What about reframing therapy as counseling?

I'm not there to be healed, I'm there to talk to someone about my problems, my insecurities, the shit I can't (or don't want to) talk to anyone else.

In my current routine with work, two kids and a challenging marriage I don't have the opportunity to get an hour a week of talk with a friend. I have nowhere to vent. So what do I do?

I do therapy. I think of the therapist as some sort of counselor. I exercise my ideas there, I experiment with stuff I would not talk about anywhere else.

It seems you expressed the problem very accurately, your insecurities could be very generalized in the population near you. You just need someone to hear you, the therapist don't have to do much. I think you should not invent new problems. Discovering that your problems are common can give you a hint that it is not you but the world that needs to be repaired, meanwhile I simply suggest you to do what is best in any circumstance. This is an expensive advice with no price.

Is there perhaps a reason that you wouldn't talk about it anywhere else? Is it because it's deluded and antisocial? Consider that some thoughts should just remain internal.

The main trick of therapy is to get you to show the monster that lurks inside of you to someone else. Everyone has bad impulses, but by giving them voice the therapist can convince you there's something wrong with you, and that needs to be explored. And now that you've revealed how monstrous you are to the therapist, you may as well keep seeing him, right? After all, nobody else needs to know about this...

Please don't confuse evidence-based therapy like CBT with evidently badly working acts of pseudo-psychology such as psychoanalysis (Which, interestingly enough, isn't even much of a thing in most of the world, just the US seems to have continously kept it as accepted form of therapy despite all evidence to the contrary).

CBT in particular is about learning to cope and fixing problem-inducing behaviours and thought patterns. Not about talking about the deepest pieces of problems, since that doesn't aid healing. Often, it does quite the opposite.

Fair enough. I have no experience with CBT, but what I've heard sounds reasonable. I still have a baseline suspicion of people purporting to be able to make you a better person for a fee, though.

I should also say, I'm not including group therapy in this. I have no direct experience, but I don't think it has the same perverse incentives, and it seems to be quite effective.

Thanks for being willing to consider my standpoint.

Personally, I think this might more be an issue of the US health system or the lack thereof, which generally messes up incentives badly.

Here in germany, finances aren't even a thing that comes to mind at all in regards to therapy. Though we do have the problem that there aren't enough therapists available. They are having tons of patients no matter how long they keep an individual, since there is so much more demand. As a result, they have to triage a lot and preferrably keep those who actually need their help.

As far as I can tell, it's all about suffering. If something makes you or the people around you suffer and create serious issues for you, you need to learn to get yourself out of that. That's what therapists do.

You seem to have quite a few opinions others want left internal, but you dont seem to consider that here. Some of the things you imply are quite monstrous. I go to therapy because I dealt with years of physical abuse and starvation. The monster lurked in others with bad impulses, not me.

If you genuinely had some unique experience that has left you with real trauma/PTSD, then therapy is for you. Advice is directional, however, and 99% of people going to therapy are not in that situation.

I don't think that number is up to you and as evidenced by being mass flagged you should follow your own advice. You speak opinion as fact. Car mechanics notoriously take advantage of customers. It happens in every industry. Certainly not every car mechanic has nefarious intent.

Two of my therapists got into it to improve themselves then pass it on to others. The therapists those 99% of other people see, as it seems you feel, are not all grifters. Not even close.

Being mass flagged on this website is a good indicator that I am a stable and well-adjusted individual :)

I think this might be the saddest take I’ve ever seen on hacker news.

Friends who go to therapy don't seem to finish their sessions relaxed, it's usually more of a shaken up state, whereas that ego pampering style of interaction you describe would surely not have that effect?

My therapist explicitly brings me back to the here and now at the end of sessions with the intention of relaxing me.

There's probably some truth that some psychologists are running a racket but thats true in all professions.

If your friends are hashing out stressful things leaving that way can be normal, but progress figuring out their life was made.

If it's constantly exhausting them, there's certainly others that would cater to their needs of a more relaxed environment. I changed my last therapist for this one for that reason - no hard feelings.

The therapist doesn't want them to leave relaxed. He wants them to leave thinking that they are in a deep pickle. They are an onion of complexity that needs to be continuously examined and relitigated. A complex and uniquely fucked up individual that needs to keep paying hundreds of dollars a month for therapy, lest they succumb to their madness.

Therapy is just the modern, secular alternative to religion.

This is terrible advice and it’s irresponsible of you to even assert it. There’s also a bit of irony here given the narcissism required to say “I don’t need ever outside help. Not only that, it will always make things worse than doing it myself.”

There's nothing wrong with seeking outside help, I just don't suggest you involve monetary incentive. Friends and family will not let you trauma dump on them for an hour every week for three years, because it's exhausting. They will tell you shut up and learn eventually, and if you don't they will leave you. Then you'll either learn or you won't.

The therapist will happily collect lots and lots of money from you without fixing anything.

My guess is you had a bad experience (or multiple) when seeking therapy and you’ve elected to write off the entire exercise as useless as a result. Or maybe it’s ideological underpinnings - I’ve seen a lot of that with some of my more conservative associates who think it’s about taking charge of your life and simply making the necessary changes - driving your skepticism. I can’t say but I can tell you that this is terrible advice and nobody should listen to it.

Your advice is dangerous.