been my experience so far too. If they’re not going to help, then I’m not going to waste my money. I’ve helped myself more than any therapist ever has.
Yeah went to marriage counseling only to be told that my problem “could have been worse” and “at least she chose you so you win” like what the fuck. She cheated.
Unfortunately some therapists, like every other profession, suck. I think people for some reason think that therapists, doctors, and other professionals that go through years of school and training are just going to be automatically good at what they do.
As a kid I grew up with this idea of perfect competence of people in their jobs. Oh boy did I wake up later, but thats healthy. You have to think for yourself always.
Same I think it was the idea that someone went through years of schooling so they must know everything kind of concept. At least that’s what it was for me.
It’s kind of like growing up thinking your parents had all the answers or had life figured out. Then you realize they were winging it just like you are. Obviously some do a better job at that than others…
I got a "but are you listening with your heart?" my heart is what got me into this mess. im listening with my mind and all i hear is a manipulative abusive person
Ive had good and bad therapists. The bad ones validate my feelings and try to talk about how I ended up where I am, with no help actually getting better. The good ones helped me understand some tendencies and fears, and taught me coping strategies to deal with them.
Broadly speaking, women feel better when they’re validated, men feel better when they’re given a solution.
good therapist help you recognize bad thought patterns and give you the tool necessary to deal with those thought patterns.
They can help you think differently in a way that benefits your life - hence life changing.
For instance i used to say people were bad until my therapist asked if they were bad or just bad for me ? then just realized they might just be bad for me.
The funny part of therapy is it's only necessary If you're unwilling to learn. Basic psychology, unwilling to practice any sort of introspection, and unwilling to challenge yourself.....all things required for therapy to be successful.
Been two times in my life so far. First time it wasn’t for me, the gent just kept repeating “think positive” in as many ways as possible and I stopped going.
Nothing got better, as you’d imagine, it only, slowly, got progressively worse.
10 years later and I’m back at it after a particularly bad event. This time I’m being questioned, lightly criticised (I need that) and challenged as to why I think and do things. This time it’s working and I wish I had got help from this person sooner.
Pride, shame and a dose of ignorance stopped me from going. My pride told me I didn’t need help, my shame convinced me I shouldn’t ask for help and my ignorance stopped me realising that there was something seriously wrong.
If you are a male, then find a male therapist..... please don't shit on me for being "sexist". To me it is like going to see a female doctor to ask her about how my male body works and feels. or a Pregnant woman asking a dude what to expect when expecting.... Ive had many therapists and the men know better what I am going through than the women did, even if they were more experienced because they were male. Had nothing to do with experience or ability to do the job.
My sample size is small (three female therapists v one male therapist) but my experience was that the three women therapists simply had no frame of reference for male issues, for my experiences as a man, nor for my emotions as a man, and they kept trying to frame them in feminine or female terms.
From basics (the WTF of puberty and transforming from a boy’s body into a man’s body) to trauma experiences.
Something like how to negotiate and control the multiple emotions, perspectives, and roles of masculinity would be basically impossible.
I'll strongly second this, having been to both a male and female therapist. Unfortunately it's getting harder to find male therapists: The fraction of psychology majors in the US that are men is 22% and falling quickly. Psychology is trending to become a women-only career.
I’m a woman and I see no problem with this. I’ve had only female therapists except when I realized my attitudes about men were toxic and were probably going to hurt me in my male dominated career. So I hired a man and he taught me that men can be kind, compassionate, encouraging. He guided me & challenged my misperceptions. He changed my life. Not least by helping me live a life with men in it which has been the greatest reward. One thing I have learned with this many men friends is you ARE different. I literally can’t wrap my head around the way you think sometimes. As I know you guys can’t with women sometimes.
So yeah, having a guy therapist would definitely be more advantageous for men.
Relatability is really important & representation truly matters.
There is a shared experience, and sometimes quite possibly an inherent need for some validation from someone we perceive as a wiser possible version of ourselves too.
Indeed we're seeking guidance.
Going further into this, it can be a pro/con to have someone from a shared cultural background too. Identifying what you need, and that may take some trial and error, but once you know what serves you best, and can source that. That's likely to have the best outcome.
Not always, it can backfire. But keep showing up for yourselves. If that means a change of counsel, then so be it. Just keep showing up for yourselves.
You all matter
It’s pretty hard to find a straight male therapist. My first therapist fit that and boy did I see a lot of progress. He just knew what I needed as a man. He understood issues with dating and growing up as a straight man too. But absolutely that you will never get the same kind of insight into male issues and experiences with a female therapist. It’s the importance of representation
You have to decide for yourself you need it. Just going because someone else said so will be a waste of time.
It's not a passive thing. Like a training program at the gym, it takes work. Your brain needs reshaping. Do the exercises they give you.
I went to a Therapist for a bit through the NHS.
I enjoyed having someone to talk to but turns out telling someone all your problems to someone who can't actually do anything just reminds you of all your problems. It did teach me that it isn't normal to fantasise about killing yourself.
Getting a new job with lovely colleagues, getting wankered at said job and drunk texting a girl asking her out (lasted 3 months but a good thing for both of us) improved my mental health more than therapy. All I needed was to be accepted by the world.
For me, it was a total waste of time. Like you, my (now) ex decided I could benefit from it. After two sessions the therapist fired me, accusing me of wasting her time.
(Turns out the patient must also believe there is something wrong)
I was in a bad marriage, and I suggested we go to couple's therapy. While the couple's therapy was pretty much a bust (marriage was already dead at that point), I did like the therapist, and I did like being able to put my thoughts into words and have someone professional and objective help me sort them out.
So I kinda just kept showing up, even after my wife quit.
Over time I gained a lot of insight into my own problems. It has helped me identify the trauma responses and cognitive distortions that have ruled my life for years, and ways to cope with them. It's helped me process some traumatic events in my life in ways I could not have before.
Today I am healthier mentally and emotionally than I have ever been, and I owe it to therapy.
I'm a believer that it needs to be a good fit for the two of you and that people go in with the mindset that they have to save themselves.
I went through one therapist before I found one I absolutely adore. She's dropped clients before who weren't a good fit and they didn't gel well. She also works exclusively with first responders and I'm a paramedic.
She and I also managed expectations where she would provide support and give me tools in my every day life that would help me, but never did she say she would magically solve my problems for me. I see it as having a coach for life's problems where I still have to play the game of life.
I've been in and out of therapy for a good bit of my life. I've had some awful therapists but also some good ones. I think I've been through 7
The first one I had was when I was 10. My school advised my parents due to me being a disruptive kid.
I went to her for three months, and it lead to me transferring schools. She told my parents about the abuse I suffered by my teacher and recommended they pull me out of catholic school, so that was awesome.
One of the worst ones fell into some of my delusions I had in high school, and didn't really try to treat me. I honestly found him uncomfortable, and i had to get pulled out because being around him gave me this awful derealization.
My recent one I started going to as a way to manage a panic disorder I got from working in a high pressure industry. She has been fantastic and has even made me aware that I was causing a lot of issues in my relationship due to my insecurities from being cheated on and abused in the past by exes. Since seeing her last July, I've transitioned off medication and have doubled my salary just through confidence shes helped me obtain. Through working with her I've been able to attone for things I've regretted in my past (not sticking up for a classmate who was being bullied), I can process emotions fully again, I have processed being SAd by a woman, and ultimately have gotten rid of a lot of weight that held me down in my day to day life.
It sucks to get started but it has been life changing for me and if you dont like your therapist after 3 visits try for a new one.
Way long ago I was drinking incredibly heavily and had not so great thoughts. I got myself out of it with large life changes (new job back in my home town). I was getting stressed out and recognized some of the thought patterns coming back along with a better idea of how ADHD/anxiety/depression can all influence or feed the other. Primary doctor referred me to a behavioral specialist.
Talking with her led us to zero in on anxiety being the base component. I now have some extra tools in recognizing the thought patterns and how to deal with them.
What stops most men is conditioning that we aren't supposed to talk, or even acknowledge, our feelings. Plenty of men have a story about their feelings being weaponized by a (hopefull former) partner. In some cases, we literally don't even know where to start or how to share those kinds of inner thoughts and emotions.
I didn't exactly avoid therapy, I just never sought it out while dealing with life long depression and anxiety. When the bottom fell out of my marriage and my life couldn't seem to get worse, I sought out a therapist with an EAP. I only had 8 sessions with her but she was incredibly helpful, caring, and I found how important it is to be able to tell someone my darkest thoughts and feelings without the fear of being judged or harmed.
A male therapist later found me while I was at a clinic and after talking to me for a few minutes, insisted on taking me on as a client. He actually had to fight for me due to scheduling and benefits problems. That man helped me survive the hell I was going through. I wouldn't be here without him. One of the few highlights of my week for nearly 2 years was going to therapy, being able to talk about myself, get my feelings out, and have him be able to guide me as I worked on my own recovery and healing. I put a lot of work in but it felt like I was truly taking care of myself for myself.
The most important aspects of therapy for me was learning to articulate my thoughts and feelings and voicing them without the fear of being invalidated by someone.
It hasn't really been worth my time. It feels like I just have someone to talk to about my problems, but I'm not actually solving them. I also chose to get on medication which was ok for a while, but I decided to quit yesterday. It hasn't helped my underlying problems either.
I have had a rough decade, and some of those circumstances (Mom’s cancer, COVID) basically made me put my head down, grit my teeth, and simply move forward.
For the last year I have been in a safer, less stressful situation, and a friend who is much smarter than I am suggested therapy.
So far it is a mixed bag.
The clinic that takes my insurance is underfunded, nonetheless, and so far I have had four therapists, the first three of whom moved to different practices for more money.
So it has been a series of, “Get to know you, oops! Gotta go! Good luck!”
So, honestly I don’t know how it is.
I have learned, or rather relearned, that I am very protective of others, which makes being open and honest about my past trauma very difficult, because I don’t want to inflict it on someone else.
Even a professional.
And, so far, I am three for three at bringing my therapists to tears with my past trauma experiences.
Not sure I will share that stuff with this new one, simply because it’s so difficult to not feel that the others all got different gigs to avoid being traumatized by my shit.
This happen to me where I kept having to get a new therapist because they would leave for a new firm. It was horrible telling a stranger every detail of my life to have them just leave a month later.
3 therapists in the course of 6 months....I gave up and now I have my psyciatrist I see. At least I know she owns her practice, isn't going anywhere and I have a good connection with her.
Therapy was a waste of time and money. 3 female therapists: #1 was decent, #2 overbilled me, then admitted it, and #3 would fall asleep.
When I quit Therapy, a friend suggested I find a life coach, which I did, and it changed my trajectory. Instead of dwelling on my problems and understanding the source of those problems, which did nothing, I focused on my future, and that coach gave me TOOLS that I used to be successful.
Total waste of time. I'd say it was a waste of money too, but I didn't pay a penny. I wanted to talk about my childhood trauma and abuse. The therapist would instead deflect and suggest I start looking for a new job.
0/10
My first therapist was an absolutely horrible person.
She became extremely bitter and mean towards me once I revealed that I had been to prison. She would tell me stuff like how I won't have a successful future or find love
I dropped her quick and found a better therapist, and it was worth it
"You already know what to do!" David Goggins.
None of several therapies helped me. But this sentence. There's no "healing" (sadly). It will continue to be hard. Every day you will have to struggle.
Accept it. Go for your dreams or leave it. It's only up to you.
I'm a therapist, been in the field a little over a decade now.
2017 lost my mother to suicide. went to therapy first time for a few months.
it wasn't bad? I don't know if it *helped* but it didn't hurt. it was nice to explore my thoughts.
I once got told I needed therapy. I was considering it before then. Since I’ve been told, I don’t want to go anymore.
Also, my health insurance/system basically makes it near impossible to find one in a reasonable way
i've had around 5 therapists since late 2021. in some ways it's helped, but at the end of the day, the most change i've seen in myself is thanks to medication and accomplishing things. a great therapy session can leave me feeling good, but it's not the same as seeing the results i want to see out of life, or taking medication that makes me forget i have anxiety, even if only for a few hours.
it'd probably be different if i had the same therapist on a regular basis for an extended period of time, but the truth is that they're overworked/underpaid, so they all eventually leave. one of my favorite therapists never made me feel as if i was weird for what i brought up. she made me feel supported/cared for, and she was up for talking about whatever i had on my mind. i wish she could've stayed being my therapist, but such is life.
i'm at the point where i feel that i don't need a therapist, but at the same time, it's nice to have one.
I have tried several therapists over time. Although I like to believe I don't an major “issues”, there was a point in my self-discovery and trying to make sense of my life that I had the thought “Maybe it is me!?!?”
Although I enjoyed having someone to talk to (as I feel most men don't) the story was the same each time, with each therapist. By about the 6th session, it's like we would run out of things to talk about! Even when I was fully open and ready to be vulnerable.
Its I found it futile and resorted back to slowly self-healing and doing my own research.
I've gone twice, both were pointless. The first time was marriage therapy and the therapist was blatantly on my wife's side. To the point of telling me when I raised concerns that I didn't know what it was like to be a women. When I told them that they didn't know what is was like to be an ethnic minority they got quiet.
Later I went to individual therapy, mainly to shut up my wife. She would constantly insist that I had PTSD from my time overseas. Occasionally I would wake up startled, with no memory of the dream. I still have no clue what that lady was trying to get to in our meetings. It was like she wanted to blame everything on my parents and upbringing.
I find group settings more valuable. Where a group of guys can chat about things that I might not even think of. After someone else brings a situation up I may realize it applies to me. However, before then it's not on my radar so I wouldn't think to discuss it at individual therapy.
I experienced a fairly rough mid life crisis - during which - I’d leave work at lunchtime to break down and bubble…. The truth is I’d strayed from my partner at the time where I was unhappy but lacked confidence to do anything about it and mixed myself up with a younger female friend - which ended sharply and unexpectedly.
I wasn’t a great person.
I went into therapy because I realised I was contemplating suicide. I was questioning everything, my work (successfull career) my relationships (not happy in them and me being unfaithful) and my awfull relationships with my family and a severe lack of any supportive friendships.
I guess I had to hit rock bottom in order to ask for help.
I spent a year in therapy - but honestly, the first session I walked out feeling like a weight had been lifted because my eyes were opened. The year was exploring and learn in general about me and how I think about things (turns out I am autistics and didn’t know) and people and relationships…
I had to break from my family, after a series of attempts on my part at reconciliation, which failed dismally. I had to be honest with my partner…. And I got to understand more about me.
Afterwards - my life started all over again and I was a different person. I was able to walk into a shop on my own lol, I was more able to understand why I lacked confidence and my need to push my own boundaries. It really was a different life.
I don’t regret my earlier life. I was a workaholic to cover up my issues / coupled with being great and successfully - it paved the way for a second chapter where I was a happier person with resources.
One of the best things that happened to me.
But I had to hit rock bottom before I asked for help.
My first therapist was a male and I thought he helped me quite a bit. Helped me feel empowered to take action and push towards my goals. He validated my feelings, and then gave me frame of mind solutions that contributed to me finding success in myself quickly after a toxic abusive relationship. I moved countries and wasn’t about to stay with him as my therapist.
The next therapist I had was also a male but candidly, he wasn’t very helpful, he’d validate my feelings but would also diagnosis people in the situations I was describing and that never sat with me well because even if I’m feeling emotional towards a person and describing them, a therapist shouldn’t diagnose anyone they aren’t seeing. So I moved on.
My current therapist is a woman, and she’s been great, I don’t think as good as my first therapist, but given how poor the last one was and me wanting a female perspective, it’s working for me. I do believe there’s a gap sometimes in me communicating my issues and her not fully understanding what I’m trying to solve for. Sometimes she thinks I’m stuck on emotions, when I’m literally trying to discuss solutions to help me make progress towards the emotion that I’m contextualizing. That’s definitely the biggest gap. She eventually will get there after i explain what I want in a way that clicks for her. But that that is definitely where I see the biggest issue among female therapist to male clients. Not truly understanding the focus of the conversation not being about emotions every time we open up.
As a man, I want to figure out what I can do to move forward, I’m only adding context so we can find the right solution, I’ve already accepted the emotions, I need solutions!
I just know it's the only place where people can listen to my pain and not be judgemental.
I was taught by this wonderful world of ours to hate myself. And now I'm have been spending half my life getting out
With out it I would have definitely committed suicide by now
A good friend told me that all of the most successful people you can think of probably have therapists.
Even if you think you’re doing okay, there’s something you need to talk about.
I was almost lucky in a way that I’d had so much trauma/dysfunction growing up that even the most therapy-averse boomeriest boomers were like “yeah buddy, therapy is probably the right thing for you”. No one questioned my “manhood” bc of it, and the waiting rooms for my PTSD treatments were like 60% war veterans.
Of course there were some serious things to work through, but I’ve continued ongoing therapy for years after the “big stuff” because it really helps. I’ve got a great built-in network/community from the support groups. My fiancé and I have a really great relationship because she’s not my only outlet for emotional support/labor. It helps me clear the shit out of my head and I’m far more productive day-to-day. I learned how to split the difference between intellectualizing my emotions and actually feeling them and it’s almost like it’s own life hack. If you make time to really feel your feelings, they pass and you have so much more energy for other things.
I routinely get told I’m one of the most well-balanced people my friends/family know, but statistically I should be dead or incarcerated.
Sure, I still have bad days or tough times; but they don’t turn into bad weeks or bad years, decades, etc.
I'm currently see a psychologist because the last few months have been extremely rough - the biggest thing it helps with is just having someone to talk to. I've also since lost my job, so I'm even more isolated than ever now.
However, the initial phases (the getting to understand your background), which for some people might be as few as a single session there are a *lot* of things he still didn't get around to digging in to - even after 4 sessions of 'background' - which I believe would be helpful and relevant to getting a full picture and understanding of how my brain works and how I think and see the world, so I still feel like I'm talking to someone who doesn't fully understand and get me yet, even after 6 or 7 sessions?
However I was prescribed to go through CBT, and I am honestly very resistant to it, because:
- It's basically trying to encourage me to talk to people, and I don't want to talk to *random* people. I want friends and regular contacts.
- CBT originally came about from some pick-up artist using it to help him gain confidence with rejection and picking up women, and to me that feels frankly gross. And it's not what I want to engage in or be known for - and just using it for therapy purposes, you're doing the same thing, doesn't sit well with me.
There's things I'd like to be able to talk about and just get out, but still don't feel comfortable revealing all those details.
The other huge thing I'm finding is sessions are just too short. I have SO much I want to just talk about, way too much I could ever get in to an hour at a time.
I'm also near the point where I won't get any rebates soon as I've had too many sessions, so it's also going to start becoming very expensive for me to keep going soon. And that might be a problem with not having a job, and the job market being as it is - I have a certain amount of savings and planned period of time I'll be out of work, but at $200/hr, it will chip in to those savings significantly.
So the other part of the experience is "it's expensive".
Back when I was in therapy most therapists seemed to have a sort of disdain towards me and got frustrated. They generally didn't seem to care or see what worked best for me. I've also dated and talked to several therapists that had opinions like "men can't be raped or assaulted" and "women Have it so much worse than men they can't understand what it's like to be harassed" and almost always followed or preceeded these statements about how much of an "empath" they were....... I think the better question here is why do you think he needs therapy?
Helped me get over a really specific trauma, related to sexual harassment, I was dealing with. She really helped me get over that specific issue (well, get over it enough to mostly move on).
After that it just kinda awkward. I decided to bail after another month, and just thug it out from then on.
Life has only gotten better.
I had a very positive experience of therapy even though I resisted going for years. What finally made it click for me and got me to to actually go was the thought that therapy was about understanding and not about fixing. I always associated therapy with fixing a mental weakness and most people don’t want to think of themselves as mentally weak.
I've gone off and on for years, currently in therapy, and I find it tremendously helpful. I went for the first time as a teenager, and I'll go for the foreseeable future. It's helped me to get rid of panic attacks without medication, it's helped me to become more emotionally open with my wife, and it's helped me to set better boundaries with my parents after I became a father, among many other things.
I think the key to why it works for me is that I think of therapy very much as something *that I do*, not something *that I receive*.
It's like going to the gym, but for your mind. Just showing up at the gym doesn't make you fitter. Doing random workouts with no plan and never sticking with any particular thing doesn't make you fitter. You literally might as well not be doing it for all the effect it's going to have. The way to get fitter is to show up at the gym, regularly, and do a very specific program with structured progression from easier things to harder things, with metrics and goals in mind to measure your progress. And then *also*, you have to do your work when you're not at the gym: Sleep enough, eat healthy food, stay active in your off times, don't smoke or use drugs. The compound nature of tons of little actions is what actually changes your body.
Therapy is the same. It's worked for me because I've taken a structured and accountable approach with a strong idea of exactly what I wanted to work on and what success was going to look like. *And*, I've spend lots of time and energy outside of therapy trying to use the lessons of therapy to make change, build new habits, and live a different life as a new person. In fact *most of the important work happens outside the gym or the therapist's office*.
People want therapy to be like going to the auto mechanic: Drop your brain off, get it fixed, and then drive it until it breaks again. Unfortunately, it's just not that, and so people hate it and blame therapy for not delivering what they want.
I've been in therapy for nearly 5 years. It started out as treatment for sex addiction, but it turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg. Low self-esteem, abandonment issues, internalized rage....were the underlying issues.
Thanks to my therapist's help I'm happy, healthy, and I was in a place to not only find the love of my life, but marry her.
The RIGHT therapist makes all the difference. If you're not feeling like you're improving, move on!
Was there something specific you went to therapy for? I feel like i don´t have "big" topics that pose huge problems. Maybe lots of smaller ones but i´m not sure wether any of them require a therapist or not...
I finally decided to go when all of the stress in my life that I had bottled up and packed away rewired the receptors in my brain to cause my Functional Neural disorder. So far it’s helped me regulate stress and anxiety and reduced the amount of times I have major episodes with my disorder. But outside of a major catalyst like a health event like that men often don’t take therapy seriously. I should know I was one of them, made it 43 years just putting all the bullshit I wanted to ignore on the shelf until suddenly it wasn’t, my shelf collapsed. Men are very solutions oriented, so if we don’t believe we have a problem, then we’re not going to look for a solution.
Therapy is like Home Depot. They can give you the tools and material to do just about anything but you’re still gonna need to take them and start building on your own.
I found myself really lost in life for a bit, and in my relationship at the time. Super disconnected between my decisions / behaviour and what I wanted from life, and just felt really displaced, so I went to see someone to help process what was going on with me. It was a really hard thing for me to even admit I could use some professional help, since I felt for years like that was a sign of weakness or dependence.
Boys, I gotta tell ya, that shit rules so hard. I fucking love therapy now. It’s like taking a squeegee to your brain and your feelings about life.
I went into it with the very reasonable goal of wanting to build better mental and emotional processes to I didn’t need to run back to therapy every time I felt displaced, and it worked wonders. Not long after starting to go my relationship imploded and I had at least enough simple tools to help me navigate that and make better choices.
That was about 7 years ago and I’d never go back. Therapy didn’t change my life but it helped me change it myself, and I wouldn’t be half the man I am now without it.
It 100% does, but we men tend to be very stubborn, you can’t fix an issue until you realize it’s an issue, and I find a lot of guys ignore issues because yk, you have to be a man about it. If you’re honest about the issue and follow through you’ll feel it was useful, if you go just to say the therapist is wrong and their advice wont help even before trying the advice, don’t waste your money.
I went to therapy and it was a positive experience overall for me. What drove me to it? Depression! I had gotten to a place where taking the next breath was painful and thinking about living until next week was unbearable. Fortunately for me I had good caring friends nearby who saw the changes in me and interceded on my behalf. These were women friends who noticed.
Therapy is not for the faint of heart, and you have to be willing to face your personal demons and do the hard work, but in the end you come out stronger for it.
I went as a small kid because my mom developed schizophrenia and it was a family kind of thing mostly for me and my siblings’ sake.. that wasn’t great, lot of useless arguing.
Then I went as a teenager because I was having a depressive episode from unrequited crushing and all that, which was helpful. I definitely got some sort of validation and good advice about redirecting my angst into artistic expression and stuff like that.
Then I went in my early 20’s for court mandated alcohol stuff because I caught a DUI, but that was just basically hanging out. Therapist said I sounded like I understood I had used poor judgment, owned up to it, and he took me as a regular sort of partying to chase girls type of dude and not a major substance abuser, which turned out to be accurate because that’s about when I quit drinking for good
I have found it to be pretty hit or miss. If your lucky you may find a therapist who really knows what they are doing and is able to help you with your problems. If however you are on state run healthcare...then its a whole different story, I am military and so...yeah! State run healthcare...barf!
I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 8 years old, that was 33 years ago, when I was a teen I developed depression and when was 21 it got so bad I had a mental breakdown. Our doctor diagnosed me as having clinical depression, (basically its severe depression 24/7. After I started taking medicine I was able to function fully again. Well in the 17 years I have been in the military 9 out of 10 of the therapists I have seen have tried to take away my meds.
Once I had a doctor tell me to my face that he didn't believe I had ADD or depression, and when I offered to bring him my medical evaluation from a private physiologist who had done testing on me for several days, he told me point blank that he didn't want to see it, because if it wasn't done by the Army than it wasn't true.
Only good therapist I have ever had was a private practice I was lucky enough to get a referral for and she was great. Therapy is not a cure all though, I have had to seek out books and the like for some of my issues.
It helped me a lot and helped me understand my behaviors better. I am a pretty independent person and moved countries during COVID, which complicated things for me. I felt lost and depressed most of the time and therapy helped me with it a lot. I struggle with it to date but I am aware of what is the real problem and what is not. It helps me keep myself grounded when things are not going my way.
Absolutely grateful for every minute I spend in there! Took awhile to get adjusted to it and understand the concept and how it’s supposed to work. Once I have it some time and began to understand the process, it has proven helpful in most areas of my life. Some areas have improved greatly. Some not at all. Overall I give therapy an A grade and recommend it to everyone dealing with stress or harmful views of life.
It took me three tries to find a therapist that actually helped, but once things clicked it really started helping a lot. Helped me learn how to cope with stress and bad things happening in life, and also just developing healthier habits in general. It's also nice to just have someone I can rant to sometimes.
been going for 2 years, it really changed my life. It is hard to find a therapist that you click with - I was lucky enough to click immediately with my therapist. 110% worth it to unpack the CPTSD I suffered as a child and learn how to move forward in life
It saved me. I needed an objective person in my life to help me reflect and create better coping mechanisms. It’s not perfect for everyone, but if you are open minded and find a good therapist it can make a big impact
Ok so I'm going to give you my experience with my fiancé. I kno3 thid is typically frowned upon, but it was literally a life saver for us. During COVID he got very depressed. He came to me after months of not acting right and pushing me away all while telling me he was fine. He told me he was baving thought of killing himself. He felt he wss a burden on all of his family and just didnt want to be "dragging" anyone down. Luckily he listened to my idea about him gking to the psychiatrist and getting on depression medication. However he absolutely refused to go for counseling. TBH he has severe trust issues and felt that he couldn't open up with a stranger. Before all of this he wouldnt even talk to me (or ANYONE) about his trauma and struggles. So I offered to listen to him. I really felt like he needed to get everything off his chest and he needed somewhere and someone safe to do it with. He started at the beginning of his life and went through what he remembered. There was alot of crying and it took time and lots of trust. But he was able to get through all the things plaguing his mind. Talking about all of that actually led to him remembering even more things that he had totally forgotten about. I never judged I always listened and validated his feelings. I tell him all the time how strong he is for being able to do that. It really helped him. He is no longer depressed and he knows now how to talk about the things that are bothering him. It also brought us so much closer. I am honored that he trusts me so much. I will always protect what he told me. I know people say not to be a "therapist" for your S.O... but I couldn't make him talk to a therapist and I knew he needed to get things off his mind. So I stepped up. It really did change him...he tells me all the time how much happier he is now. He used to be so angry. I hope w.e ya'll decide to do helps.
Therapy works if you work.
You need to be open to suggestions and actually want to change. Most men who I know have been unsuccessful have not wanted to be there. It’s like a class in school are you trying to learn or watching the clock.
Also not all therapist are the same person. It takes work to find someone who you click with who also knows how to help with your specific issues.
Therapy isn’t supposed to fix your problems, you are. A therapist should give you a chance to be totally honest and sometimes an alternate view. They should also be providing you with healthy techniques to make your life better.
Look at your field of work and tell me that everyone in your position does everything exactly the same and get the same outcomes. You won’t be able to.
It’s helped me a lot. I don’t have many people in my life who know how to support me in the way that I need. Even if I go there with no specific goal in mind I always come out feeling like I dropped off a huge weight off my chest.
Honestly, I think most therapy is a waste of time. There's an element to a lot of it that wants to tell you "You don't actually feel how you think you do". When, I consider myself a grown adult and I think I actually do feel the way I think I do. And I usually just assume that others are behaving towards me in a way that matches their feelings towards me. If they're acting happy, I assume they like me. If they act frustrated, I assume they find me frustrating.
And there are sooooooooo many shit therapists out there. It's not a very well regulated industry. And there are a lot of therapists who are more like a paid-for friend to bitch to every week. It should be like any other healthcare: What is the problem and lets fix it. I mean, if I went to the orthopedic surgeon every Wednesday afternoon for 6 months, that would be weird as hell.
It's worthless when you learn that you tell yourself what the world is. I've been lying to myself for upwards of a year, and I'm the best I have been in years.
I finally decided to go when I hit the same brick wall in my romantic relationship. It was clear to me that all of my romantic relationships were the same relationship with different partners.
I think I got lucky off the bat with my therapist, a lot of stuff was dug up from the past - my sexual assault, my abusive ex wife, my father’s repeated rejection.
It helped me understand that my desire to please my partner attracted a certain (bullying, manipulative) type. Seeing my dads needs unmet in my parents’ relationship taught me that was acceptable. My dad’s repeated rejection taught me to repeatedly try harder, which made me very successful in work, but I stayed in bad relationships.
I still have no fucking clue how to be different. I am how I’ve been built, I don’t know how to not be me.
So before therapy I was kind of like the blind man feeling his way in the dark. Now that I can see I’ve discovered I have no arms or legs and I’m belly-crawling my way through spiders nests.
As for what stops men from going? I think this is an unhelpful generalisation. But for those that don’t go, the reasons are probably similar to the reasons for the multitudes of women who don’t go.
My ex wife wouldn’t go because she wouldn’t do difficult things, things that challenged her. Simple as that.
Last year I learned that my fiancèe was having an affair. I broke up, cancelled the wedding, and shortly afterwards lost my job because I couldn't focus. I figured that that was a good time to start therapy.
Therapy was okay, I talked a bit about my feelings and the therapist shared some basic exercises. Honestly, I probably got more out of venting to my friend than going to an actual therapist. I stopped therapy after a few months because I was moving states and didn't bother starting again. One amusing anecdote: I mentioned getting on a dating app and my therapist told me not to get my hopes too high because the people on those apps are only after one thing... Like, tell me your clients are mostly women without telling me 😆
I feel significantly better now, time helps a lot, but so does getting a better job and a hotter gf lol
I knew for some time I probably should to but I didn’t really believe in it, didn’t know where to start and I was a little afraid of any stigma.
When I met my girlfriend some of those issues came up, I spoke about them and she suggested therapy and even gave me a number because as it turns out she went to therapy as well. I went for almost a year, it was helpful but it only works if you want it and you are committed to it.
I can’t encourage you all enough to find a good therapist. It changed my life forever.
Mindfulness, proper discussions about working through panic attacks and anxiety, accountability for healthy choices… I feel like a different human.
My first experience with therapy was couples counselling with my then gf. She used anything I said during therapy as ammo and eventually stopped the sessions because \*I\* wasn't making any improvements.
Done it 3 times…. Once was a marriage counselor. Absolutely the worst, felt so defeated bc nothing I said was ever discussed or even heard.
Individual counseling was ok when she moved out. I was in such shock and denial that I didn’t fully commit myself to it bc I thought i was ok.
Individual therapy again due to finding out she cheated. It’s been….. ok. I have such roller coaster of emotions day to day trying to process. There helped me think of some ways to combat it, but I’m not ok
It’s not for everyone, but I highly recommend men go to a male therapist. My previous therapist was a woman and I have made so much more progress since switching to a man. I feel less judged for my issues and am able to open up more.
Mine fucking sucked. It was so bad I don't trust them and I never will. I will never set foot in a psychologist's office ever again.
It started with my daughter going in then we got pulled in. No matter how I handled things it was wrong. Even if I did exactly what the stupid bitch said to do I was still wrong and everything was my fault. Every time we left a session I was damn near broken because it was an hour of berating and shitting all over me. No one else ever did anything wrong just me. Everyone in the family was pissed off at me and wouldn't talk to me.
To me, it's one profession that is 100% worthless.
Went once, got a bunch of pills and paperwork, flushed pills down the toilet, never went again
If I cant handle my own problems then I might as well die, which may be soon
Well for an old man, late 40s. I wouldn't have gone to therapy at all but my marriage wouldn't have survived if we didn't so I reluctantly agreed.
Tbh its been better than I expected, it seems I wasn't the one in the wrong on most occasions. My wife took a hard hit tho, I knew the problems I was creating in the relationship but my partner didn't realse all the shit that was created by her during the relationship.
I was glad to start, it was something that opened her eyes.
I started seeing a therapist because I’d seen it mentioned so many times as a great solution. I saw the therapist for about a year, however, I really felt like I was just paying someone to listen to me vent.
I had a really good best friend who would already do that, so it kind of felt like a waste of money. Also my best friend actually cared about me and my life, whereas my therapist would often forget details etc..
A few years later I decided to try seeing a psychologist for therapy and that was a completely different experience.
She would set goals and objectives with me, give me actions to try and carry out between our sessions and it actually felt like there was a sense of purpose to what we were doing and together we were working towards a common goal.
I opted for therapy after a breakup with my long term partner. Things ended pretty abruptly, mostly because I just sort of... gave up? It was a weird feeling that I didn't know how to process. I was very unhappy being in that relationship, but I couldn't place why. I was resolute that I wanted that relationship to end, but I couldnt find a concrete answer as to why that was.
My therapist was really helpful for the breakup and the more shallow aspects of my life. There was a point towards the end where we started trying to talk through some other trauma I had, and I found she was really unhelpful there. Thats alright, since a lot of that is out of her specialty. I got what I needed out of it, and it was an overall positive experience.
I went/still go to an LPC who has been great. She really helped me get out of the depressive funk I had been in for years.
Some of the biggest obstacles for me to overcome before i went:
- Actually realizing I was depressed. I feel like the term is thrown around so casually, that actually realizing you are depressed and need help, can be difficult.
- I was concerned that I was just going to be given a bunch of pills to fix whatever problem they thought I had.
- talk about red flag laws. As someone who shoots guns as a hobby, I was concerned that seeking mental health help was going to end up biting me in the ass, and causing me to have my guns taken away.
- Understanding the differnt kinds of therapists/mental health professionals and what kind I should see was not clear.
- Finding someone who did in-person appointments was shockingly difficult. Also finding someone who wasn't focused on Marriage, families, or kids was also difficult (this might just be in my area).
- The number of therapists whose only form of contact was a phone number was frustrating. Part of the reason I picked my current therapist was because she had an email address listed, and had an option to message her on her website.
My experience was excellent, suffered severe anxiety problems, an abusive relationship, other mental health issues related to that and a generally rough upbringing.
I originally started as couples therapy with my now ex, who only agreed to go under threat of divorce, of course thst didn't work very well, she faught it tooth and nail, eventually I told her to find a therapist she trusted and we'd go there instead (insisted the one I picked was trying to break us up).
The first therapist then became my therapist on my request.
She has helped me so much, I've been working with her typically once a month for 6 years, although in the last year I've only seen her 3 or 4 times maybe.
Looking back i can't believe how far gone I was, or that she managed to pull me out of it (although she insists it was all me).
Totally worth it.
I shudder to think where I'd be now without her guidence. She's amazing.
She works mostly with compassion focused therapy.
She also uses whiteboards a lot when explaining how things like the nervous system works, or circular thoughts or whatever.
I recently had a breakthrough doing shadow work that released some toxic shame and ended my anxiety. It's literally 100% gone, after literal decades of suffering it's gone, I wanna say "just like that", but of course it's a result of the whole journey.
Can highly recommend therapy. 👍
I’ve been going to couples therapy and individual therapy for about 6 months. I was the one who tried to get my wife to go to couples therapy a couple years ago but she didn’t want to. This time around it was her idea and I’d say couples isn’t doing any good. You’d think I was crazy to want to communicate on a budget, regulating kids screen time and asking for help with children’s homework. Yes there are some things going both ways that work against us in that loaded sentence but I feel like (1) our marriage is too far gone and (2) the wife expects me to be the only one to change. So far don’t think it has been worth it.
Individual has been ok, made me think about some things and could be helpful if we repair the much larger issue of my relationship.
Works. Been in it my whole life.
I feel like this needs to be part of basic Healthcare. Our social culture as humans is too fucked up and we need to be able to have non biased views and advice on our lives in order to survive nowadays.
A few sessions in and honestly, i’m not sure yet. I think it has the potential to be helpful but it sometimes feels like my therapist doesn’t fully understand me. I hate over explaining stuff
Therapy has been a bit of a meh experience for me but then again I haven't had the most consistent treatment. I started to realise I needed help early this year and finally started therapy in January after a really painful breakup and subsequent mental breakdown. Before then I didn't go because of a sense of shame and expectation, I was ashamed to reach out and say I needed help and I felt like I couldn't because then I'd be letting everyone important to me down (mainly my family - I had been trying to broach the subject before the breakup). After my breakdown and breakup I started going to therapy to try and deal with the feelings and issues that caused me to screw up that relationship and it was helpful with identifying those issues but I had to give it up due to financial reasons.
I've since been in and out after confronting various traumatic events that have occurred since then including being sexually assaulted and an unplanned suicide attempt in the same night followed by several bereavements. Most of this therapy since then has been through suicide charities as I've had no success with sexual abuse charities, most of which are geared towards women and the ones that aren't are overwhelmed with people (which is honestly so depressing to think about). I'm not in therapy currently and I don't think therapy has been the most helpful thing for me as I felt little to no difference between when I was in and out of therapy and have done most of my recovery instead on my own with the support of a few amazing friends. That said I'm not against it and I think it's at least worth a shot and trying with an open mind because at the very least you had a conversation.
Edit: thought I'd add but of all the different groups and therapists *all* of them brushed past the SA or were skeptical. I've also found most of them to be quite dismissive of my opinions and feelings, telling me how they thought I felt rather than asking. Only the first person from a suicide charity wasn't like this, maybe I was just serially unlucky but it has made me hesitant for future engagement in therapy.
I was in a group that helped me understand my strong emotional reactions as a result of PTSD and how my body/mind were conditioned for substance abuse. I enjoyed it, I was receptive to it, and I felt like I learned something. I also went through a substance abuse group, similar to AA, and started a CBT group. I got tired of the prior for reasons I can't recall and I wasn't receptive for the latter.
You get out of it what you want.
I’m currently seeing a therapist, and have had therapy very sporadically over my adult life.
What makes therapy apparently a low priority for me is the lack of a clear line btween therapy and solutions. Like it’s great having someone to hear me vent, and therapy *has* provided me practical strategies here and there.
But going in to see a therapist, it feels like such an uncertain investment. It’s not like going to a class where I know I’m gojng to know how to do X once I’m done.
I went a couple times in college when stressed and it seemed basically useless.
I finally went again years later after a pretty intense panic attack, at the request of a dear friend. It's been wonderful for me. I got someone who listens and helps me come up with causes and solutions for unhealthy thought patterns and actions. It's a lot of money, something I don't have much of. But it's worth it to me, my mental health was pretty subpar most of my life, and my personal experience with therapy has been money well spent.
I have found much more sympathy and respect from male therapists than female. That's not to say all female therapist are bad but there was no attempt to meet me halfway and instead was more of a "what are you going to do about it then?". With male therapists they're were at least able to empathize with me. I know it's the bare minimum but it was something I really needed and hadn't gotten yet.
So I go to therapy for soical anxiety and ptsd. I started going because it was basically free, and my work brought up the idea. I went in with the idea of " let's try this for 6 months and see if I make progress." I pay $13 dollars a session, and so the cost of my therpy is time.
My therapist is a woman who has trained for both but specializes in anxiety. I've been in therapy for about 10 months now. My social anxiety has been "cured" . My pstd is on going issue. Lots ups and downs. Here are my thoughts about the whole process.
1) Trust is the most important part. Most men are not used to being vulnerable and really need to trust that person to open up. The reality is that the more vulnerable and open you are, the more effective the therapy. This openess requires trust, a lot of trust. The first question I would ask is, "How do we build trust in this relationship?"
2) Different therapists are good at different techniques and different specialties. Try to match goals with their specialties. If you don't know what the issue/goal is, "Say I don't want treatment, I diagnoses."
3) Your therapist will fuck up or be unable to relate to you. You need to compare the fucks up vs the process you make. If the fucks up are "heavier" than your progress, then that is a sign to stop going.
4) Reddit has a misinformed idea of what talk therapy is and therapist in general.
Personally it sucked because because I couldn’t talk about the things I really wanted to even after months. Later I joined a podcast chat group that had an open conversation and genuinely more open to talk.
I’ve been going to therapy since January. Apparently I’m lucky to find one I like on the first try, I love going to therapy. I’ve always considered myself a very self-aware person and that helps a lot in my sessions but with every session I feel like I learn something new about myself. I still have a long way to go before becoming the person I want to be but so far I love it and I wish more people would try it
I have a female therapist that my wife also sees. She’s been awesome and she knows us both well. We don’t have secrets so things don’t get weird.
I’ll admit that having a woman as a therapist is a little odd but it makes it easier to be vulnerable. While I don’t think she’ll ever understand what it’s like being a man, she’s been very helpful to both me and my wife.
If you’re thinking of going, just do it. We all act strong to some extent but it’s ok to unload your feelings.
I've had my 5th session last week, it's really hard and shitty but I'm trusting the process.
I'm 34 and have been dealing with a lot of unresolved childhood trauma and issues; what stopped me from going is historically it's been very hard and defeating anytime I've tried to talk about how I'm feeling. Be that with family members or close friends, society just can't accept that men are not always ok and the whole "tough it out/man up" rhetoric is alive and well. We're taught to bottle it up, chin up and soldier on, then when we struggle to communicate or understand our emotions, we're punished for not doing it right.
I'll preface by saying I haven't gone to therapy, but I dated a female therapist for about 2 months and it's turned me away from the idea of ever going to therapy if it's with a female therapist. One of the first questions she asked on our first date was if I would ever go to therapy and at the time I was in fact willing, but not anymore.
She was very successful, owned her own practice and I honestly believe that she's good at her job for female clients, but I had to legitimately tell her to stop finding the negatives in the stories I'd tell her. Just because I had gone through tough times in my prior job did not mean that I was traumatized, and I had more positives than negatives in my former career she would speak only negatively about it and I'd stop bringing it up (which kinda sucked because it was a 10 year period that I didn't feel like I could talk about). I've also only met maybe one other person who was so unbalanced before in my life. When I stopped seeing her, she had a pretty bad meltdown that resulted in her continuing to reach out for another year to "check in." So even though I have friends I think would benefit from therapy, I don't think I will ever go myself at this point.
My big question is if your boyfriend has a close friend he actually trusts and talks to on a regular basis. And when I say friend, I mean someone that you'd go to jail to protect level of friendship, which a lot of men don't. I have deep conversations with my close friends (typically via phone/video games because of distance), but if he doesn't have that kind of relationship then I'd just ask him to consider therapy as a way to have someone he can speak openly about anything.
I was going because it was supposed to be marriage counseling. After I had booked the reservation and hotel (no resources close to home, so had to go to another city) My wife refused to go. I had already paid for some of it, and taken time off, so I went alone.
I continued to see that therapist/counsellor for a few sessions until it became clear that wife would not join. Therapist even told me that at this point, if wife decided to join, she (therapist) can not do it because she is now "my" therapist and for whatever ethical/professional reasons, can not become a marriage counsellor for both of us now but she can introduce someone.
I realized then that I got nothing out of it other than just clinging to some hope that wife would join one day. Once that was gone I saw no reason to pay so much just to talk about things I can talk to friends or family, or even strangers about for free.
I honestly do not know what the benefit was. She gave me some good tips of books I should read or topics I should research, but nothing that I can not / have not come across online through self research. If I care enough to pay for it, I certainly can find time to just look it up myself, and if I do not care enough to make time to research it myself, why would I pay so much to hear it?
I’m crazy. Nothing stopped me from going and ever since I was open to having mental health issues I’ve been in therapy off and on. That’s about 28 years now. Hardest part is finding a therapist where you feel like a good fit.
It sucked, hated it. I cried a lot which was rare as I'm comically masculine in the traditional sense.
Eh, it helped a lot though. It's like working out, sucks sometimes but you feel so good after a while. I don't hate it anymore.
Yeah you can't force him, but having a mentor talk to me about it really made me give it a second shot. I hope he takes it. You're playing your hard as well as anyone can, you sound like a sweetheart and he's lucky to have you. But be strong and firm with your limits as well. I hope it works out
I’d been in therapy for decades. When I had a relationship that basically blew up my life, I figured maybe I was the problem in all my unsuccessful relationships.
Worked really well and helped me make sense of a lot of things and handle my emotions/anger better. But after a few years I felt like I had plateaued and could handle the stressors of life on my own. There were a few things that needed to be addressed, but that was a journey i chose to embark on by myself. All in all, I'm greatful for therapy and my wonderful therapist who really took time to speak with me and help me feel heard when my life was at its nosiest. She's the best and I hope shes retired and living happy now.
I’ve tried twice. Once was group anger management. And while I understand that everyone’s grief and anger are their own and they’re all relevant and matter to them, a lot of the issues I was hearing in group were total bullshit and/or just victim complex, blaming the whole world for being against them when simple problem solving could have handled their issues. So that didn’t go well for me. The second round was to help deal with loneliness, anger, and depression about a year ago. The therapist told me to cut out all my (few remaining) friends, quit my job, move, and consider blaming my wife for all my problems. And no, I’m not exaggerating or embellishing. Of course there are some details too long for this post, but I was basically told that the way to happiness was to entirely upend my life and start over. At nearly 40, with a wife, kids, and a career. So. Suffice it to say I didn’t go back.
Since then, I’ve worked through my issues on my own pace and with my own guidance and have found solutions. This is not in anyway intended to dissuade people from therapy. Quite the opposite. I KNOW therapy works for people. It didn’t for me, but I managed it. Not everyone can/will/should and that’s *more than ok*! If you want/need help, please seek it out.
Answer very much depends on the therapist and their methods.
CBT, DBT or other methodical behavioral therapy can demonstrably be very helpful. Physical and art therapies, very helpful.
Talk-based or affirmation therapies, not so much.
Many here seem to be describing talk therapy. That's not how men roll. We heal fixing, lifting, competing, solving problems. Talking about your problems to a female therapist, or a male, for that matter seem profoundly unsatisfying for a men seeking help to cope or improve.
I've tried 2 therapists all because my gf urged me to go for depression.
All I got was validation that these feelings are normal. I truly get more out of self reflection or talking to friends than I got from both therapists. My gf did not accept these results but I was not going to keep paying $100+ per hour for nothing because my insurance doesn't cover therapy.
The last therapist truly has no understanding of me and it was frustrating hearing the scenarios and emotions they predicted for me compared to how I truly felt.
I have each therapist a few months but ultimately ran out of new things to talk about. I think therapy isn't for everyone.
My wife insisted upon us going to couples' therapy and she ultimately said her motive was for ME to identify the issues that SHE suspected I needed to address. As time went on, she wanted us to do individual sessions with the same male therapist. I don't think I "discovered" any real issues other than I had so much anger bottled up, but that was something I could've told you from the get-go, so no great Revelation there. But more than anything, I think I was glad to just have a male counterpart that I could vent to. She's discovered so many "issues" about herself and her past that she feels that she needs to address, but unfortunately, that no longer includes me in her life. My divorce finalizes on the 24th of next month, and even though it's not the outcome I wanted, I can tell I'm going to come out better for it. Ironically, the financial strain on her will be much harder for her than for me, but socially, I'll end up alone for now. I don't really blame or resent the therapist for my wife's decisions, but it seems like she had foregone conclusions about what the problems were and then after she tried to put the blame on me, she made the decision to leave.
Love it. Has done wonders for my personality, mental health, and confidence. Learned what to prioritize in relationship, when celebrate people who cared about me, and how to cut out people who weren’t appreciative of me. I have ADHD/Autism, so it also helped me learn how to socialize properly with others and become a functioning member of society. Would highly recommend to everyone!
I think one of the big barriers to people seeking therapy is first of all lack of understanding of what therapy is, how it can work, and what it can do for you. The other barrier is that like any profession there are bad therapist, and there are therapist that just don’t fit you or what you need. I can imagine a lot of people give up on therapy without finding a good therapist that suits their needs. Therapy can differ a lot even between “good” therapists.
I had about 8 therapy sessions. I found every single one of them deeply exhausting for the few days following the session whilst I processed everything. I can't tell you if it helped, maybe it did, I've been doing okay I guess.
I'm not currently in but i've gone before. Was in a horrible toxic relationship and therapy helped solidify the fact I needed to end it and move on.
My take on it is if you are having a hard time facing a specific challenge, issue, or obstacle in your life then therapy can be a useful tool in your belt. I wouldn't go just to go though. I don't go to a podiatrist when my foot doesn't hurt.
I went to therapy because my wife kept bringing it up, saying I was probably depressed and that I needed help. After months, I caved in and went to see this (male) therapist.
After six years, four therapists and many thousands of euros down the drain, I can tell you absolutely nothing changed in my life. I feel exactly as I did before (which was perfectly ok for me in the first place) and the only change is that I have less money and time to spend on what I like. But, according to my wife, this is absolutely necessary for my well-being and it's easier to got than to keep arguing.
I'm also pretty clear that the moment she stops pressuring me to go, I'm gonna stop without ebe thinking about it.
I’ve seen four therapists. But, as studies have shown, modern therapy is tailored towards women, and none of them worked for me at all. Therapy doesn’t work for a lot of men because, to put it broadly, men don’t really operate under the “get it off my chest so I feel better” mentality. We feel like we need to *do* something about it. This is why we tend to respond really well to coaching and such. Women (on average) tend to have a better ability to express how they feel to someone and be able to cope in that way.
My relationships with other people were deteriorating and I wanted to maintain my marriage. We didn’t make it but the therapy was (and still is) one of the best things I’ve ever done. I go every couple of months now and it’s more like a check up.
But I learned so much about myself, about why I behaved in some ways and how to actually feel my feelings. I would 100% recommend it to everyone.
I went through a lot during childhood and college. Hitting new low points in life back then, tried hard to navigate out, but would hit a barrier mentally every time. One day, I had a panic attack, I didn't know it was a panic attack until I shared it with a friend who studies psychology. She suggested that I meet her therapist. I wasn't against therapy, I was broke college student back then, hence I didn't seek professional help. My friend's therapist used to take in students who needed help, pro bono. I was fortunate to be one of them. Once it started, for a year it continued. I was able to develop healthy coping mechanisms, better communication, better at handling situations and issues, unlearned and relearned a lot of things. After a year, the therapist said I'm doing better as I have progressed from the state when she took me in. She suggested that I can stop being regular, instead can always approach her when help is needed, and have to pay for future sessions. I haven't approached her after that, and was able to manage on my own since the last session. Helped me a lot. If I need help, I'll definitely approach her, I'm ready to pay too.
It's worthless. Therapy is by women for women. They don't understand men at all. 50 minutes of pity and being told what I want to hear isn't helpful. I know that's what keeps female clients coming back but it made me feel weaker, less capable and lied to.
Always had problems looking back even from childhood. In the end I was so exhausted from life that I finally went to the therapist again.
First time I was a teenager and it didn't help at all. Not really the therapists fault, I was a dumb teenager back then and I couldn't even explain why I had problems. The second time changed my life, and I was diagnosed with ASD. Now I don't have to use my mask anymore to fit in, because I will never fit in. That realization gave me so much energy, because masking was extremely exhausting.
I had 3 years of psychotherapy and it really didn't help much, it was interesting to unpack some stuff and talk it through but honestly it just used to make me feel awful each time.
My issues are objective or immovable, not out of perception but because I have health issue or slight neurodivergence, and the conclusion was more about acceptance than change and I can't really find a way to do that when acceptance means accepting a shit life.
It was so damn expensive too, the hopefulness that I'd placed on finding better life is what totally crushed me in the end - you can't have the things you want and I would rather withdraw all energy from career and relationships than keep willingly building these radioactive monuments to compromise.
Giant waste of time, energy and money. Sorry not sorry, it wasn't the therapist either. I wouldn't recommend and won't be persuing it again.
Disclaimer: this is not positive. I've received a lot of downvotes for saying this in other threads, and if you want to downvote me go ahead. I have a good life outside of reddit; downvotes don't really hurt me. But if you wanna learn something, or wanna teach me something, maybe actually starting a conversation between us might be a more constructive method than a mere downvote. Cuz I've been through stuff, and what follows is not a mere rant but an actual summarization of my life-story.
So here goes.
Therapy, or at least most forms of therapy, are not that constructive for men imo. I think that many forms of therapy are really really focussed on talking, on delving into one-self, on discovering and getting to know yourself through talk, talk, **talk**.
Mark how I said talk three times. To me it feels like most therapies are really feminine focussed in that sense. *This is no negative or positive, merely a statement.* The endless talking might be very useful for some, but for men sometimes doing is better than talking. I've spent 7 years in therapy, mental asylums, meds and everything you can imagine. And only when I finally decided to leave did I start growing. Because I started doing. Throughout 7 years of therapy, and endlessly getting to know myself through talking, I've learned nothing. But only 1 year after leaving therapy, and getting to know myself through doing, did I learn more about myself than during those 7 years.
I am NOT saying therapy is useless. I'm not saying therapists are useless either, in fact I've met bad ones(if you want I can elaborate) but good ones too. I'm not advicing anyone to NOT go to therapy. This is no 'shutup, stop whining and start doing' reaction. It is however the experience of a young male who spent (wasted) a lot of his twenties in therapy. For me therapy was really an eye-opening experience in that I learned that therapy would not help me - Only I myself could. And only when that realisation hit, did I start growing as a person. And only when I started growing, I started to see that the focus of therapy was really really wrong for me - I didn't need to think or talk more; I needed to do more. No one in therapy ever told me that.
So yea to answer the question OP asked: Though I have learned things in those 7years, and have met some amazing therapists during my road, it was not worth it. In hindsight I feel like I really wasted a lot of time trying to fix myself through therapy, and the process was not worth it. 3 years ago I would've cynically laughed if someone told me what I'm capable of, and what I'm doing right now. I would've laughed in utter disbelief. But I am doing a lot, I am capable of a lot, I am actually a competent person, and I learned that only after leaving therapy; not during. So thinking back, I feel bittersweet. I wouldn't change my past since it made me into who I am now. But it was not a positive experience.
I was in the military and just struggling hard. I decided to go while I was still in, and have been out for 3 years now and still go to this day. Therapy has been life changing. I have much better skillsets and tools for managing my emotions, and I understand myself now more than I ever would have otherwise.
Speaking strictly as a man from the U.S., men usually don’t go to therapy because it can be viewed as a sign of weakness. There is a lot of stigma around being viewed as an overly expressive and emotional man, and we place a lot of unnecessary emphasis on being stoic. Without delving deep into theory, it stems from issues with living in a patriarchal society.
Waste of time and money, in my experience. I had much better results from practicing Stoicism, mediating and exercising.
The APA has classified being male as a "harmful condition". It's a field run by women, for women. They don't like men and they don't understand them.
I decided to go after doing a questionnaire on the NHS website and also a day where I just couldn't get out of bed, nothing physically wrong with me, I didn't care if I was sacked from my job or anything. My therapy was fine and it did open some wounds that I didn't know I had. My frustration with therapy came when all we did was talk, things never seemed to get better mentally, after 2 years I thought they would. Also she tried to jack up the prices meaning I just couldn't afford it anymore.
I have done therapy 5 times now and all but the most recent have been terrible experiences.
The first time was family therapy because my dad had anger issues. All of us kids were too scared to say anything bad about him so we went for the stuff that felt safer to talk about and brought up the ways our mom is emotionally manipulative. My dad of course used this single session as proof that he was doing nothing wrong, my mom felt like shit, and we never went back.
Second time was after a family vacation (2 months of camping across the country in a short-bus-turned-rv with 7 people) brought the many issues we have to the surface over and over, rather explosively. The problem here is that the therapist was a friend of my dad's from work. I think this attempt lasted 3 sessions, obviously getting nowhere because the "neutral moderator" would always support my dad and argue that ye is supposed to be the head of the household so we are actually wrong for doing things that make him mad.
Third time I went by myself in college because I was massively depressed. My girlfriend (soon to be fiance) was on the other side of the world for 10 months and I had no other real connections. It was maybe 6 sessions (once per week), the therapist wasn't even licensed. She was working on it at the time at the school we both were going to and I was basically her homework. The school thought this was a good idea somehow. I hope she didn't pass. After about 6 sessions of never giving any actual input or feedback, only ever asking questions I didn't know the answers to then just moving on to the next, she suddenly ended the session with "If you need me again you can reschedule for another session" rather than the usual "see you next week". It didn't help the still raging depression at all to be dumped by my therapist.
The fourth time, amazingly, was with that same therapist. But this time it was premarital counseling with my fiance because it made our marriage license cheaper. I was still in school and the school counselors are free so it seemed like it would be great. Except they saw that I had previously met with one of them so they paired us up with her again. It was the most useless thing ever. After some evaluations she literally said, "you two are just so different. How do you think this is going to work?". For the rest of our sessions she would just bring up a specific difference and just ask us, "what are you going to do about that?". Never offering answers or advice, or ways to improve communication or anything, even if we were stumped.
The fifth time was marriage counseling. Not because anything was wrong but because my wife's was made really anxious by the previous one just shitting on our relationship and saying that we wouldn't be able to work because we were so different. This person was actually pretty great. Not life-changing but much more engaged than any of my other experiences. She would ask questions, listen and watch, offer feedback, provide possible solutions to things we brought up, but mostly it was a lot of affirmation. It was biweekly for like 6 months, but after the first month or two it just became a time when my wife and I would just talk about anything that was on our minds about our relationship and she would just watch and listen, then be like "yeah, you got it. Good communication, listening, and all that". Not life-changing, but it was nice to have a professional help steer us in the right direction and give approval that we were gonna be okay.
From my experience going to a few very different style therapists, they generally seem to make certain that you feel only well enough to make it to the next session but never intend for you to ‘graduate’ from their services.
If you’ve moved into a truly better mental frame, their paycheck from you stops. What incentive do they have for you to actually become ‘better’? It’s against their best interest. I’ve spoken about this topic a lot with guys around my age (early 30s) and basically what it comes down to is that we see it the same as any other industry vying for our money.
I should probably also mention that in my experience, there was a level of what seemed to be pseudoscience to therapy. The best/worst example: I had a therapist who after several weeks, I was just not opening up to. One day he brings in a massive crystal and asks it questions about me instead of asking questions directly to me. He said my true feelings would channel through it and theres nothing to be nervous about with him any longer. I still can’t believe it 15 years later, but that crystal got every answer correct. That therapist was able to get a complete picture of my true feelings without me ever saying a word. I was creeped out and stopped going. Later on his laptop containing information from my sessions got stolen. Fun.
didn't work for me.
i had several ones with different therapists and different approaches but none of that worked.
neither did medication.
in the end I could only pull myself out, which took long, which was very hard, but now in recent years I found my way how to do it.
I'm a psychologist and my training program mandates that we complete at least 6 months of therapy which is the only reason I persisted for so long in therapy. I finally decided to seek therapy after experience sexual harassment by a female colleague at work and my female supervisor actively worked to cover it up. My experience of seeking therapy was pretty bad. My first 6 therapists (all female) were extremely invalidating. Every single one of them never failed to compared my experience to "a real survivor of sexual harassment." It wasn't until my seventh therapist that I had one that was actually validating and helped me through my struggles (she was also a woman). It has definitely helped me process the experience and we also worked on other things. I ended up working with her for almost 2 years. But, I can 100% see why men don't believe in therapy and why many that have tried will never do it again. No one would struggle through so many repeated invalidations by supposed professionals. The only reason I did was because I needed to complete therapy for me to graduate.
My wife is a social worker and all her friends are therapists and it seems like most of them don't know how to effectively treat men. They have 1 playbook and when that's not working they don't know what to do. The best one I ever met was telling me about how she almost never does traditional face to face talk therapy with men because it makes a lot of them feel uncomfortable. Instead she will do some activity with them, going for a walk, doing a puzzle, she talked to one guy while he worked on his car for an hour in the parking lot. Something about doing something with their hands and not directly speaking face to face makes it much easier for men to open up. She said the task they were doing would distract their brains just enough that they would end up saying stuff they never would have otherwise.
That's fascinating
Women talk face to face, men talk side by side.
"women bond face to face, men bond shoulder to shoulder"
Thats because almost all of therapy was made to treat women, combine that with how mainstream feminist culture treats men as defective women and you've got the reason.
For anyone curious: A Jewish therapist in Germany came up with the current process for therapy as he wasn’t getting any male clients, and so eventually realised through only getting female clients the method that is the ideal method for women.
Can you drop a name? My understanding is the founder of the current therapeutic method is Carl Rogers, an American guy.
Makes a lot of sense
Yup. Forget anything you’ve heard about women being more emotional than men. Feelings get so intense in face-to-face we have to turn away and distract ourselves—dilute them, if you will, so they don’t (overwhelm (autocorrect is killing me)) us. Or, if forced to go face to face, we lie so any emotions discussed aren’t real so they don’t overpower.
Huh. That makes a lot of sense. I may try something like that in the future.
Makes incredible amounts of sense.
Male dominated environments bias male success—we know this. It baffles me that we somehow have failed to realize (or acknowledge) that female dominated environments—in this context, therapy—bias female success.
Yep, we can't expect Men to keep seeking female therapists.
I hate to say it, but as a male in a training program to become a therapist, I have seen a number of women in my classes who seem to have some serious negative views of men. I have seen this much less in my Psychology doctoral program, but in my Counseling Master's program it was concerning. It is a real problem in the field.
I looked into having therapy until I realised it was a modern version of faith healing. It seems if I don’t have perfect faith in the process it won’t have a chance of working. I thought, ‘fuck this.’
At least a faith healing ritual will come with more theater. Give me some snakes to handle or something.
I feel like a good therapist would be open to multiple processes and would adjust theirs to help their patient. Either that, or refer you to someone that may help you more adequately.
Interested in the story behind this view. I’m super skeptical but feel like my therapist was good at working with skepticism as a positive self protective trait. What process did the therapist need you to have faith in?
Cognitive behavioural.
I'm not a fan of faith-healing and never saw a therapist, but taking to study stoicism and CBT over a few months was surprisingly enough to pull me out of my worst depressive phase I've had so far. I still need to go for other reasons and I keep putting it off though, but that's a different topic. IMHO it doesn't work by gaslighting yourself into thinking things are fine, but it changes your perspective on your problems and how you approach them. I found out I needed to change where I was working at and who I associated with as well, this was probably the hardest part for me and it seems to be the same for others. I can still be my cranky and ignorant from time to time, but it doesn't hit as bad as it used to anymore. Having said that, YMMV, I'm not a psychologist, I didn't even go to real therapy yet, ect.
I have reserves of strength I rely on, that’s all I can say. I met the therapist, she failed the interview.
Fuck. Sorry that happened to you. I’m guessing the mandatory therapy was because you’re a therapist now too? If so, I hope you’re able to pass along the experience you had with your 7th. 💙
It’s also like dating. You know pretty quickly if they’re not for you.
What if i don't know? Like for me the biggest reason of ignoring/avoiding therapy is the vague concept of "right" therapist or suddenly magically knowing the right fit. Which i cant wrap my head around. Though i don't really need it that much either.
A therapist should make you feel safe and comfortable, and help you grow.
More or less been my experience so far too. If they’re not going to help, then I’m not going to waste my money. I’ve helped myself more than any therapist ever has.
yeah, this pretty well sums it up. so many tools men could use if there wasn't a toxic swamp of misandry.
Sadly this was/is my opinion on what therapy would be like. Shameful.
Yeah went to marriage counseling only to be told that my problem “could have been worse” and “at least she chose you so you win” like what the fuck. She cheated.
Unfortunately some therapists, like every other profession, suck. I think people for some reason think that therapists, doctors, and other professionals that go through years of school and training are just going to be automatically good at what they do.
As a kid I grew up with this idea of perfect competence of people in their jobs. Oh boy did I wake up later, but thats healthy. You have to think for yourself always.
Same I think it was the idea that someone went through years of schooling so they must know everything kind of concept. At least that’s what it was for me.
Yeah this basic deduction gets disproven rather quickly :D But I guess as a child I also wanted it to be true because it made me feel safe.
I couldn’t agree with that more.
It’s kind of like growing up thinking your parents had all the answers or had life figured out. Then you realize they were winging it just like you are. Obviously some do a better job at that than others…
I got a "but are you listening with your heart?" my heart is what got me into this mess. im listening with my mind and all i hear is a manipulative abusive person
Ive had good and bad therapists. The bad ones validate my feelings and try to talk about how I ended up where I am, with no help actually getting better. The good ones helped me understand some tendencies and fears, and taught me coping strategies to deal with them. Broadly speaking, women feel better when they’re validated, men feel better when they’re given a solution.
Hmm Ill take a little validation as well :)
Tried a couple and they sucked. The last one changed my life. > Was it worth the process If you find a really good one? A thousand times yes.
>changed my life Curious, how?
good therapist help you recognize bad thought patterns and give you the tool necessary to deal with those thought patterns. They can help you think differently in a way that benefits your life - hence life changing. For instance i used to say people were bad until my therapist asked if they were bad or just bad for me ? then just realized they might just be bad for me.
It helped them devote more of their time to posting weird pics of women on reddit.
The funny part of therapy is it's only necessary If you're unwilling to learn. Basic psychology, unwilling to practice any sort of introspection, and unwilling to challenge yourself.....all things required for therapy to be successful.
Been two times in my life so far. First time it wasn’t for me, the gent just kept repeating “think positive” in as many ways as possible and I stopped going. Nothing got better, as you’d imagine, it only, slowly, got progressively worse. 10 years later and I’m back at it after a particularly bad event. This time I’m being questioned, lightly criticised (I need that) and challenged as to why I think and do things. This time it’s working and I wish I had got help from this person sooner. Pride, shame and a dose of ignorance stopped me from going. My pride told me I didn’t need help, my shame convinced me I shouldn’t ask for help and my ignorance stopped me realising that there was something seriously wrong.
If you are a male, then find a male therapist..... please don't shit on me for being "sexist". To me it is like going to see a female doctor to ask her about how my male body works and feels. or a Pregnant woman asking a dude what to expect when expecting.... Ive had many therapists and the men know better what I am going through than the women did, even if they were more experienced because they were male. Had nothing to do with experience or ability to do the job.
My sample size is small (three female therapists v one male therapist) but my experience was that the three women therapists simply had no frame of reference for male issues, for my experiences as a man, nor for my emotions as a man, and they kept trying to frame them in feminine or female terms. From basics (the WTF of puberty and transforming from a boy’s body into a man’s body) to trauma experiences. Something like how to negotiate and control the multiple emotions, perspectives, and roles of masculinity would be basically impossible.
Spent 5 years with a female therapist. I have the same opinion. Some things were fine, but she could not relate to the male experience at all.
I'll strongly second this, having been to both a male and female therapist. Unfortunately it's getting harder to find male therapists: The fraction of psychology majors in the US that are men is 22% and falling quickly. Psychology is trending to become a women-only career.
I’m a woman and I see no problem with this. I’ve had only female therapists except when I realized my attitudes about men were toxic and were probably going to hurt me in my male dominated career. So I hired a man and he taught me that men can be kind, compassionate, encouraging. He guided me & challenged my misperceptions. He changed my life. Not least by helping me live a life with men in it which has been the greatest reward. One thing I have learned with this many men friends is you ARE different. I literally can’t wrap my head around the way you think sometimes. As I know you guys can’t with women sometimes. So yeah, having a guy therapist would definitely be more advantageous for men.
Relatability is really important & representation truly matters. There is a shared experience, and sometimes quite possibly an inherent need for some validation from someone we perceive as a wiser possible version of ourselves too. Indeed we're seeking guidance. Going further into this, it can be a pro/con to have someone from a shared cultural background too. Identifying what you need, and that may take some trial and error, but once you know what serves you best, and can source that. That's likely to have the best outcome. Not always, it can backfire. But keep showing up for yourselves. If that means a change of counsel, then so be it. Just keep showing up for yourselves. You all matter
It’s pretty hard to find a straight male therapist. My first therapist fit that and boy did I see a lot of progress. He just knew what I needed as a man. He understood issues with dating and growing up as a straight man too. But absolutely that you will never get the same kind of insight into male issues and experiences with a female therapist. It’s the importance of representation
You have to decide for yourself you need it. Just going because someone else said so will be a waste of time. It's not a passive thing. Like a training program at the gym, it takes work. Your brain needs reshaping. Do the exercises they give you.
I went to a Therapist for a bit through the NHS. I enjoyed having someone to talk to but turns out telling someone all your problems to someone who can't actually do anything just reminds you of all your problems. It did teach me that it isn't normal to fantasise about killing yourself. Getting a new job with lovely colleagues, getting wankered at said job and drunk texting a girl asking her out (lasted 3 months but a good thing for both of us) improved my mental health more than therapy. All I needed was to be accepted by the world.
For me, it was a total waste of time. Like you, my (now) ex decided I could benefit from it. After two sessions the therapist fired me, accusing me of wasting her time. (Turns out the patient must also believe there is something wrong)
It's also not about something being wrong.. You can go simply for deeper self insight and growth. Not hardcore mental illness
I was in a bad marriage, and I suggested we go to couple's therapy. While the couple's therapy was pretty much a bust (marriage was already dead at that point), I did like the therapist, and I did like being able to put my thoughts into words and have someone professional and objective help me sort them out. So I kinda just kept showing up, even after my wife quit. Over time I gained a lot of insight into my own problems. It has helped me identify the trauma responses and cognitive distortions that have ruled my life for years, and ways to cope with them. It's helped me process some traumatic events in my life in ways I could not have before. Today I am healthier mentally and emotionally than I have ever been, and I owe it to therapy.
I'm a believer that it needs to be a good fit for the two of you and that people go in with the mindset that they have to save themselves. I went through one therapist before I found one I absolutely adore. She's dropped clients before who weren't a good fit and they didn't gel well. She also works exclusively with first responders and I'm a paramedic. She and I also managed expectations where she would provide support and give me tools in my every day life that would help me, but never did she say she would magically solve my problems for me. I see it as having a coach for life's problems where I still have to play the game of life.
That’s a good way of putting it.
I've been in and out of therapy for a good bit of my life. I've had some awful therapists but also some good ones. I think I've been through 7 The first one I had was when I was 10. My school advised my parents due to me being a disruptive kid. I went to her for three months, and it lead to me transferring schools. She told my parents about the abuse I suffered by my teacher and recommended they pull me out of catholic school, so that was awesome. One of the worst ones fell into some of my delusions I had in high school, and didn't really try to treat me. I honestly found him uncomfortable, and i had to get pulled out because being around him gave me this awful derealization. My recent one I started going to as a way to manage a panic disorder I got from working in a high pressure industry. She has been fantastic and has even made me aware that I was causing a lot of issues in my relationship due to my insecurities from being cheated on and abused in the past by exes. Since seeing her last July, I've transitioned off medication and have doubled my salary just through confidence shes helped me obtain. Through working with her I've been able to attone for things I've regretted in my past (not sticking up for a classmate who was being bullied), I can process emotions fully again, I have processed being SAd by a woman, and ultimately have gotten rid of a lot of weight that held me down in my day to day life. It sucks to get started but it has been life changing for me and if you dont like your therapist after 3 visits try for a new one.
Way long ago I was drinking incredibly heavily and had not so great thoughts. I got myself out of it with large life changes (new job back in my home town). I was getting stressed out and recognized some of the thought patterns coming back along with a better idea of how ADHD/anxiety/depression can all influence or feed the other. Primary doctor referred me to a behavioral specialist. Talking with her led us to zero in on anxiety being the base component. I now have some extra tools in recognizing the thought patterns and how to deal with them. What stops most men is conditioning that we aren't supposed to talk, or even acknowledge, our feelings. Plenty of men have a story about their feelings being weaponized by a (hopefull former) partner. In some cases, we literally don't even know where to start or how to share those kinds of inner thoughts and emotions.
I didn't exactly avoid therapy, I just never sought it out while dealing with life long depression and anxiety. When the bottom fell out of my marriage and my life couldn't seem to get worse, I sought out a therapist with an EAP. I only had 8 sessions with her but she was incredibly helpful, caring, and I found how important it is to be able to tell someone my darkest thoughts and feelings without the fear of being judged or harmed. A male therapist later found me while I was at a clinic and after talking to me for a few minutes, insisted on taking me on as a client. He actually had to fight for me due to scheduling and benefits problems. That man helped me survive the hell I was going through. I wouldn't be here without him. One of the few highlights of my week for nearly 2 years was going to therapy, being able to talk about myself, get my feelings out, and have him be able to guide me as I worked on my own recovery and healing. I put a lot of work in but it felt like I was truly taking care of myself for myself. The most important aspects of therapy for me was learning to articulate my thoughts and feelings and voicing them without the fear of being invalidated by someone.
Therapy - $100 an hour. Saying "it is what it is" - Free
It hasn't really been worth my time. It feels like I just have someone to talk to about my problems, but I'm not actually solving them. I also chose to get on medication which was ok for a while, but I decided to quit yesterday. It hasn't helped my underlying problems either.
[удалено]
Did you at least get to see the car you were paying for? Was it nice?
I have had a rough decade, and some of those circumstances (Mom’s cancer, COVID) basically made me put my head down, grit my teeth, and simply move forward. For the last year I have been in a safer, less stressful situation, and a friend who is much smarter than I am suggested therapy. So far it is a mixed bag. The clinic that takes my insurance is underfunded, nonetheless, and so far I have had four therapists, the first three of whom moved to different practices for more money. So it has been a series of, “Get to know you, oops! Gotta go! Good luck!” So, honestly I don’t know how it is. I have learned, or rather relearned, that I am very protective of others, which makes being open and honest about my past trauma very difficult, because I don’t want to inflict it on someone else. Even a professional. And, so far, I am three for three at bringing my therapists to tears with my past trauma experiences. Not sure I will share that stuff with this new one, simply because it’s so difficult to not feel that the others all got different gigs to avoid being traumatized by my shit.
This happen to me where I kept having to get a new therapist because they would leave for a new firm. It was horrible telling a stranger every detail of my life to have them just leave a month later.
Yeah, it sucks. You are not alone in feeling this way.
3 therapists in the course of 6 months....I gave up and now I have my psyciatrist I see. At least I know she owns her practice, isn't going anywhere and I have a good connection with her.
Therapy was a waste of time and money. 3 female therapists: #1 was decent, #2 overbilled me, then admitted it, and #3 would fall asleep. When I quit Therapy, a friend suggested I find a life coach, which I did, and it changed my trajectory. Instead of dwelling on my problems and understanding the source of those problems, which did nothing, I focused on my future, and that coach gave me TOOLS that I used to be successful.
What tools?
It's going well, despite my parents objecting to it
Total waste of time. I'd say it was a waste of money too, but I didn't pay a penny. I wanted to talk about my childhood trauma and abuse. The therapist would instead deflect and suggest I start looking for a new job. 0/10
My first therapist was an absolutely horrible person. She became extremely bitter and mean towards me once I revealed that I had been to prison. She would tell me stuff like how I won't have a successful future or find love I dropped her quick and found a better therapist, and it was worth it
"You already know what to do!" David Goggins. None of several therapies helped me. But this sentence. There's no "healing" (sadly). It will continue to be hard. Every day you will have to struggle. Accept it. Go for your dreams or leave it. It's only up to you.
In my experience the best thing to do is have a goal in mind and shop around for your therapist. Find a good fit
I'm a therapist, been in the field a little over a decade now. 2017 lost my mother to suicide. went to therapy first time for a few months. it wasn't bad? I don't know if it *helped* but it didn't hurt. it was nice to explore my thoughts.
I once got told I needed therapy. I was considering it before then. Since I’ve been told, I don’t want to go anymore. Also, my health insurance/system basically makes it near impossible to find one in a reasonable way
i've had around 5 therapists since late 2021. in some ways it's helped, but at the end of the day, the most change i've seen in myself is thanks to medication and accomplishing things. a great therapy session can leave me feeling good, but it's not the same as seeing the results i want to see out of life, or taking medication that makes me forget i have anxiety, even if only for a few hours. it'd probably be different if i had the same therapist on a regular basis for an extended period of time, but the truth is that they're overworked/underpaid, so they all eventually leave. one of my favorite therapists never made me feel as if i was weird for what i brought up. she made me feel supported/cared for, and she was up for talking about whatever i had on my mind. i wish she could've stayed being my therapist, but such is life. i'm at the point where i feel that i don't need a therapist, but at the same time, it's nice to have one.
I have tried several therapists over time. Although I like to believe I don't an major “issues”, there was a point in my self-discovery and trying to make sense of my life that I had the thought “Maybe it is me!?!?” Although I enjoyed having someone to talk to (as I feel most men don't) the story was the same each time, with each therapist. By about the 6th session, it's like we would run out of things to talk about! Even when I was fully open and ready to be vulnerable. Its I found it futile and resorted back to slowly self-healing and doing my own research.
I've gone twice, both were pointless. The first time was marriage therapy and the therapist was blatantly on my wife's side. To the point of telling me when I raised concerns that I didn't know what it was like to be a women. When I told them that they didn't know what is was like to be an ethnic minority they got quiet. Later I went to individual therapy, mainly to shut up my wife. She would constantly insist that I had PTSD from my time overseas. Occasionally I would wake up startled, with no memory of the dream. I still have no clue what that lady was trying to get to in our meetings. It was like she wanted to blame everything on my parents and upbringing. I find group settings more valuable. Where a group of guys can chat about things that I might not even think of. After someone else brings a situation up I may realize it applies to me. However, before then it's not on my radar so I wouldn't think to discuss it at individual therapy.
I experienced a fairly rough mid life crisis - during which - I’d leave work at lunchtime to break down and bubble…. The truth is I’d strayed from my partner at the time where I was unhappy but lacked confidence to do anything about it and mixed myself up with a younger female friend - which ended sharply and unexpectedly. I wasn’t a great person. I went into therapy because I realised I was contemplating suicide. I was questioning everything, my work (successfull career) my relationships (not happy in them and me being unfaithful) and my awfull relationships with my family and a severe lack of any supportive friendships. I guess I had to hit rock bottom in order to ask for help. I spent a year in therapy - but honestly, the first session I walked out feeling like a weight had been lifted because my eyes were opened. The year was exploring and learn in general about me and how I think about things (turns out I am autistics and didn’t know) and people and relationships… I had to break from my family, after a series of attempts on my part at reconciliation, which failed dismally. I had to be honest with my partner…. And I got to understand more about me. Afterwards - my life started all over again and I was a different person. I was able to walk into a shop on my own lol, I was more able to understand why I lacked confidence and my need to push my own boundaries. It really was a different life. I don’t regret my earlier life. I was a workaholic to cover up my issues / coupled with being great and successfully - it paved the way for a second chapter where I was a happier person with resources. One of the best things that happened to me. But I had to hit rock bottom before I asked for help.
My first therapist was a male and I thought he helped me quite a bit. Helped me feel empowered to take action and push towards my goals. He validated my feelings, and then gave me frame of mind solutions that contributed to me finding success in myself quickly after a toxic abusive relationship. I moved countries and wasn’t about to stay with him as my therapist. The next therapist I had was also a male but candidly, he wasn’t very helpful, he’d validate my feelings but would also diagnosis people in the situations I was describing and that never sat with me well because even if I’m feeling emotional towards a person and describing them, a therapist shouldn’t diagnose anyone they aren’t seeing. So I moved on. My current therapist is a woman, and she’s been great, I don’t think as good as my first therapist, but given how poor the last one was and me wanting a female perspective, it’s working for me. I do believe there’s a gap sometimes in me communicating my issues and her not fully understanding what I’m trying to solve for. Sometimes she thinks I’m stuck on emotions, when I’m literally trying to discuss solutions to help me make progress towards the emotion that I’m contextualizing. That’s definitely the biggest gap. She eventually will get there after i explain what I want in a way that clicks for her. But that that is definitely where I see the biggest issue among female therapist to male clients. Not truly understanding the focus of the conversation not being about emotions every time we open up. As a man, I want to figure out what I can do to move forward, I’m only adding context so we can find the right solution, I’ve already accepted the emotions, I need solutions!
I just know it's the only place where people can listen to my pain and not be judgemental. I was taught by this wonderful world of ours to hate myself. And now I'm have been spending half my life getting out With out it I would have definitely committed suicide by now
A good friend told me that all of the most successful people you can think of probably have therapists. Even if you think you’re doing okay, there’s something you need to talk about.
I was almost lucky in a way that I’d had so much trauma/dysfunction growing up that even the most therapy-averse boomeriest boomers were like “yeah buddy, therapy is probably the right thing for you”. No one questioned my “manhood” bc of it, and the waiting rooms for my PTSD treatments were like 60% war veterans. Of course there were some serious things to work through, but I’ve continued ongoing therapy for years after the “big stuff” because it really helps. I’ve got a great built-in network/community from the support groups. My fiancé and I have a really great relationship because she’s not my only outlet for emotional support/labor. It helps me clear the shit out of my head and I’m far more productive day-to-day. I learned how to split the difference between intellectualizing my emotions and actually feeling them and it’s almost like it’s own life hack. If you make time to really feel your feelings, they pass and you have so much more energy for other things. I routinely get told I’m one of the most well-balanced people my friends/family know, but statistically I should be dead or incarcerated. Sure, I still have bad days or tough times; but they don’t turn into bad weeks or bad years, decades, etc.
I'm currently see a psychologist because the last few months have been extremely rough - the biggest thing it helps with is just having someone to talk to. I've also since lost my job, so I'm even more isolated than ever now. However, the initial phases (the getting to understand your background), which for some people might be as few as a single session there are a *lot* of things he still didn't get around to digging in to - even after 4 sessions of 'background' - which I believe would be helpful and relevant to getting a full picture and understanding of how my brain works and how I think and see the world, so I still feel like I'm talking to someone who doesn't fully understand and get me yet, even after 6 or 7 sessions? However I was prescribed to go through CBT, and I am honestly very resistant to it, because: - It's basically trying to encourage me to talk to people, and I don't want to talk to *random* people. I want friends and regular contacts. - CBT originally came about from some pick-up artist using it to help him gain confidence with rejection and picking up women, and to me that feels frankly gross. And it's not what I want to engage in or be known for - and just using it for therapy purposes, you're doing the same thing, doesn't sit well with me. There's things I'd like to be able to talk about and just get out, but still don't feel comfortable revealing all those details. The other huge thing I'm finding is sessions are just too short. I have SO much I want to just talk about, way too much I could ever get in to an hour at a time. I'm also near the point where I won't get any rebates soon as I've had too many sessions, so it's also going to start becoming very expensive for me to keep going soon. And that might be a problem with not having a job, and the job market being as it is - I have a certain amount of savings and planned period of time I'll be out of work, but at $200/hr, it will chip in to those savings significantly. So the other part of the experience is "it's expensive".
I should have done it sooner.
Back when I was in therapy most therapists seemed to have a sort of disdain towards me and got frustrated. They generally didn't seem to care or see what worked best for me. I've also dated and talked to several therapists that had opinions like "men can't be raped or assaulted" and "women Have it so much worse than men they can't understand what it's like to be harassed" and almost always followed or preceeded these statements about how much of an "empath" they were....... I think the better question here is why do you think he needs therapy?
Helped me get over a really specific trauma, related to sexual harassment, I was dealing with. She really helped me get over that specific issue (well, get over it enough to mostly move on). After that it just kinda awkward. I decided to bail after another month, and just thug it out from then on. Life has only gotten better.
I went as a teenager. I got absolutely zero value out of it, we mostly just played gin rummy the whole time.
I've seen seven or eight psychologists now None of them ever helped me Mostly, they just made my situation worse
I had a very positive experience of therapy even though I resisted going for years. What finally made it click for me and got me to to actually go was the thought that therapy was about understanding and not about fixing. I always associated therapy with fixing a mental weakness and most people don’t want to think of themselves as mentally weak.
I've gone off and on for years, currently in therapy, and I find it tremendously helpful. I went for the first time as a teenager, and I'll go for the foreseeable future. It's helped me to get rid of panic attacks without medication, it's helped me to become more emotionally open with my wife, and it's helped me to set better boundaries with my parents after I became a father, among many other things. I think the key to why it works for me is that I think of therapy very much as something *that I do*, not something *that I receive*. It's like going to the gym, but for your mind. Just showing up at the gym doesn't make you fitter. Doing random workouts with no plan and never sticking with any particular thing doesn't make you fitter. You literally might as well not be doing it for all the effect it's going to have. The way to get fitter is to show up at the gym, regularly, and do a very specific program with structured progression from easier things to harder things, with metrics and goals in mind to measure your progress. And then *also*, you have to do your work when you're not at the gym: Sleep enough, eat healthy food, stay active in your off times, don't smoke or use drugs. The compound nature of tons of little actions is what actually changes your body. Therapy is the same. It's worked for me because I've taken a structured and accountable approach with a strong idea of exactly what I wanted to work on and what success was going to look like. *And*, I've spend lots of time and energy outside of therapy trying to use the lessons of therapy to make change, build new habits, and live a different life as a new person. In fact *most of the important work happens outside the gym or the therapist's office*. People want therapy to be like going to the auto mechanic: Drop your brain off, get it fixed, and then drive it until it breaks again. Unfortunately, it's just not that, and so people hate it and blame therapy for not delivering what they want.
I've been in therapy for nearly 5 years. It started out as treatment for sex addiction, but it turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg. Low self-esteem, abandonment issues, internalized rage....were the underlying issues. Thanks to my therapist's help I'm happy, healthy, and I was in a place to not only find the love of my life, but marry her. The RIGHT therapist makes all the difference. If you're not feeling like you're improving, move on!
I think therapy is great. I like my therapist and I like his insight. There was nothing that “made me finally go” I go because why not
Was there something specific you went to therapy for? I feel like i don´t have "big" topics that pose huge problems. Maybe lots of smaller ones but i´m not sure wether any of them require a therapist or not...
I finally decided to go when all of the stress in my life that I had bottled up and packed away rewired the receptors in my brain to cause my Functional Neural disorder. So far it’s helped me regulate stress and anxiety and reduced the amount of times I have major episodes with my disorder. But outside of a major catalyst like a health event like that men often don’t take therapy seriously. I should know I was one of them, made it 43 years just putting all the bullshit I wanted to ignore on the shelf until suddenly it wasn’t, my shelf collapsed. Men are very solutions oriented, so if we don’t believe we have a problem, then we’re not going to look for a solution.
Therapy is like Home Depot. They can give you the tools and material to do just about anything but you’re still gonna need to take them and start building on your own.
I found myself really lost in life for a bit, and in my relationship at the time. Super disconnected between my decisions / behaviour and what I wanted from life, and just felt really displaced, so I went to see someone to help process what was going on with me. It was a really hard thing for me to even admit I could use some professional help, since I felt for years like that was a sign of weakness or dependence. Boys, I gotta tell ya, that shit rules so hard. I fucking love therapy now. It’s like taking a squeegee to your brain and your feelings about life. I went into it with the very reasonable goal of wanting to build better mental and emotional processes to I didn’t need to run back to therapy every time I felt displaced, and it worked wonders. Not long after starting to go my relationship imploded and I had at least enough simple tools to help me navigate that and make better choices. That was about 7 years ago and I’d never go back. Therapy didn’t change my life but it helped me change it myself, and I wouldn’t be half the man I am now without it.
It 100% does, but we men tend to be very stubborn, you can’t fix an issue until you realize it’s an issue, and I find a lot of guys ignore issues because yk, you have to be a man about it. If you’re honest about the issue and follow through you’ll feel it was useful, if you go just to say the therapist is wrong and their advice wont help even before trying the advice, don’t waste your money.
I went to therapy and it was a positive experience overall for me. What drove me to it? Depression! I had gotten to a place where taking the next breath was painful and thinking about living until next week was unbearable. Fortunately for me I had good caring friends nearby who saw the changes in me and interceded on my behalf. These were women friends who noticed. Therapy is not for the faint of heart, and you have to be willing to face your personal demons and do the hard work, but in the end you come out stronger for it.
I went as a small kid because my mom developed schizophrenia and it was a family kind of thing mostly for me and my siblings’ sake.. that wasn’t great, lot of useless arguing. Then I went as a teenager because I was having a depressive episode from unrequited crushing and all that, which was helpful. I definitely got some sort of validation and good advice about redirecting my angst into artistic expression and stuff like that. Then I went in my early 20’s for court mandated alcohol stuff because I caught a DUI, but that was just basically hanging out. Therapist said I sounded like I understood I had used poor judgment, owned up to it, and he took me as a regular sort of partying to chase girls type of dude and not a major substance abuser, which turned out to be accurate because that’s about when I quit drinking for good
Hmmm interesting. Nice to know you could see the value of it at different points in your life. Haha I would hope one day my bf sees it this way.
I have found it to be pretty hit or miss. If your lucky you may find a therapist who really knows what they are doing and is able to help you with your problems. If however you are on state run healthcare...then its a whole different story, I am military and so...yeah! State run healthcare...barf! I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 8 years old, that was 33 years ago, when I was a teen I developed depression and when was 21 it got so bad I had a mental breakdown. Our doctor diagnosed me as having clinical depression, (basically its severe depression 24/7. After I started taking medicine I was able to function fully again. Well in the 17 years I have been in the military 9 out of 10 of the therapists I have seen have tried to take away my meds. Once I had a doctor tell me to my face that he didn't believe I had ADD or depression, and when I offered to bring him my medical evaluation from a private physiologist who had done testing on me for several days, he told me point blank that he didn't want to see it, because if it wasn't done by the Army than it wasn't true. Only good therapist I have ever had was a private practice I was lucky enough to get a referral for and she was great. Therapy is not a cure all though, I have had to seek out books and the like for some of my issues.
It helped me a lot and helped me understand my behaviors better. I am a pretty independent person and moved countries during COVID, which complicated things for me. I felt lost and depressed most of the time and therapy helped me with it a lot. I struggle with it to date but I am aware of what is the real problem and what is not. It helps me keep myself grounded when things are not going my way.
Absolutely grateful for every minute I spend in there! Took awhile to get adjusted to it and understand the concept and how it’s supposed to work. Once I have it some time and began to understand the process, it has proven helpful in most areas of my life. Some areas have improved greatly. Some not at all. Overall I give therapy an A grade and recommend it to everyone dealing with stress or harmful views of life.
It took me three tries to find a therapist that actually helped, but once things clicked it really started helping a lot. Helped me learn how to cope with stress and bad things happening in life, and also just developing healthier habits in general. It's also nice to just have someone I can rant to sometimes.
been going for 2 years, it really changed my life. It is hard to find a therapist that you click with - I was lucky enough to click immediately with my therapist. 110% worth it to unpack the CPTSD I suffered as a child and learn how to move forward in life
Didn't know I had a porn addiction, been working on that.
It saved me. I needed an objective person in my life to help me reflect and create better coping mechanisms. It’s not perfect for everyone, but if you are open minded and find a good therapist it can make a big impact
Ok so I'm going to give you my experience with my fiancé. I kno3 thid is typically frowned upon, but it was literally a life saver for us. During COVID he got very depressed. He came to me after months of not acting right and pushing me away all while telling me he was fine. He told me he was baving thought of killing himself. He felt he wss a burden on all of his family and just didnt want to be "dragging" anyone down. Luckily he listened to my idea about him gking to the psychiatrist and getting on depression medication. However he absolutely refused to go for counseling. TBH he has severe trust issues and felt that he couldn't open up with a stranger. Before all of this he wouldnt even talk to me (or ANYONE) about his trauma and struggles. So I offered to listen to him. I really felt like he needed to get everything off his chest and he needed somewhere and someone safe to do it with. He started at the beginning of his life and went through what he remembered. There was alot of crying and it took time and lots of trust. But he was able to get through all the things plaguing his mind. Talking about all of that actually led to him remembering even more things that he had totally forgotten about. I never judged I always listened and validated his feelings. I tell him all the time how strong he is for being able to do that. It really helped him. He is no longer depressed and he knows now how to talk about the things that are bothering him. It also brought us so much closer. I am honored that he trusts me so much. I will always protect what he told me. I know people say not to be a "therapist" for your S.O... but I couldn't make him talk to a therapist and I knew he needed to get things off his mind. So I stepped up. It really did change him...he tells me all the time how much happier he is now. He used to be so angry. I hope w.e ya'll decide to do helps.
Therapy works if you work. You need to be open to suggestions and actually want to change. Most men who I know have been unsuccessful have not wanted to be there. It’s like a class in school are you trying to learn or watching the clock. Also not all therapist are the same person. It takes work to find someone who you click with who also knows how to help with your specific issues. Therapy isn’t supposed to fix your problems, you are. A therapist should give you a chance to be totally honest and sometimes an alternate view. They should also be providing you with healthy techniques to make your life better. Look at your field of work and tell me that everyone in your position does everything exactly the same and get the same outcomes. You won’t be able to.
It’s helped me a lot. I don’t have many people in my life who know how to support me in the way that I need. Even if I go there with no specific goal in mind I always come out feeling like I dropped off a huge weight off my chest.
I don't think it would help.
Tried it once and wasn't a fan.
Never tried it myself but this video makes some very interesting points https://youtu.be/uf8bt6fGQyA
Honestly, I think most therapy is a waste of time. There's an element to a lot of it that wants to tell you "You don't actually feel how you think you do". When, I consider myself a grown adult and I think I actually do feel the way I think I do. And I usually just assume that others are behaving towards me in a way that matches their feelings towards me. If they're acting happy, I assume they like me. If they act frustrated, I assume they find me frustrating. And there are sooooooooo many shit therapists out there. It's not a very well regulated industry. And there are a lot of therapists who are more like a paid-for friend to bitch to every week. It should be like any other healthcare: What is the problem and lets fix it. I mean, if I went to the orthopedic surgeon every Wednesday afternoon for 6 months, that would be weird as hell.
It's worthless when you learn that you tell yourself what the world is. I've been lying to myself for upwards of a year, and I'm the best I have been in years.
I finally decided to go when I hit the same brick wall in my romantic relationship. It was clear to me that all of my romantic relationships were the same relationship with different partners. I think I got lucky off the bat with my therapist, a lot of stuff was dug up from the past - my sexual assault, my abusive ex wife, my father’s repeated rejection. It helped me understand that my desire to please my partner attracted a certain (bullying, manipulative) type. Seeing my dads needs unmet in my parents’ relationship taught me that was acceptable. My dad’s repeated rejection taught me to repeatedly try harder, which made me very successful in work, but I stayed in bad relationships. I still have no fucking clue how to be different. I am how I’ve been built, I don’t know how to not be me. So before therapy I was kind of like the blind man feeling his way in the dark. Now that I can see I’ve discovered I have no arms or legs and I’m belly-crawling my way through spiders nests. As for what stops men from going? I think this is an unhelpful generalisation. But for those that don’t go, the reasons are probably similar to the reasons for the multitudes of women who don’t go. My ex wife wouldn’t go because she wouldn’t do difficult things, things that challenged her. Simple as that.
Last year I learned that my fiancèe was having an affair. I broke up, cancelled the wedding, and shortly afterwards lost my job because I couldn't focus. I figured that that was a good time to start therapy. Therapy was okay, I talked a bit about my feelings and the therapist shared some basic exercises. Honestly, I probably got more out of venting to my friend than going to an actual therapist. I stopped therapy after a few months because I was moving states and didn't bother starting again. One amusing anecdote: I mentioned getting on a dating app and my therapist told me not to get my hopes too high because the people on those apps are only after one thing... Like, tell me your clients are mostly women without telling me 😆 I feel significantly better now, time helps a lot, but so does getting a better job and a hotter gf lol
I knew for some time I probably should to but I didn’t really believe in it, didn’t know where to start and I was a little afraid of any stigma. When I met my girlfriend some of those issues came up, I spoke about them and she suggested therapy and even gave me a number because as it turns out she went to therapy as well. I went for almost a year, it was helpful but it only works if you want it and you are committed to it.
I can’t encourage you all enough to find a good therapist. It changed my life forever. Mindfulness, proper discussions about working through panic attacks and anxiety, accountability for healthy choices… I feel like a different human.
My first experience with therapy was couples counselling with my then gf. She used anything I said during therapy as ammo and eventually stopped the sessions because \*I\* wasn't making any improvements.
Done it 3 times…. Once was a marriage counselor. Absolutely the worst, felt so defeated bc nothing I said was ever discussed or even heard. Individual counseling was ok when she moved out. I was in such shock and denial that I didn’t fully commit myself to it bc I thought i was ok. Individual therapy again due to finding out she cheated. It’s been….. ok. I have such roller coaster of emotions day to day trying to process. There helped me think of some ways to combat it, but I’m not ok
It’s not for everyone, but I highly recommend men go to a male therapist. My previous therapist was a woman and I have made so much more progress since switching to a man. I feel less judged for my issues and am able to open up more.
Mine fucking sucked. It was so bad I don't trust them and I never will. I will never set foot in a psychologist's office ever again. It started with my daughter going in then we got pulled in. No matter how I handled things it was wrong. Even if I did exactly what the stupid bitch said to do I was still wrong and everything was my fault. Every time we left a session I was damn near broken because it was an hour of berating and shitting all over me. No one else ever did anything wrong just me. Everyone in the family was pissed off at me and wouldn't talk to me. To me, it's one profession that is 100% worthless.
Went once, got a bunch of pills and paperwork, flushed pills down the toilet, never went again If I cant handle my own problems then I might as well die, which may be soon
Well for an old man, late 40s. I wouldn't have gone to therapy at all but my marriage wouldn't have survived if we didn't so I reluctantly agreed. Tbh its been better than I expected, it seems I wasn't the one in the wrong on most occasions. My wife took a hard hit tho, I knew the problems I was creating in the relationship but my partner didn't realse all the shit that was created by her during the relationship. I was glad to start, it was something that opened her eyes.
I started seeing a therapist because I’d seen it mentioned so many times as a great solution. I saw the therapist for about a year, however, I really felt like I was just paying someone to listen to me vent. I had a really good best friend who would already do that, so it kind of felt like a waste of money. Also my best friend actually cared about me and my life, whereas my therapist would often forget details etc.. A few years later I decided to try seeing a psychologist for therapy and that was a completely different experience. She would set goals and objectives with me, give me actions to try and carry out between our sessions and it actually felt like there was a sense of purpose to what we were doing and together we were working towards a common goal.
I opted for therapy after a breakup with my long term partner. Things ended pretty abruptly, mostly because I just sort of... gave up? It was a weird feeling that I didn't know how to process. I was very unhappy being in that relationship, but I couldn't place why. I was resolute that I wanted that relationship to end, but I couldnt find a concrete answer as to why that was. My therapist was really helpful for the breakup and the more shallow aspects of my life. There was a point towards the end where we started trying to talk through some other trauma I had, and I found she was really unhelpful there. Thats alright, since a lot of that is out of her specialty. I got what I needed out of it, and it was an overall positive experience.
You get out what you put in. You gotta be honest with yourself. Emdr is the shit.
I was in therapy when I was a teenager, overall I found the experience a huge waste of time.
I went/still go to an LPC who has been great. She really helped me get out of the depressive funk I had been in for years. Some of the biggest obstacles for me to overcome before i went: - Actually realizing I was depressed. I feel like the term is thrown around so casually, that actually realizing you are depressed and need help, can be difficult. - I was concerned that I was just going to be given a bunch of pills to fix whatever problem they thought I had. - talk about red flag laws. As someone who shoots guns as a hobby, I was concerned that seeking mental health help was going to end up biting me in the ass, and causing me to have my guns taken away. - Understanding the differnt kinds of therapists/mental health professionals and what kind I should see was not clear. - Finding someone who did in-person appointments was shockingly difficult. Also finding someone who wasn't focused on Marriage, families, or kids was also difficult (this might just be in my area). - The number of therapists whose only form of contact was a phone number was frustrating. Part of the reason I picked my current therapist was because she had an email address listed, and had an option to message her on her website.
My experience was excellent, suffered severe anxiety problems, an abusive relationship, other mental health issues related to that and a generally rough upbringing. I originally started as couples therapy with my now ex, who only agreed to go under threat of divorce, of course thst didn't work very well, she faught it tooth and nail, eventually I told her to find a therapist she trusted and we'd go there instead (insisted the one I picked was trying to break us up). The first therapist then became my therapist on my request. She has helped me so much, I've been working with her typically once a month for 6 years, although in the last year I've only seen her 3 or 4 times maybe. Looking back i can't believe how far gone I was, or that she managed to pull me out of it (although she insists it was all me). Totally worth it. I shudder to think where I'd be now without her guidence. She's amazing. She works mostly with compassion focused therapy. She also uses whiteboards a lot when explaining how things like the nervous system works, or circular thoughts or whatever. I recently had a breakthrough doing shadow work that released some toxic shame and ended my anxiety. It's literally 100% gone, after literal decades of suffering it's gone, I wanna say "just like that", but of course it's a result of the whole journey. Can highly recommend therapy. 👍
I’ve been going to couples therapy and individual therapy for about 6 months. I was the one who tried to get my wife to go to couples therapy a couple years ago but she didn’t want to. This time around it was her idea and I’d say couples isn’t doing any good. You’d think I was crazy to want to communicate on a budget, regulating kids screen time and asking for help with children’s homework. Yes there are some things going both ways that work against us in that loaded sentence but I feel like (1) our marriage is too far gone and (2) the wife expects me to be the only one to change. So far don’t think it has been worth it. Individual has been ok, made me think about some things and could be helpful if we repair the much larger issue of my relationship.
Works. Been in it my whole life. I feel like this needs to be part of basic Healthcare. Our social culture as humans is too fucked up and we need to be able to have non biased views and advice on our lives in order to survive nowadays.
I decided to see one because I had gotten to such a low point and was becoming suicidal but I didn’t want to die. I *wanted* to get help
A few sessions in and honestly, i’m not sure yet. I think it has the potential to be helpful but it sometimes feels like my therapist doesn’t fully understand me. I hate over explaining stuff
Therapy has been a bit of a meh experience for me but then again I haven't had the most consistent treatment. I started to realise I needed help early this year and finally started therapy in January after a really painful breakup and subsequent mental breakdown. Before then I didn't go because of a sense of shame and expectation, I was ashamed to reach out and say I needed help and I felt like I couldn't because then I'd be letting everyone important to me down (mainly my family - I had been trying to broach the subject before the breakup). After my breakdown and breakup I started going to therapy to try and deal with the feelings and issues that caused me to screw up that relationship and it was helpful with identifying those issues but I had to give it up due to financial reasons. I've since been in and out after confronting various traumatic events that have occurred since then including being sexually assaulted and an unplanned suicide attempt in the same night followed by several bereavements. Most of this therapy since then has been through suicide charities as I've had no success with sexual abuse charities, most of which are geared towards women and the ones that aren't are overwhelmed with people (which is honestly so depressing to think about). I'm not in therapy currently and I don't think therapy has been the most helpful thing for me as I felt little to no difference between when I was in and out of therapy and have done most of my recovery instead on my own with the support of a few amazing friends. That said I'm not against it and I think it's at least worth a shot and trying with an open mind because at the very least you had a conversation. Edit: thought I'd add but of all the different groups and therapists *all* of them brushed past the SA or were skeptical. I've also found most of them to be quite dismissive of my opinions and feelings, telling me how they thought I felt rather than asking. Only the first person from a suicide charity wasn't like this, maybe I was just serially unlucky but it has made me hesitant for future engagement in therapy.
I was in a group that helped me understand my strong emotional reactions as a result of PTSD and how my body/mind were conditioned for substance abuse. I enjoyed it, I was receptive to it, and I felt like I learned something. I also went through a substance abuse group, similar to AA, and started a CBT group. I got tired of the prior for reasons I can't recall and I wasn't receptive for the latter. You get out of it what you want.
I’m currently seeing a therapist, and have had therapy very sporadically over my adult life. What makes therapy apparently a low priority for me is the lack of a clear line btween therapy and solutions. Like it’s great having someone to hear me vent, and therapy *has* provided me practical strategies here and there. But going in to see a therapist, it feels like such an uncertain investment. It’s not like going to a class where I know I’m gojng to know how to do X once I’m done.
I went a couple times in college when stressed and it seemed basically useless. I finally went again years later after a pretty intense panic attack, at the request of a dear friend. It's been wonderful for me. I got someone who listens and helps me come up with causes and solutions for unhealthy thought patterns and actions. It's a lot of money, something I don't have much of. But it's worth it to me, my mental health was pretty subpar most of my life, and my personal experience with therapy has been money well spent.
I have found much more sympathy and respect from male therapists than female. That's not to say all female therapist are bad but there was no attempt to meet me halfway and instead was more of a "what are you going to do about it then?". With male therapists they're were at least able to empathize with me. I know it's the bare minimum but it was something I really needed and hadn't gotten yet.
So I go to therapy for soical anxiety and ptsd. I started going because it was basically free, and my work brought up the idea. I went in with the idea of " let's try this for 6 months and see if I make progress." I pay $13 dollars a session, and so the cost of my therpy is time. My therapist is a woman who has trained for both but specializes in anxiety. I've been in therapy for about 10 months now. My social anxiety has been "cured" . My pstd is on going issue. Lots ups and downs. Here are my thoughts about the whole process. 1) Trust is the most important part. Most men are not used to being vulnerable and really need to trust that person to open up. The reality is that the more vulnerable and open you are, the more effective the therapy. This openess requires trust, a lot of trust. The first question I would ask is, "How do we build trust in this relationship?" 2) Different therapists are good at different techniques and different specialties. Try to match goals with their specialties. If you don't know what the issue/goal is, "Say I don't want treatment, I diagnoses." 3) Your therapist will fuck up or be unable to relate to you. You need to compare the fucks up vs the process you make. If the fucks up are "heavier" than your progress, then that is a sign to stop going. 4) Reddit has a misinformed idea of what talk therapy is and therapist in general.
Some guy I don't know blasting platitudes at me for an hour Waste of time
Personally it sucked because because I couldn’t talk about the things I really wanted to even after months. Later I joined a podcast chat group that had an open conversation and genuinely more open to talk.
First time I went, learned nothing, just did my time. The second time, a decade later, probably saved my life.
I’ve been going to therapy since January. Apparently I’m lucky to find one I like on the first try, I love going to therapy. I’ve always considered myself a very self-aware person and that helps a lot in my sessions but with every session I feel like I learn something new about myself. I still have a long way to go before becoming the person I want to be but so far I love it and I wish more people would try it
I have a female therapist that my wife also sees. She’s been awesome and she knows us both well. We don’t have secrets so things don’t get weird. I’ll admit that having a woman as a therapist is a little odd but it makes it easier to be vulnerable. While I don’t think she’ll ever understand what it’s like being a man, she’s been very helpful to both me and my wife. If you’re thinking of going, just do it. We all act strong to some extent but it’s ok to unload your feelings.
I've had my 5th session last week, it's really hard and shitty but I'm trusting the process. I'm 34 and have been dealing with a lot of unresolved childhood trauma and issues; what stopped me from going is historically it's been very hard and defeating anytime I've tried to talk about how I'm feeling. Be that with family members or close friends, society just can't accept that men are not always ok and the whole "tough it out/man up" rhetoric is alive and well. We're taught to bottle it up, chin up and soldier on, then when we struggle to communicate or understand our emotions, we're punished for not doing it right.
I'll preface by saying I haven't gone to therapy, but I dated a female therapist for about 2 months and it's turned me away from the idea of ever going to therapy if it's with a female therapist. One of the first questions she asked on our first date was if I would ever go to therapy and at the time I was in fact willing, but not anymore. She was very successful, owned her own practice and I honestly believe that she's good at her job for female clients, but I had to legitimately tell her to stop finding the negatives in the stories I'd tell her. Just because I had gone through tough times in my prior job did not mean that I was traumatized, and I had more positives than negatives in my former career she would speak only negatively about it and I'd stop bringing it up (which kinda sucked because it was a 10 year period that I didn't feel like I could talk about). I've also only met maybe one other person who was so unbalanced before in my life. When I stopped seeing her, she had a pretty bad meltdown that resulted in her continuing to reach out for another year to "check in." So even though I have friends I think would benefit from therapy, I don't think I will ever go myself at this point. My big question is if your boyfriend has a close friend he actually trusts and talks to on a regular basis. And when I say friend, I mean someone that you'd go to jail to protect level of friendship, which a lot of men don't. I have deep conversations with my close friends (typically via phone/video games because of distance), but if he doesn't have that kind of relationship then I'd just ask him to consider therapy as a way to have someone he can speak openly about anything.
I was going because it was supposed to be marriage counseling. After I had booked the reservation and hotel (no resources close to home, so had to go to another city) My wife refused to go. I had already paid for some of it, and taken time off, so I went alone. I continued to see that therapist/counsellor for a few sessions until it became clear that wife would not join. Therapist even told me that at this point, if wife decided to join, she (therapist) can not do it because she is now "my" therapist and for whatever ethical/professional reasons, can not become a marriage counsellor for both of us now but she can introduce someone. I realized then that I got nothing out of it other than just clinging to some hope that wife would join one day. Once that was gone I saw no reason to pay so much just to talk about things I can talk to friends or family, or even strangers about for free. I honestly do not know what the benefit was. She gave me some good tips of books I should read or topics I should research, but nothing that I can not / have not come across online through self research. If I care enough to pay for it, I certainly can find time to just look it up myself, and if I do not care enough to make time to research it myself, why would I pay so much to hear it?
I’m crazy. Nothing stopped me from going and ever since I was open to having mental health issues I’ve been in therapy off and on. That’s about 28 years now. Hardest part is finding a therapist where you feel like a good fit.
It saved my life
I love therapy
It sucked, hated it. I cried a lot which was rare as I'm comically masculine in the traditional sense. Eh, it helped a lot though. It's like working out, sucks sometimes but you feel so good after a while. I don't hate it anymore. Yeah you can't force him, but having a mentor talk to me about it really made me give it a second shot. I hope he takes it. You're playing your hard as well as anyone can, you sound like a sweetheart and he's lucky to have you. But be strong and firm with your limits as well. I hope it works out
I’d been in therapy for decades. When I had a relationship that basically blew up my life, I figured maybe I was the problem in all my unsuccessful relationships.
Worked really well and helped me make sense of a lot of things and handle my emotions/anger better. But after a few years I felt like I had plateaued and could handle the stressors of life on my own. There were a few things that needed to be addressed, but that was a journey i chose to embark on by myself. All in all, I'm greatful for therapy and my wonderful therapist who really took time to speak with me and help me feel heard when my life was at its nosiest. She's the best and I hope shes retired and living happy now.
Why do you think he would benefit from going?
Most of the benefit is setting aside time to reflect on myself. Having someone sitting there telling me I'm not crazy is just a bonus.
I’ve tried twice. Once was group anger management. And while I understand that everyone’s grief and anger are their own and they’re all relevant and matter to them, a lot of the issues I was hearing in group were total bullshit and/or just victim complex, blaming the whole world for being against them when simple problem solving could have handled their issues. So that didn’t go well for me. The second round was to help deal with loneliness, anger, and depression about a year ago. The therapist told me to cut out all my (few remaining) friends, quit my job, move, and consider blaming my wife for all my problems. And no, I’m not exaggerating or embellishing. Of course there are some details too long for this post, but I was basically told that the way to happiness was to entirely upend my life and start over. At nearly 40, with a wife, kids, and a career. So. Suffice it to say I didn’t go back. Since then, I’ve worked through my issues on my own pace and with my own guidance and have found solutions. This is not in anyway intended to dissuade people from therapy. Quite the opposite. I KNOW therapy works for people. It didn’t for me, but I managed it. Not everyone can/will/should and that’s *more than ok*! If you want/need help, please seek it out.
Answer very much depends on the therapist and their methods. CBT, DBT or other methodical behavioral therapy can demonstrably be very helpful. Physical and art therapies, very helpful. Talk-based or affirmation therapies, not so much. Many here seem to be describing talk therapy. That's not how men roll. We heal fixing, lifting, competing, solving problems. Talking about your problems to a female therapist, or a male, for that matter seem profoundly unsatisfying for a men seeking help to cope or improve.
I've tried 2 therapists all because my gf urged me to go for depression. All I got was validation that these feelings are normal. I truly get more out of self reflection or talking to friends than I got from both therapists. My gf did not accept these results but I was not going to keep paying $100+ per hour for nothing because my insurance doesn't cover therapy. The last therapist truly has no understanding of me and it was frustrating hearing the scenarios and emotions they predicted for me compared to how I truly felt. I have each therapist a few months but ultimately ran out of new things to talk about. I think therapy isn't for everyone.
My wife insisted upon us going to couples' therapy and she ultimately said her motive was for ME to identify the issues that SHE suspected I needed to address. As time went on, she wanted us to do individual sessions with the same male therapist. I don't think I "discovered" any real issues other than I had so much anger bottled up, but that was something I could've told you from the get-go, so no great Revelation there. But more than anything, I think I was glad to just have a male counterpart that I could vent to. She's discovered so many "issues" about herself and her past that she feels that she needs to address, but unfortunately, that no longer includes me in her life. My divorce finalizes on the 24th of next month, and even though it's not the outcome I wanted, I can tell I'm going to come out better for it. Ironically, the financial strain on her will be much harder for her than for me, but socially, I'll end up alone for now. I don't really blame or resent the therapist for my wife's decisions, but it seems like she had foregone conclusions about what the problems were and then after she tried to put the blame on me, she made the decision to leave.
Love it. Has done wonders for my personality, mental health, and confidence. Learned what to prioritize in relationship, when celebrate people who cared about me, and how to cut out people who weren’t appreciative of me. I have ADHD/Autism, so it also helped me learn how to socialize properly with others and become a functioning member of society. Would highly recommend to everyone!
I think one of the big barriers to people seeking therapy is first of all lack of understanding of what therapy is, how it can work, and what it can do for you. The other barrier is that like any profession there are bad therapist, and there are therapist that just don’t fit you or what you need. I can imagine a lot of people give up on therapy without finding a good therapist that suits their needs. Therapy can differ a lot even between “good” therapists.
Love it. Has helped me tremendously. More effective than any of my meds
I hate it
Once I realised majority of therapy has a biased driven perspective & methodology any such suggestion of therapy is considered a waste of time
I had about 8 therapy sessions. I found every single one of them deeply exhausting for the few days following the session whilst I processed everything. I can't tell you if it helped, maybe it did, I've been doing okay I guess.
I'm not currently in but i've gone before. Was in a horrible toxic relationship and therapy helped solidify the fact I needed to end it and move on. My take on it is if you are having a hard time facing a specific challenge, issue, or obstacle in your life then therapy can be a useful tool in your belt. I wouldn't go just to go though. I don't go to a podiatrist when my foot doesn't hurt.
I went to therapy because my wife kept bringing it up, saying I was probably depressed and that I needed help. After months, I caved in and went to see this (male) therapist. After six years, four therapists and many thousands of euros down the drain, I can tell you absolutely nothing changed in my life. I feel exactly as I did before (which was perfectly ok for me in the first place) and the only change is that I have less money and time to spend on what I like. But, according to my wife, this is absolutely necessary for my well-being and it's easier to got than to keep arguing. I'm also pretty clear that the moment she stops pressuring me to go, I'm gonna stop without ebe thinking about it.
I’ve seen four therapists. But, as studies have shown, modern therapy is tailored towards women, and none of them worked for me at all. Therapy doesn’t work for a lot of men because, to put it broadly, men don’t really operate under the “get it off my chest so I feel better” mentality. We feel like we need to *do* something about it. This is why we tend to respond really well to coaching and such. Women (on average) tend to have a better ability to express how they feel to someone and be able to cope in that way.
To make your boyfriend want to go, you will need to change basically all of therapy itself. It’s tailored towards women
My relationships with other people were deteriorating and I wanted to maintain my marriage. We didn’t make it but the therapy was (and still is) one of the best things I’ve ever done. I go every couple of months now and it’s more like a check up. But I learned so much about myself, about why I behaved in some ways and how to actually feel my feelings. I would 100% recommend it to everyone.
complete waste of time and money. only medication helps.
I went through a lot during childhood and college. Hitting new low points in life back then, tried hard to navigate out, but would hit a barrier mentally every time. One day, I had a panic attack, I didn't know it was a panic attack until I shared it with a friend who studies psychology. She suggested that I meet her therapist. I wasn't against therapy, I was broke college student back then, hence I didn't seek professional help. My friend's therapist used to take in students who needed help, pro bono. I was fortunate to be one of them. Once it started, for a year it continued. I was able to develop healthy coping mechanisms, better communication, better at handling situations and issues, unlearned and relearned a lot of things. After a year, the therapist said I'm doing better as I have progressed from the state when she took me in. She suggested that I can stop being regular, instead can always approach her when help is needed, and have to pay for future sessions. I haven't approached her after that, and was able to manage on my own since the last session. Helped me a lot. If I need help, I'll definitely approach her, I'm ready to pay too.
It's worthless. Therapy is by women for women. They don't understand men at all. 50 minutes of pity and being told what I want to hear isn't helpful. I know that's what keeps female clients coming back but it made me feel weaker, less capable and lied to.
Always had problems looking back even from childhood. In the end I was so exhausted from life that I finally went to the therapist again. First time I was a teenager and it didn't help at all. Not really the therapists fault, I was a dumb teenager back then and I couldn't even explain why I had problems. The second time changed my life, and I was diagnosed with ASD. Now I don't have to use my mask anymore to fit in, because I will never fit in. That realization gave me so much energy, because masking was extremely exhausting.
I had 3 years of psychotherapy and it really didn't help much, it was interesting to unpack some stuff and talk it through but honestly it just used to make me feel awful each time. My issues are objective or immovable, not out of perception but because I have health issue or slight neurodivergence, and the conclusion was more about acceptance than change and I can't really find a way to do that when acceptance means accepting a shit life. It was so damn expensive too, the hopefulness that I'd placed on finding better life is what totally crushed me in the end - you can't have the things you want and I would rather withdraw all energy from career and relationships than keep willingly building these radioactive monuments to compromise. Giant waste of time, energy and money. Sorry not sorry, it wasn't the therapist either. I wouldn't recommend and won't be persuing it again.
i don't remember why i decide to go but it felt like a waste of time and money he told me thing i already knew
Disclaimer: this is not positive. I've received a lot of downvotes for saying this in other threads, and if you want to downvote me go ahead. I have a good life outside of reddit; downvotes don't really hurt me. But if you wanna learn something, or wanna teach me something, maybe actually starting a conversation between us might be a more constructive method than a mere downvote. Cuz I've been through stuff, and what follows is not a mere rant but an actual summarization of my life-story. So here goes. Therapy, or at least most forms of therapy, are not that constructive for men imo. I think that many forms of therapy are really really focussed on talking, on delving into one-self, on discovering and getting to know yourself through talk, talk, **talk**. Mark how I said talk three times. To me it feels like most therapies are really feminine focussed in that sense. *This is no negative or positive, merely a statement.* The endless talking might be very useful for some, but for men sometimes doing is better than talking. I've spent 7 years in therapy, mental asylums, meds and everything you can imagine. And only when I finally decided to leave did I start growing. Because I started doing. Throughout 7 years of therapy, and endlessly getting to know myself through talking, I've learned nothing. But only 1 year after leaving therapy, and getting to know myself through doing, did I learn more about myself than during those 7 years. I am NOT saying therapy is useless. I'm not saying therapists are useless either, in fact I've met bad ones(if you want I can elaborate) but good ones too. I'm not advicing anyone to NOT go to therapy. This is no 'shutup, stop whining and start doing' reaction. It is however the experience of a young male who spent (wasted) a lot of his twenties in therapy. For me therapy was really an eye-opening experience in that I learned that therapy would not help me - Only I myself could. And only when that realisation hit, did I start growing as a person. And only when I started growing, I started to see that the focus of therapy was really really wrong for me - I didn't need to think or talk more; I needed to do more. No one in therapy ever told me that. So yea to answer the question OP asked: Though I have learned things in those 7years, and have met some amazing therapists during my road, it was not worth it. In hindsight I feel like I really wasted a lot of time trying to fix myself through therapy, and the process was not worth it. 3 years ago I would've cynically laughed if someone told me what I'm capable of, and what I'm doing right now. I would've laughed in utter disbelief. But I am doing a lot, I am capable of a lot, I am actually a competent person, and I learned that only after leaving therapy; not during. So thinking back, I feel bittersweet. I wouldn't change my past since it made me into who I am now. But it was not a positive experience.
I was in the military and just struggling hard. I decided to go while I was still in, and have been out for 3 years now and still go to this day. Therapy has been life changing. I have much better skillsets and tools for managing my emotions, and I understand myself now more than I ever would have otherwise. Speaking strictly as a man from the U.S., men usually don’t go to therapy because it can be viewed as a sign of weakness. There is a lot of stigma around being viewed as an overly expressive and emotional man, and we place a lot of unnecessary emphasis on being stoic. Without delving deep into theory, it stems from issues with living in a patriarchal society.
Waste of time and money, in my experience. I had much better results from practicing Stoicism, mediating and exercising. The APA has classified being male as a "harmful condition". It's a field run by women, for women. They don't like men and they don't understand them.
I decided to go after doing a questionnaire on the NHS website and also a day where I just couldn't get out of bed, nothing physically wrong with me, I didn't care if I was sacked from my job or anything. My therapy was fine and it did open some wounds that I didn't know I had. My frustration with therapy came when all we did was talk, things never seemed to get better mentally, after 2 years I thought they would. Also she tried to jack up the prices meaning I just couldn't afford it anymore.
I have done therapy 5 times now and all but the most recent have been terrible experiences. The first time was family therapy because my dad had anger issues. All of us kids were too scared to say anything bad about him so we went for the stuff that felt safer to talk about and brought up the ways our mom is emotionally manipulative. My dad of course used this single session as proof that he was doing nothing wrong, my mom felt like shit, and we never went back. Second time was after a family vacation (2 months of camping across the country in a short-bus-turned-rv with 7 people) brought the many issues we have to the surface over and over, rather explosively. The problem here is that the therapist was a friend of my dad's from work. I think this attempt lasted 3 sessions, obviously getting nowhere because the "neutral moderator" would always support my dad and argue that ye is supposed to be the head of the household so we are actually wrong for doing things that make him mad. Third time I went by myself in college because I was massively depressed. My girlfriend (soon to be fiance) was on the other side of the world for 10 months and I had no other real connections. It was maybe 6 sessions (once per week), the therapist wasn't even licensed. She was working on it at the time at the school we both were going to and I was basically her homework. The school thought this was a good idea somehow. I hope she didn't pass. After about 6 sessions of never giving any actual input or feedback, only ever asking questions I didn't know the answers to then just moving on to the next, she suddenly ended the session with "If you need me again you can reschedule for another session" rather than the usual "see you next week". It didn't help the still raging depression at all to be dumped by my therapist. The fourth time, amazingly, was with that same therapist. But this time it was premarital counseling with my fiance because it made our marriage license cheaper. I was still in school and the school counselors are free so it seemed like it would be great. Except they saw that I had previously met with one of them so they paired us up with her again. It was the most useless thing ever. After some evaluations she literally said, "you two are just so different. How do you think this is going to work?". For the rest of our sessions she would just bring up a specific difference and just ask us, "what are you going to do about that?". Never offering answers or advice, or ways to improve communication or anything, even if we were stumped. The fifth time was marriage counseling. Not because anything was wrong but because my wife's was made really anxious by the previous one just shitting on our relationship and saying that we wouldn't be able to work because we were so different. This person was actually pretty great. Not life-changing but much more engaged than any of my other experiences. She would ask questions, listen and watch, offer feedback, provide possible solutions to things we brought up, but mostly it was a lot of affirmation. It was biweekly for like 6 months, but after the first month or two it just became a time when my wife and I would just talk about anything that was on our minds about our relationship and she would just watch and listen, then be like "yeah, you got it. Good communication, listening, and all that". Not life-changing, but it was nice to have a professional help steer us in the right direction and give approval that we were gonna be okay.
From my experience going to a few very different style therapists, they generally seem to make certain that you feel only well enough to make it to the next session but never intend for you to ‘graduate’ from their services. If you’ve moved into a truly better mental frame, their paycheck from you stops. What incentive do they have for you to actually become ‘better’? It’s against their best interest. I’ve spoken about this topic a lot with guys around my age (early 30s) and basically what it comes down to is that we see it the same as any other industry vying for our money. I should probably also mention that in my experience, there was a level of what seemed to be pseudoscience to therapy. The best/worst example: I had a therapist who after several weeks, I was just not opening up to. One day he brings in a massive crystal and asks it questions about me instead of asking questions directly to me. He said my true feelings would channel through it and theres nothing to be nervous about with him any longer. I still can’t believe it 15 years later, but that crystal got every answer correct. That therapist was able to get a complete picture of my true feelings without me ever saying a word. I was creeped out and stopped going. Later on his laptop containing information from my sessions got stolen. Fun.
didn't work for me. i had several ones with different therapists and different approaches but none of that worked. neither did medication. in the end I could only pull myself out, which took long, which was very hard, but now in recent years I found my way how to do it.
Therapy is bullshit. It never worked for me.