If you are reading this then you are probably already aware of the benefits of personal/individual therapy. However, I’ve spoken to many people who tell me that they speak to their friends about any difficulties that they have and so they don’t need therapy. While I think that speaking to your friends can be very helpful and not everyone necessarily needs therapy, it important to understand that there is a big difference between speaking to a friend and a therapist.
Talking to a friend and a therapist are similar in that they are both conversations in which you may be vulnerable, but they are very different types of conversations.Understanding this difference properly puts you in the position where you can decide for yourself whether or not therapy is worth trying.
I’d like to clear up how individual therapy is different from talking to your friends. Here are some points to consider:
- Firstly, treating your friend like a therapist can be detrimental to your friendship. Friendships are different from the therapeutic relationship as they require reciprocity, give-and-take and your friend may feel drained by having to listen to you speak about your problems and your life without also focusing on them.
- The therapeutic relationship is very different, as a therapist I don’t expect you to ask me about my day. All my attention will be focused on you. Part of my therapeutic training involved supervisors and professors pointing out my biases and teaching me to be self-aware of these. This training has helped me to recognize and stop my biases from interrupting the focus being on you.
- If you focus on reflecting on you and your life in a friendship you might feel guilty or feel like a burden. You should not feel guilty for focusing on yourself in a therapeutic relationship, that’s what it’s all about- focusing on YOU.
- It is easier for me to work with you if I understand your point of view, this means that I am not going to be judgement as that just gets in the way of helping you. Friendships are different as the point of a friendship isn’t necessarily to focus on and help you.
- As a therapist I have years of training on mental health and different theoretical understandings of human behavior. This theory underpins many of the questions that I ask you. These questions are often very different from what a friend might ask you.
- The types of questions that I ask in therapy are often much more challenging than questions that I could ask a friend in a social space. Again, this is because the therapeutic relationship is different from that of a friendship. In a friendship we often expect our friends to tell us what we want to hear; and even in strong friendships we can struggle to challenge our friends. By asking you challenging questions we can work together to find alternative ways of perceiving/ dealing with a situation.
- I can also ask you more challenging questions because I have a strong understanding of mental health and your emotional well-being. I have been trained in how to help you to deal with and contain your emotions. Untrained friends on the other hand might be afraid of asking such questions because they are scared that you will break down and that they won’t know what to say to you.
- Again friends may ask very different questions from what I ask because I am not listening as a friend, I am listening as a therapist. This means that I will be listening to understand your beliefs about yourself and about your life. I need to do this in order to challenge your negative self-beliefs and help you to feel better about yourself.
- I will also be listening for negative patterns in your life and I will help you to identify and stop these. I’ll also encourage you to build upon the healthier more helpful patterns in your life. These are very different conversations from those typically held between friends.
- Another very important aspect of the therapeutic relationship is that it is confidential. You will not have to worry about me going and blabbing to your other friends. Unlike a friend, if I am found to break your confidentiality, I would have to face serious legal consequences.
- Finally, contrary to popular belief, I do not give advice. While I may be trained in mental health I am not the expert on your life, you are. I cannot tell you do anything or tell you which decision to make. I believe it is unethical to take your decision-making power away from you. Rather we can use the therapeutic space to reflect on your choices and discuss them from different perspectives. While I may encourage you to try something new or challenge a perspective, I will not make any decisions for you. Friends may give advice, therapists should not.