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Comment by n4r9 | Hacker News Reader

How is it different to having a personal trainer for your physical fitness?

In theory, at one point people will be done with therapy. I think a better analogy is a physical therapist; you go to one because of an injury.

A personal trainer is for boosting your physical health / performance. For mental health, you'd get a coach, training, or read one of many self-help books, not a therapist.

There are multiple kinds of psychological counseling. Some "supportive therapy" really is more of an ongoing thing, like having a personal trainer. Some kinds of psychological therapy always aim to have a terminus, like physical therapy.

Having a personal trainer for your physical fitness is something I'd expect a very low percentage of very wealthy individuals to have access to. Therapy appears to be more prevalent.

By "personal trainer" I just mean someone that you pay for a training session 1-3x per week. It's a comparable expense to therapy (depending on qualifications etc...).

I mean, that’s what they meant too. They’re expensive! Kinda a stereotypical rich thing to have, more so than therapy. One distinction that you might be thinking of without saying between individual sessions and group workouts which are cheaper.

Personal training sessions with experienced staff at my David Lloyds in London are around £50-60 for 45 minutes. That's entry-level cost for therapy, which can easily go north of £100 per hour around here.

I reckon the reason people use therapy is not because it's cheaper, but because they're less confident about how to do "mental exercise" than they are physical exercise.

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