Therapy will not fix anything if you're unwilling to make the effort to change.
At this point, if you still lack motivation, maybe it's time to go the medication route. It helped me overcome the inertia.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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I'm so done with therapy. I've been going since 1989 and whilst there have certainly been some worthwhile insights, I believe the whole thing is as much about propping up the economic stakeholders (the 'industry') as it is about effective help. It's a lazy no-effort button GPs, employers, friends, anyone, can press to rid themselves of listening to your 'problems'. So you pin all your hopes on it to find relief. It's such a let down.
There are so many issues. Firstly, it is situated with a culture. A western capitalist culture. I reckon it's all about making you feel less like the obvious wage/mortgage slave you are and more like an 'empowered' 'aspirational' boss. CBT is definitely gaslighting. But the biggest elephant in the room is how the 80% of your problem -- the societal and market forces pushing down on you -- are never referenced as the cause. They are scarcely offered an a discussion point. Like, the very thing which fucks you up is indiscussible. It's always what 'you' can do. Basicallly it's: 'you've got an attitude problem'.
CBT is definitely gaslighting.
More of us need to start saying this. All therapists are powerless to help you with the existential angst inherent to living within a Western capitalist system, but many of them will flat out deny that current material and economic conditions are a root cause of many societal problems that lead to chronic stress and mental illness.
CBT is jank as fuck. You can't reframe your way out of poverty, especially not once you start developing physiological issues related to chronic stress and depression. The notion of it is offensive to me, and the CBT worksheets I was given are the epitome of paternalism. What a waste of time. I have had some luck with using DBT strategies on my own though, and I'm hoping to get referred to a DBT therapy group. Group/peer support has been more helpful than I had thought it would be.
Ok but it's great for what it's great for. CBT can't fix poverty, but it can fix a tendency to let minor setbacks spiral into full blown panic attacks or an inability to ask loved ones for help.
Plenty of problems aren't the sort therapy can help with despite them having huge mental effects. But plenty of people have problems therapy is actively good for. In the same way therapy won't fix your (rational) economic anxiety, if you torpedo every relationship you're in communism won't fix you, but DBT might.
That's great for the people for whom talk therapy and CBT is effective, but the point of my comment and presumably the point of the comment I replied to is that talk therapy using CBT is the de facto standard in the West even when it harms people.
Again, happy that the CBT-lovers have found their thing, but those of us that find it patronizing and minimizing to be told we're what's wrong (for CBT not working like it does for others) instead of the clinical framework not being right for us should have the right to push back against clinicians and pro-therapy laypeople placing specific models of care on a pedestal.
If you can't see that CBT is being applied as a one-size-fits-all solution, especially for young adults and at free/subsidized municipal clinics (who have clients highly affected by poverty and minority stressors), I really don't know what to tell you. It's harmful to people but you feel like you can't talk about it because then people think you're either entirely anti-therapy, antisocial/defiant, or drug-seeking.
Ok cool, you're absolutely not taking my argument as I made it. I was acknowledging that it's bad for several things it's bad for (implying it's commonly prescribed for those things) but also acknowledging that it's worth accepting that it's good for what it's good for. Maybe it's bad for some people who have problems it's good for. But I've seen people who desperately need the skills it teaches parrot the rhetoric of it being useless and harmful before so I do feel a desire to speak up in its defense as well.
Hopefully you'll get what you need, regardless of what it is. And yeah, poor people disproportionately need financial assistance more than training to see cognitive distortions.
We don't negotiate with therapists.
A series of circumstances have made me effectively resistant to CBT, and sadly not the kick-based one. "Talk to yourself as you would to a friend", they say to the dude who has never had any and therefore has no idea of whay does that even mean
“Talk to yourself as you would to a friend”
I've never heard of this technique. The one CBT technique that I know is labeling your thoughts (according to the type of cognitive distortion) and countering them. If you do it long enough, your thinking is supposed to change. Changing any habit is difficult, though.
I think the idea is that, when you're judging yourself really hard for something you've done, you're asked to consider what you would think of a friend who had done the same thing. A lot of the time people would view the friend as having a made a forgivable mistake, even though they're treating the behavior in themselves as evidence of an irredeemable and permanent character flaw. So it's like, use supportive language when you talk to yourself. Remind yourself of all you've done right and all you've overcome, that sort of thing. Forgive yourself and build yourself up. It's a specific instance of the kind of labeling-and-countering you're talking about.
It's also that what you want out of the friend is not for them to run away or apologize profusely, it's to own up, apologize, and try to be better next time
Yeah, good call. I meant to have a line about that. You would help a friend get over the blame and self-criticism and get to the actual business of changing for the better.
Ask you doctor if stoicism is right for you.
Stoicism is just dissociating philosophically
"I am not my feelings and have control of my actions beyond them" is nothing like disassociating
Sorry i was just trying to be funny. Most of these "stoic lone warrior" types do just use it to act tough by repressing emotions though
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You could try needles or sounding or a cage. Kicks aren't the only option!
Talk to yourself as you would to a friend
I prefer to be honest with myself. While I don't saddle my friends with my problems.
The point is to be kind to yourself. You should be honest with your friends, but you should make efforts to frame that honesty in a caring and positive light, ensuring them that they're safe with you and that you're raising your concerns out of love for them.
The therapist's point is that most people know to treat they're friends that way, but tend to be much harsher and less generous with themselves. So: cut yourself some slack, is the message.
When I had friends we’d constantly insult each other.
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wait what? isnt... being self-aware a good thing?... pleasure to have in class? i have got to beissing something here.
"You're very self-aware" is basically a meme in the corners of the internet that discuss trauma. It's a genuine compliment on the part of the therapist, but also an implied admission that they won't be able to help you.
You're already aware of the observations they would make and the tools they would propose, so you might as well skip to the end and look for another therapist.
oooooh wow.... gosh yea... thanks for sharing.
As a psychotherapist, working with people who are self-aware is a pleasure. I wouldn't ever say that to someone if not meant as a genuine compliment.
Although I believe not many of our patients actually are as self aware as they think. I think we as humans often are good in introspection where it's easy and comfortable to do so, while glaring over pretty blatant cognitive errors in some other parts, and this is usually where problems arise and disorders develop. And interestingly some people seem to think of themselves as someone who's perfectly introspective but just for some external, unchangeable factor immune to any kind of positive change. Maybe they could feel irritated about the compliment, because in their minds it reinfoces their idea of being helpless against their problems (in the sense of: I already know everything, it's just not possible to change anything or I would've already done that)? I could imagine that's how I would feel, but of course it's just a guess.
Self-awareness is a good thing, but it’s also the bottom of the barrel when fishing for compliments. In therapy, specifically, the implied sentiment is, “Well, at least you know how fucked up you are.”
She’s making the comparison to the “pleasure to have in class” line, because it’s similar. If a teacher genuinely has good things to say about a student, it’s probably going to be more specific (i.e. – they were inquisitive, a quick study, made their peers laugh, etc). “Pleasure to have in class,” by contrast, is a generic compliment that doesn’t really say anything.
EDIT: Okay, so based on a few of the latest responses, I felt that I should clarify something. I don’t think people who use these phrases intend for them to be insults or demeaning in any way—this includes Cait’s therapist in the original post. It’s just that it can be perceived that way, which is what I think the post was making fun of.
If you’re also an introspective, self-critical person, please don’t take someone saying this to you as an affirmation of your faults. It’s almost certainly an innocuous and genuine observation.
but it’s also the bottom of the barrel when fishing for compliments.
I can see that you have good intentions...
Really, though, there is no bottom of the barrel. Self-awareness is something that some people in therapy genuinely lack. Good intentions are something that some people genuinely lack. Kindness is something that someone people genuinely lack. Being capable of being unobtrusive for others is something some people genuinely lack.
These are not the bottom of the barrel, but solid foundations you can build from. Someone with good self-awareness can give constructive feedback both in session and irl. Someone with good intentions will actually try to improve rather than use therapy as a place to vent. Someone who is kind will use the skills and motivation they gain in therapy to build a nice community for themselves because it is reciprocal.
Imagine OOP except without self-awareness. Their subconscious has developed countertools that make therapy ineffective but they are not able to describe those countertools or even know their functioning. All they can say is that the therapy doesn't work. That sucks so much worse than the situation OOP is actually in.
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