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Comment by diag | Hacker News Reader

Calling what therapy does as "creating delusions" helps nobody. Therapy offers a number of tools that helps a person get grounded in reality, helps a person create boundaries, and helps strengthen a person's abilities to deal with their life stresses by creating the framework to either deal with them or help move on to a new environment that doesn't create as much stress.

Not all therapists are good. If you try somebody and don't connect or trust them, try to find somebody else. Internalizing stress really destroys the body, and it's important to find somebody you trust to help process it.

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Really? It helped me. It was nice for me to have someone else acknowledge that the emperor was in fact naked. The emperor transparent clothes in this situation was the suggestion that offices aren't horrible places to be. Take the IBM book of songs, for example.

I would like to emphasize that I agree with you (and my original comment): Therapy is a cheat code! It will make your life immeasurably better. Everyone should do it!

No need to fight, I think both of you are right. Some people can get stuck into painful context or interpretations, in which case some therapy trick can help get out of the pit. That said if you discuss high level sociology you often end up in the "what a massive soup of chaos" too.

If the emperor is in fact naked, then you're not deluded in believing that. I'm confused by the use of that term in this way.

Yeah. I can't write in my own first language. Forgive me. Let me try again: The emperor is actually naked (offices are bad), but for various reasons people say the emperor is not naked (offices aren't bad). Does that help? I need help, clearly.

The problem is not that you’re saying “offices are bad”, it’s that you’re conflating “the ability to maintain a healthy-ish mental state after being exposed to an office” with “a delusion that offices are good”.

Lots of bad things exist, being able to function in the face of Bad Things does not require you to deny or ignore that reality.

Poisonous spiders exist, but overcoming arachnophobia (an unusually debilitating reaction to encountering spiders) isn’t a “delusion that spiders are safe”, and won’t make you try to kiss a Black Widow.

I vouched for your comment after it was killed. I think it's a valid point. Certainly nuance is vital when talking about mental health.

I've never needed therapy, but from the outside I've seen people who have been failed by it. It seems like the industry is plagued with one common issue. Therapists aren't incentivized to help you stop needing therapy.

I've heard this "therapists are just out to keep you hooked on therapy" trope many times and I don't think it is true. The demand for good therapists vastly outstrips the supply - they don't need to keep patients hooked when there are plenty of new ones waiting.

Most therapists I've had recently have said something along the lines of "therapy should be temporary for most people, if you're a few months in and not seeing measurable progress then you might need another therapist." This is in keeping with my experience, which is that you make progress on whatever issue brought you to therapy, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and it's no longer worth the time and expense.

Of course some people have more serious conditions and do need to be in therapy constantly, but that isn't the norm for most who experience mental health problems.

Also - never needed therapy? Ever? For anything? Not even a little bit? Sounds like some self examination might be in order.

Interesting perspective, and I'm sure I've never heard someone talk about their success with therapy because it isn't a topic that's likely to come up.

No, I've never needed therapy. I self examine on a regular basis. I have generally followed a stoic philosophy of life, which means regularly working on my physical and mental wellness. I've steered clear of unhealthy addictions and other problem generators. Therapy is just one tool in a large toolbox of mental health.

Fwiw, the 3 people I know that need therapy the most also claim that they don't need it.

Cool

Indeed

> If you try somebody and don't connect or trust them, try to find somebody else

What do you do if part of your condition is that it is really hard for you to connect with and trust people?

The first thing to try is to bring that up. By stating that you struggle to trust people, you can ask them to help you examine what thoughts you have that are associated with trust in the first place, and that's really helpful in developing a mindful understanding of what's happening.

Trust is also a push-pull thing in the first place, so going in with an honest attempt can help you gauge your reaction before learn who to trust.

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