<p>I am a therapist and enjoyed the Google search article.
I give some advice to some long term clients when I know them very well and we have a positive relationship. Still, it is delivered with many supportive comments because I do not have a “me” agenda. This is their time and their life and I try to be as present as possible. That said, it is very rewarding when the questions and line of discussion leads the client to their own insight that results in change.
There are a number of articles lately about therapist and wisdom and the need for wisdom.
Over the years it has been shown that you cannot teach a therapist good insight. Most who are good at this are drawn to the field. I tell every client or even a phone interview that if after 2-3 sessions you do not feel a connection to move on and find a new therapist. A Therapist cannot be a good fit for every person and, if professional, encourages a client to find a good fit. If there is not a good connection then it is doubtful that it will be a positive experience. This is especially true when you have a teen who does not want to be there. Sometime all the therapist can do is make it an OK experience so that when they are ready they will not be negative towards counseling.</p>
<p>Sometimes therapists will be directive. If there are safety issues involved, or if someone needs to be referred for an evaluation, that becomes pretty concrete. Also, sometimes therapists will help people with some concrete skills which can be seen as advice. For example, if someone comes in wanting to work on parenting skills, the therapist will probably give them concrete tools, assuming that is a stated goal of the therapy. Or a therapist might advise a couple on how to deal with a specific sexual problem because the therapist may have some knowledge the couple doesn’t as part of his/her training. A therapist doing anger management work may give someone advice on steps to take when feeling triggered to help the person stay out of trouble while they are doing deeper work. But most of the time, therapists are not giving advice. The truth is, there is lots of advice to be had for free, and much of it is good. If everyone took the good advice they were offered, fewer people might need therapy. Therapy helps when people are stuck, regardless of advice given, regardless of efforts they have made, etc. The therapist’s job is to help someone figure out how to get unstuck, and usually advice isn’t what gets someone unstuck. Therapy is a much different process than telling someone what should be done.</p>
<p>Some people are in therapy for problems beyond their control, such as childhood abuse or biochemical problems. </p>
<p>Some people are in because they continue to make poor life choices, and those choices hurt them emotionally. There are a lot of people who do things contrary to their own self-interest, but may not even know that. I’m failing to see why a good therapist would not point out that lassie definition of insanity, and then give advice - advice that the person may have never really heard in their lives.</p>
<p>The therapist doesn’t just listen, she will be asking questions. These questions should help you to frame or look at your issues, and then allow you to make your own decisions.</p>
<p>If you want advice, you can go to your Mom or your best friend. But I’m betting when you do you won’t like or take their advice. </p>
<p>If you want to know if you can wear white after labor day, Dear Abbey is fine. If you are deciding if you should divorce your husband, only you can make that determination. No one else can give you the right answer.</p>
<p>In most cases, people are more apt to follow a plan if it’s their own rather than one prescribed by someone else. Often therapists will, as one other poster said, ask the right questions - leading the patient to devise a plan having asked and answered all of the right questions. So it’s still a great plan, but it’s one that the patient came up with and has actually bought into. In general, it works better this way.</p>
<p>Therapists can add a much-needed dose of reality some people. If you read Dear Abby, there are women who write in and say things like “I really want to get married and have children. I’m thirty-three; my boyfriend of fifteen years wants to get married ‘someday’ and ‘might’ want kids. What should I do? My friends tell me to not pressure him into a decision.” </p>
<p>Yeah, you could probably talk a woman through the nuances of the relationship and spend two or three years getting her signed onto a game plan, or you could point out that men “speak” via actions, and, translating those actions into words, it says, “Hon, I love you, but here’s the ultimatum: me, on my time table, with my wishes, my desires, and, oh, we’re never going to have kids because you’ll be too old by the time I get my s–t together; alternatively, the life you want with some other guy. But this stringing-you-along routine works well for me, and it must work well for you, since you’re still here and you have like three good childbearing years left.”</p>
<p>Then again, I’ve always found hard-headed, pragmatic advice to be comforting; reality will be what it is, your own emotions notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Sop14’sMom (OP, I’m sure your school offers courses in psychology. And then there’s the library.)</p>
<p>If we got answers like that to all our questions, this would indeed be a useless site.</p>
<p>OP, who is not a parent, has a penchant for starting threads like this.</p>
<p>I just want to point out that often the thing that brings someone to therapy can’t be resolved with advice alone. One example: people with PTSD, who are waking up in the night with nightmares, afraid to have their back to a door (vets), etc. can’t be advised out of their symptoms. Advice doesn’t help everything.</p>
<p>In tobacco treatment specialist training, they point out that nearly all smokers (and you can fill in the blank for others who get counseling) have the answers within them. They just have to resolve their ambivalence and figure out what strategy they want. The professional can offer info regarding what has worked (or not) in the literature and with similar cases, as well as potentially exploring options that may not have been considered, but generally there’s no quick and easy answer.</p>
<p>Motivational Interviewing has a significant following and is increasingly embraced for empowering people to find the solutions that will work for them. To me, it works for addictions, parenting and most forms of behavioral change–encouraging the patient as “the guide on the side” instead of the leader in the front. Internalized solutions have more lasting results than externally imposed edicts.</p>
<p>It can be frustrating for those on the outside. One of my relatives has to deal with an individual who has made a life long process out of therapy. Meanwhile nothing ever changes with this person. They say they can’t make a no brainer decision without consulting their therapist first, but when they do something totally unacceptable, the justification is that the therapist didn’t “say it was wrong.”</p>
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<p>I imagine that it might be easy to get strung along.</p>
<p>ThereseR, you ask the oddest questions at times. Seriously. Every question you pose is really very obvious. </p>
<p>Read VeryHappy’s post. That’s it in a nutshell. They don’t just listen. They get you to figure out your own goals, which enables your own change, which is far more effective than trying to change others around you. It’s not their job to tell you to divorce the guy. It is their job to have you figure out why you’re putting up with mistreatment and what’s behind that so you can figure out what to do. Honestly, this is obvious.</p>
<p>Coureur -Ann Landers and the like were never therapists, though. They were more etiquette columnists.</p>