Why Therapy? A Guy’s Honest Perspective

Thank you to a friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) who wrote this piece.

You don’t need to be broken in pieces to benefit from therapy.

Sometimes, you just need a place to unpack the weight you’ve been carrying.  In fact, your burdens can be commonplace – and even a few sessions with the right therapist can offer you the perspective you’ve been missing.

Over the years, I’ve met with several counselors for different reasons – my life had stress fractures, relationship challenges, or I needed to make difficult decisions.  Each time, I wasn’t shattered or in crisis; I was just having human moments and feelings in a world that often bruises.  Therapy offered a space to sort them out. 

I didn’t meet weekly or follow a strict schedule.   Often, a few sessions spread over months were enough to dissect a problem and figure out what healthier thoughts or behaviours I could bring into my life. 

And often the counselor would suggest ideas or offer feedback on what she or he thought I was experiencing.  Fortunately, I was introspective enough to clarify my situation and steer the conversation in the right direction.  But how did I do that?  

With honesty.

Honesty with myself, about the situation, about my own role in it.  I had to be willing to admit fault or offer a defense of others when it was warranted.   The therapist could not dictate my truth – and I didn’t want that. 

What I needed was time to work out the problem in words, with honesty, one step at a time.   Therapy doesn’t work if you’re performing.  It works when you tell the truth, and the counselor helped me to see that truth more clearly.  

Of course, speaking with a therapist isn’t a cure-all – I still needed to work on my issues and make deliberate life changes.   But one shift that helped make a difference was this:  I stopped trying to control how others acted or how they treated me.  Instead, I focused on what I could actually change, such as my mindset, my reactions, and my own life choices.

Therapy is self-discovery; it’s a guided conversation that opens doors to truth, and reveals blind spots and self-defeating patterns.  Maybe you’ll get a breakthrough in three sessions, or maybe it’ll take eight.  Either way, real change rarely happens on autopilot.  You need a sounding board to break the habits, attitudes, and actions that hurt others and yourself.

And I’m thankful for every person I’ve spoken with; I admit, sometimes they weren’t as helpful and I needed to find a more appropriate fit.  Someone with an objective listening ear, a calmness that appealed, and the right level of kindness.  But once you click with a therapist, you can make the progress you thought wasn’t possible. 

So be honest with yourself – about what you want out of therapy, how you plan to look inward and what new ways you’ll choose to see others.   Only you can choose a better way.