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Comment by joenot443 | Hacker News Reader

Did anyone else find it telling that "Engage with support groups or therapist" was the activity with the lowest engagement? Anecdotally this makes sense to me; the people I'm close with who struggle the most with finding day-to-day happiness are usually the ones who spend the most time in therapy. Not that the relationship is causal, of course, it's more just interesting to observe that lots of therapy doesn't seem necessary to maintain a positive baseline.

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>the people I'm close with who struggle the most with finding day-to-day happiness are usually the ones who spend the most time in therapy

Funny, I thought the same thing about the amount of sick people visiting doctors. The healthiest people I know don't ever see doctors.

It really makes sense though. I don't think it's because they don't go to therapy though. Look at the five levels they provide:

* Every day * 5–6 times per week * 3–4 times per week * 1–2 times per week * Less than weekly

Most people I know who go to therapy go once or twice a month. Very few go weekly, and I don't know anyone who goes 3+ times a week.

Every day? Are they like at a mental hospital or just too much money but not enough people to talk to?

You don't think there's a causal relationship between being unhappy and seeking therapy?

Also the goal of therapy is to get to a place where you can quit it, so it makes sense that once people are more content with their lives they wouldn't go anymore.

The goal of therapy should be to get you to a point where you can quit. The therapist's goal may or may not be (I prefer the "may not be") to get you to a point where you can quit. I am not saying that it is in the interest of therapists to keep someone in therapy, and thus pay them, for as long as possible, but at the same time there seems to be, especially for some therapists, an almost endless reservoir of people who have been led to believe that talk therapy is much more useful than it is empirically. I don't think that the majority of therapists are worried about losing a paying customer due to a significant improvement in their mental condition.

The therapist provides a service with some practice that hopefully leads to some goal, but without excessive professional and emotional investment in the outcome of therapy. After the 50th minute of the session, however, you are on your own.

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