Therapy is a practice around a century old meant to address our thoughts and feelings. It can benefit any person, regardless of whether they have been diagnosed with a mental illness. Therapy is often patient-led and tailored to help them change their lives in their chosen positive directions. Therapy can help people correct maladaptive behavior and come to a deeper understanding of themselves. These seven facts will help us understand the state of therapy today and what the experience is like.
7 Mental Health Facts
1. Therapy is based on science. (Source)
While therapy may feel like an intuitive process based on feelings more than facts, it is a science-driven practice based on research and evidence. Therapy is individualized, but techniques have been extensively studied and analyzed to determine the best practices to help patients define their life path and goals and help them reach those.
2. Therapists do more than listen to your problems. (Source)
While therapists engage in a lot of listening, they practice “active” listening and ask highly purposeful questions that push their patients to reflect and find answers within themselves. All this discussion is done to help patients better understand their thoughts, feelings, and lives.
3. Many therapists don’t give direct advice. (Source)
This is a common misconception about the role of the therapist. Most therapy philosophies don’t encourage therapists to provide direct advice and instructions to their patients. Instead, they’re meant to empower their clients to develop their own solutions. In other words, they give clients the tools they need to make changes in their lives rather than use their tools for them.
4. Many people are turning to AI for therapy and counseling. (Source)
Studies show that this is one of AI’s most popular use cases. However, many professionals are concerned about this development since AI doesn’t “think” through its response using logic, human empathy, or intuition. Rather, AI is a predictive text model based on probability used to guess an appropriate response.
5. Therapy doesn’t necessarily last forever. (Source)
A therapist’s goal is to help their clients function better on their own. That means therapy doesn’t have to last a lifetime and, in many cases, doesn’t. The process ends when the client is satisfied that treatment has helped them reach their goals.
6. Therapy helps manage and reduce the risks of anxiety and depression. (Source)
Therapy has been scientifically proven to lower the prevalence and severity of anxiety and depression symptoms. It’s meant to give people lifelong coping skills to help keep these detrimental feelings and symptoms at bay and make them less influential on their lives.
7. Over 70% of therapists are women. (Source)
Despite this statistic, women only make 96 cents to a male therapist’s dollar. The same is true among psychologists, 58% of whom are female. The highest earners in mental health are psychologists with a doctorate who make almost twice as much as those with a Master’s or Bachelor’s degree.
Featured image photo credit: Alex Green.
