It's like asking, "what does a junior engineer get out of being mentored by a senior engineer that they couldn't just figure out by coding or reading blogs?" A therapist brings things like context, breadth of knowledge, and honesty. I felt like the therapist wasn't incentivized to sugar coat things to spare my feelings, something close friends and family might do.

I am not sure about seeing one for 5 years, though. The point of a therapist is to make themselves unnecessary, in my opinion - they're supposed to give you the tools needed to do exactly what you're saying people should do - understand their behavior and change it.

I could offer a different data point, but since it's all subjective experience anyway, just make your own call. I've enjoyed long-term therapy because I found more things I wanted to work on. Ironically, it is my therapist who reviews things on a regular schedule and asks, "why are you coming to therapy now?"

(If your therapist isn't doing that, maybe that's a red flag that you are being taken advantage of?)

It may also indicate you really need the therapy. That's the conundrum.

You need sometimes assess (reflect), possibly with your therapist, how they are aiding you effectively. In The Netherlands, there are waiting lists for psychiatrists (and a shortage), as well as waiting lists for specialized psychologists; hence they get paid either way. They'd rather have a client who benefits from their therapy.

It's less about fixing things that are profoundly broken and more about incrementally trying to make the most of the brain you're given.

That's half of the point right there. You only know all the thoughts you will come up with. You go to a therapist because a good one will tell you things you never would have considered at all. Your mind has ruts so deeply worn you don't even know they are there. A therapist will nudge you out of them.

I've had a number of therapy sessions where my therapist said something about myself or my past that I literally had never considered in my entire life.

The other half is that good therapists have a lot of training in how the mind works and the tricks it plays on itself. They know to look for patterns where when you say X the problem is really Y, which is a connection you yourself have never made.

It's like asking "Why should I read this book? I'm not aware of anything in it that I don't already know." The point is that you don't know what you don't know that's in it. You can't accurately simulate a therapist in your head because your simulated one only knows the things you already know. An actual therapist will provide novel insight.

Talking to a therapist does two things: it makes you interact with a human being, not an abstract concept or idea. This uses different areas of your brain, different cognitive and emotional pathways than does reading a book or simply "thinking about it"; and it allows you to receive the benefit of trained expertise in detecting what patterns, triggers, traps, and skills you have or need to have exposure to.

The problem is we all carry around a lot of subterranean shame, fear and guilt, and your mind has a way of blinding you too it because those feelings are too intense to handle on a day-to-day basis. As a result, we all have blind spots and dysfunctional habits that we will defend at all costs. Haven't you met brilliant, highly rational people that keep acting stupid over and over again because they refuse to acknowledge their own problems?

We're all a little broken for emotional reasons, not rational reasons. Everyone knows they shouldn't smoke, and drink too much, and spend too much. But lots of people have problems with that, because it's not about a lack of knowledge.

A therapist, over time, gets you to open up, accepts you, and thus shines light on those dark places. When you accept them instead of reflexively rejecting them, you can actually see yourself with more clarity and thus behave more rationally.

So yes, you could learn whatever a therapist could teach you from reading books. But the benefit of a therapist is the relationship. You could also go through the same process with a good friend, but most people are bad at listening and being accepting, especially when you're sharing your deepest secrets. And sadly, most people don't seem to have the time. Haven't you ever tried to share something with a friend, but then they say something judgmental and you never show them that again? A therapist is trained not to do that.

You might think that you are very unique, but often that's not the case. Or, at least, your behavior can be decomposed into patterns, and a therapist can often forecast where that behavior leads (and, if they're skilled and/or lucky, where it's coming from).

Psychologists are experts in defusing such resistance and helping us work with that unconscious content, content that most people probably aren't very skilled in helping with.

What a therapist does is to help you to ask and answer questions by yourself. Sometimes just the fact that putting things into words to a stranger is enlightening. A therapist might ask "why do you think you need to reason in terms of money, ROI and investment when talking about relationships?"

How I know this? I'm seeing a therapist too! I see her everyday. I've been married with a psychologist for 15 years now. I've been hearing these kind of questions forever!

Do you grow your own food? If not, you are partaking in prostitutional farming.

Do you make the write the books you read? If not, you are paying for prostitutional authors.

Are you saying if you were more attractive/deserving/whatever, people with therapeutic skills would go around sharing their insight with you for free?