Recently, I read a New York Times article titled with the question Does Therapy Really Work? Let’s Unpack That, written by Susan Dominus, and it reminded me of how important it is to raise awareness for mental health in a productive, and not fashionable, way.

What this article unpacks is loaded with positive and negative statements, contradicting each other, by trying to provide clarity on whether or not modern-day therapy is just a hype, a misunderstood concept or a clear necessity. Dominus illustrates very relatable examples of her and her friends’, and highlights how most of them “who were in therapy themselves” did not even want to talk about their experiences in a fruitful way. They mostly “seemed intent on changing the subject or even responded with a little hostility”, as she puts it.

This made me think of how personal and individual each session is, which makes it harder to put into words. Talking about our feelings has never been as popular in history as it is today. Dominus refers to fashionable therapy as “almost like a gym membership – normalized as a routine, healthful commitment, and clearly worth the many hours and sizable amounts of money invested”.

While I do agree of how beneficial and extremely and painfully productive a therapy is for personal growth and trauma processing, I want to however, provide a different notion of why it may not be as necessary at first. When one tries to overcome or process certain events or life circumstances, one first has to go inward before reaching outward, and try to implement mechanisms of self-soothing and self-healing. Before a professional or any licensed third-party steps in, one should, and by one, I mean us all, to try and gather our emotions and form them into words. Self-help or self-regulation as a first step is as necessary as reaching out for help when you don’t know how to approach your inwardness any more.

As the article progresses, it becomes clear that “talk therapies” and psychotherapies have proven to be an effective method in allowing people to successfully improve their mental health. This good news implies that higher demands to therapy are not just here for the short-term, but this trend is here to last. However, how about teaching people, before they decide to go and see a therapist or counselor, to dig a little deeper into their own space, and figure out how to self-help, if possible? And what about the popular demand for wanting any type therapy, psychotherapies and talk therapies, to work, no matter the actual results of its neccessity and effectiveness? What about humans just being human and trying to self-regulate first, before paying money for a hugely promised effect of treating minor dissonances or discrepancies, which are a normal experience of being human?

This limitation on effectiveness, times necessity, times popularity, times scientifically-based research on lower to neutral positive effects of talk therapies, equals what? In some way, it shows how dependable humans are on fast-paced results, which is definitely is not the case for therapies, that require long-term commitment and intense work.

Dominus concludes that researchers and scientists are all not on the same page when it comes to talk therapy. She argues that the trials and trial groups to assess the various types of therapies are too unprecise and somewhat clumsily selected. Deducing from the article, the expertise, education and accreditation levels of a therapist are not necessarily indicative of for example that of a licensed counselor. The latter part of the previous argument is not an example Dominus used in her article, but one I want to provide you with. It shows that all the expertise in the world does not buy you a higher rate of therapy-success or allows for the desired results anticipated by the patient.

In conclusion, this review is somewhat critical of popular therapy and its high expectations of having fast and positive results, as well as how effective different methodologies and researches on it actually are, and at the same time, underlining our need for not wanting to miss out. Nevertheless, this piece simply offers once again a different perspective whether or not we all truly require therapy, that we don’t even want to talk about, and pretend that it doesn’t exist. And judging by the roughly estimated 50/50 success rate (as with everything in life), therapy might be worth a shot – or not.

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