5 Misconceptions About Therapy

Therapy can be a highly beneficial and transformative experience, yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the experience of therapy. These may prevent people from accessing the help they want or need. Please see below my experience of five common misconceptions:

“Therapy requires a certain threshold of pain or trauma”:

There is an antiquated view that therapy is for those experiencing severe mental health issues,. i.e. if you need therapy, it must mean something is wrong with you, that you are ill in some way. This is an outdated viewpoint. The reality is that there is no threshold to meet to access therapeutic assistance. Therapy does not mean you are ill or defective. Accessing therapy means you would like the assistance of a third person to help you understand something about yourself, whatever that may be.

“You should be able to cope without therapy”:

I once heard someone ask why couples can’t just ‘sort things out at the pub’. It is hard to know where to begin in responding to such a statement, which is more representative of thinking fifty years ago. The idea that couples and individuals should be able to manage their own feelings and experiences without the help of a trained professional implies that seeking help is a weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth. People seek therapy because they have enough self-awareness to understand they would benefit from some help. This is a strength, not a weakness.

“Therapists are cold”:

There can be a fear that therapists will be cold or distant, in the way that psychoanalysts were a long time ago. Whilst some therapeutic distance allows a space in which thoughts and feelings can be processed, this does not mean the therapist will be cold. Of course, different therapists have different styles, but few would argue against the importance of empathy and warmth in fostering a positive therapeutic alliance.

“Therapists simply say ‘…and how does that make you feel?’”:

There is a misconception that therapists simply ask: ‘…and how does that make you feel?’ Whilst therapists of course want to understand the emotional experience of their clients, therapy is much more than this. Whilst listening to a client, a therapist is observing their body language, how they respond to interventions and each other, holding in mind all the facts and information they’re imparting, making links from previous sessions, and wondering all the while what is going on underneath the surface. A couple who comes with an argument about the dishwasher is not arguing about the dishwasher: it’s a therapist’s role to help them understand what is happening for each of them in that moment, and what this argument represents. Therapy is about understanding a client’s emotional world, but it’s also about challenging ideas, perceptions and beliefs, including about relationships, using the framework provided by psychological theory. It is much more than simply asking: ‘And how does that make you feel’?

“Long-term therapy means the therapy hasn’t worked”:

Socially, someone asked me how long I work with couples. I replied: ‘there is no set end-point, some clients stay for years’. The reply was: ‘haven’t you fixed them then?’ This was a sobering moment, as it revealed how people perceive therapy: that there is a fix, and long-term therapy means the client hasn’t been fixed.

Therapy can last from a few months to several years, and the therapeutic journey is not linear. Therapy isn't just about solving immediate problems – it is also about gaining insight into oneself and one's patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Open-ended therapy provides the opportunity for thinking at a deeper level. Furthermore, in longer-term therapy, new challenges or issues can arise that were not initially present, like illness or divorce. Open-ended therapy allows the therapist to adapt and address these challenges as they emerge.

Long-term therapy does not mean something hasn’t been fixed. On the contrary, there is no set measure for success in therapy - it is different for each person and each relationship, and what feels like ‘success’ will change over time.

These are just five misconceptions I have experiences first-hand, but there are many more. By dispelling a few of these misconceptions, I hope individuals and couples may feel more empowered to seek therapeutic support.