**Therapy absolutely can work for some people. It doesn't, and shouldn't, work for everyone.** - [Talking therapy] (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/t/talking-therapies) works because a psychotherapist can recognise thoughts and behaviour patterns that are not apparent to the patient. A therapy session is, in theory, a neutral and non-judgemental space in which the patient can work through their issues. - For this to 'work', the therapist-patient relationship has to be one of trust and safety, and the patient has to be in a receptive space, willing to make changes. So yes - therapy can be useful for people who are in this headspace. But it shouldn't necessarily be the obvious counter to [mental health issues] (https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1). - The reality is that the success rates for common treatments like [CBT] (https://www.starlingminds.com/what-is-online-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-cbt-starling-minds/#:~:text=How%20Effective%20is%20CBT%3F,anxiety%20after%205%20%E2%80%93%2015%20modules.) are not 100%. It's important to remember that dealing with mental health is not a one-size-fits-all matter. If you have a great therapist who understands you and is willing to work through your specific problems, then that's great. There's just no guarantee that this will be everyone's experience of therapy. - Some people need [medication] (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/medication-mental-health-problems) as a tool to help them navigate their mental health struggles. Some need [non-talking therapies] (https://www.bustle.com/p/7-mental-health-treatments-to-try-that-arent-talk-therapy-7793164) like art or dance. When people are cognisant of their issues and capable of taking steps towards developing healthy habits independently, [this has been shown] (https://qz.com/1057345/researchers-say-you-might-as-well-be-your-own-therapist/) to have a very similar success rate to traditional psychotherapy. - The moral of the story is - therapy does work, sometimes. If you think you'll benefit from talking things through with a professional, and you can [afford the cost] (https://thervo.com/costs/how-much-does-therapy-cost), it's worth a shot. But it doesn't work for everyone, and there are many alternatives.

**therapy works when there are boundaries in place.** - sometimes it is [easier to talk to a stranger than to relatives or friends.](https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/benefits-of-talking-therapies/) therapy can be really useful to get an objective view on your issues and to talk to someone without fear of judgement. it is the one time that everything is about you and you can make progress to improve your situation. - there are different kinds of therapy based on your interests. if someone is artistic, they may express themselves best by creating a piece that uses colours to explore feelings. sometimes music can be cathartic and a way of creating something special from the hardships you endured that you never deserved. - there are a lot of unrealistic expectations/myths about therapy. people expect to be given the answers to their problems and told what to do. sometimes they expect to strike a huge epiphany, but therapy is [more like a series of small breakthroughs.](https://www.talkspace.com/blog/what-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-about-how-therapy-actually-works/) - however, this does not negate some people's negative experiences. like in every career, there are therapists who are not a suitable fit fit for the profession. they can be so ineffective that it leaves clients unwilling to try again. therapy works when both clients are comfortable and sometimes people do not want to keep trying until they find a good fit, since they don't believe there is one or they do not want to repeat their traumas to be rejected again. - therapy gives you tools to fix your problem, it is not a magic solution. it works if you put effort in and are willing to evaluate your situation. great things can come from it when  the client and therapist click. - everyone's needs are different, so talk therapy won't "work" if you want a prescription since that isn't the service provided. it won't "work" if you are trying to find healing in the same place you were hurt.

**There is [some evidence](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/08/psychotherapy-effective) that the benefits of therapy, either alone or in conjunction with medication, can be more extensive and even last longer than medication alone.** - Of course, for some people, like those who have psychosis or schizophrenia, etc., the benefits of medication can sometimes be quite nearly impossible to achieve just by talking/CBT. But overall, I tend to believe we are creatures who are quite good at working with a sense of meaning and purpose and values, and finding/reframing those can sometimes transcend nearly anything. (Indeed, even in cases of psychosis/schizophrenia there is [some evidence](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6050679/) that CBT helps people engage with their particular mindsets in a way that works for their personal situation, no matter how severe the problem could sometimes get for them. The CBT that works in these circumstances involves helping people function, decrease distress, and increase their quality of life overall even if it's not directly able to intervene on the core symptoms of psychosis itself.) - If it's true that the benefits of therapy last longer and can be more extensive than medication alone, then we might need the medication as well, but therapy seems to _also_ be necessary, mostly, making it very important. - Overall, therapy may not work all the way for everyone, but if it helps even a little, I personally consider that a win, if only just because there is nothing that ever really _can_ help all the way, it doesn't seem like. - I suppose what I mean is that it seems to be true, as far as I can tell, that a complete fix for any mental issues is fairly impossible, except maybe in specific-goaled, particular-bound cases, like a traumatic event that needs to be fully worked through, for example, or the achievement of getting out of the house and/or functioning for even just yourself again after/with anxiety and/or OCD. Beyond that, it depends what you'd want to consider as "fully helped", though---the person being happier, more fulfilled, more functional, gotten over nonspecific sources of trauma, less anxious in exactly the ways they want to be? Those tend to be really nonlinear tasks that go on nearly forever across a lifetime, which is why I could see an argument for the notion that what makes therapy something we can call completely effective is the feat of making _any_ progress on these large, often unattainable-by-nature goals. (It's usually and probably necessarily all very relative, anyway, to the point that effectively each time someone steps into therapy they're working with a rewritten, if likely somewhat reiterated, sense of what a "complete fix" would mean for them. So any progress is good, often very much enough, even, if the whole thing has the potential and tendency to reset anyway.) - Of course, I may be forgetting some really important things that could have a potentially "full" fix in the same way I envision some time-bound traumatic events and specific-goaled overcomings with problems like anxiety to be maybe fully-work-through-able. Please let me know of any that come to mind! - In addition, it's quite possible that we _can_ make total progress on a therapeutic goal by going to an opposite, meditative extreme of ridding ourselves of the acts of holding onto desire or grabbing onto any or all intense feelings in general. I suppose I might consider keeping this idea separate, excluded from our conversation of the possibility of therapy ever having an essence of "completely helpful", if only just for the fact that I personally tend to believe that it's really hard to live in a world and sustain the non-attachment mindset. I think attachment and happiness and hardship will always arise, making the process, indeed, a forever kind of project. In fact, that these thoughts and experiences will always arise is actually inherent in/to these kinds of therapies, and oftentimes the point is to continually let them be without battling or engaging much farther than acceptance---pure, spiritually medicinal mediation, CBT for anxiety or depression, or otherwise. - I'd also like to note that I love Eleanor's point about non-talking therapies like music, dance, or art. I personally tend to include those together with other forms of therapy, so that's why I've chosen to feel that I can still be hopefully justifiably "For" this opinion. But, indeed, nonverbal therapies can be really effective for those who don't or don't want to express their feelings best using words. The concept, in [the article](https://www.bustle.com/p/7-mental-health-treatments-to-try-that-arent-talk-therapy-7793164) Eleanor shared, of having to alleviate mental-illness based structural brain problems such as memory, attention, and concentration before therapy can be effective is also interesting. Nonverbal therapies can help in those cases, and then I wonder if it might often be the case that after that, other kinds of therapy can come in to help even more. (Either way, though, I think the structural recreation of meaning/values/purpose is something that is coming in to help---nonverbally or verbally.) **Meaning/values/purpose of the type that therapy can help rewrite or bring about seem to be able to transcend so many physical circumstances, in my opinion.**