I saw a therapist for several years and it was very valuable, so I'm not knocking therapy. Specifically I chose to see a psychiatrist who was well versed in talk therapy, not just drugs, because I think this stuff should be approached as evidence based, medical in nature, and administered by a doctor.
However, one takeaway for me was that when it comes to talk therapy, some of it is evidence-based, scientific, and backed by high quality studies, however most of what's out there is not. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has good evidence of efficacy and so do maybe a few other techniques - Googling "evidence based therapy" is a good way to start going down the rabbit hole. It's not that hard to learn how to do CBT, at first with a professional, and eventually on your own.
Once you progress past the evidence-based stuff, IMHO you're basically just talking to a (hopefully) wise friend who you trust, which is great and might work similar to placebo, but also $200/hr and has the potential to medicalize stuff that doesn't need to be medicalized, so your time and money may be better spent building connections with other people (support groups, plain ol' friends etc).
So my point here is I think as long as you understand its limitations therapy is great. If someone is unambiguously suicidal they should probably be put on drugs plus talk therapy and then weaned off the drugs as it becomes clear they are no longer a risk to themselves, since the alternative is they die.
I used to have the same opinion and found my model has shifted quite a bit. There are a surprising lack of high quality studies on a lot of this. However, there’s really good data on a couple points: Therapy is likely to create significant, lasting improvements compared to placebo, and the more significant factor is therapeutic relationship, not modality.
There’s a lot of evidence for CBT because it’s a modality that is relatively easy to study, and so it’s studied a lot. It’s very structured and designed to produce results quickly. This doesn’t mean it’s superior in general.
Chronic psychological disorders are strongly correlated with early attachment issues and adverse childhood experiences. There are many ways to address this, but I would view a successful long term therapy as reprogramming a nervous system rather than talking to a friend or building new habits. In my experience, even many therapists fail to understand this distinction. Like hiring any skilled professional, finding the right match can be a time consuming process.
However, one takeaway for me was that when it comes to talk therapy, some of it is evidence-based, scientific, and backed by high quality studies, however most of what's out there is not. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has good evidence of efficacy and so do maybe a few other techniques - Googling "evidence based therapy" is a good way to start going down the rabbit hole. It's not that hard to learn how to do CBT, at first with a professional, and eventually on your own.
Once you progress past the evidence-based stuff, IMHO you're basically just talking to a (hopefully) wise friend who you trust, which is great and might work similar to placebo, but also $200/hr and has the potential to medicalize stuff that doesn't need to be medicalized, so your time and money may be better spent building connections with other people (support groups, plain ol' friends etc).
So my point here is I think as long as you understand its limitations therapy is great. If someone is unambiguously suicidal they should probably be put on drugs plus talk therapy and then weaned off the drugs as it becomes clear they are no longer a risk to themselves, since the alternative is they die.