Why should I invest in therapy when I can do a course, read a (multiple) self-help book and visit a retreat and "heal myself"?

These are often questions thrown around when you introduce yourself as a therapist. The questions are not wrong, they are just curious. Yet, this curious questioning hints at something bigger. It brings home the idea that getting to know yourself, experiencing comfort, feeling safe and healing are different experiences on the same spectrum. There is no one single self subsuming experience that guarantees that you are “healed”. 

I wish there was clearer understanding and information that is provided to people when they enrol in different experiences to support themselves. When there exists a Rs 99- 2-hour workshop, a 10 day retreat and Therapy in the same space, it can be difficult to choose from the pool. Because while the 2hr workshop cannot heal your trauma, it is a starting point to share information.  And the 10 day retreat may differ vastly from what Therapy has to offer. 

I just have trouble with everything being packaged as either the only way or the best way ever to “heal” rather than it supporting you. I hope we as consumers are made aware of the intention of the offering and what it does and does not offer beforehand so people can make informed decisions. 

When it comes to therapy, our training as therapists pretty much withholds us from telling clients that we can "heal them completely" or make them a new person. Because that would honestly sound like a magic wand or godly infusion that has given the therapist unseen unheard kind of powers.

Instead therapy is a space where you meet your therapist and see yourself as a person. Your therapist takes consent and together you go out on an expedition to know yourself. It can be similar to the idea of a trek. Unlike the expeditions that have a clearly charted out map beforehand, in therapy the path is mapped out during the process. 

While on the trek, we often just want to reach the highest, tallest and most glorious peak that is visible. However, therapy makes you experience the different peaks and not just the tallest one. Therapy makes you experience multiple milestones. You uncover, explore and make your own path, visit and revisit the peaks. 

The therapy and trekking metaphor sits well with me because it doesn’t undermine what happens in the therapy space. Therapy can act like a base camp where you can come, rest and be until you feel ready for your next expedition. 

And just like your camp instructor can't complete the trek for you, neither can your therapist, yet they are with you to nudge you, encourage you and support you in your understanding. 

Therapy doesn’t guarantee “abh sirf ache din” but reminds you that you don’t have to complete the trek in one go, rather it prepares you for the trek so that you can savor different parts of the journey too. It can remind you to come to your base camp when you feel the need and offer you a space that you can access at your own pace.