By Dheja Lewis, Practicum Student
Most people think that therapy isn’t a necessity or an option when you have people
around you to offer you advice and support. There are some distinct ways in which therapy
differs from getting advice from a friend or family member.
Firstly, therapy offers scientific knowledge and background. Counselors undergo intense
schooling which includes theoretical approaches of how to best service clients, diagnostic
knowledge of mental illnesses and disorders, patterns and behaviors, and overall essential skills to be a competent counselor with all types of populations and identities. Getting advice from a loved one, can be one minded. They’re not able to offer a client an open minded approach to their presenting problems due to personally knowing a client therefore not giving the client an opportunity to think about situations in different ways and essentially telling them how to handle the situation. Therapy would interpret the client’s behaviors and patterns and help bring awareness to the client in order to prevent or have some control in the client’s actions to better themselves.
Secondly, your relationship with your therapist should always be unbiased and free of
judgement. One of therapy’s main components is to enforce an environment that does not place blame but accountability, validates the client’s emotions, and fully supports the client to reach their goals for coming to therapy services by collaborating with each other. Due to the pre-existing relationship, advice from a loved one can come across as judgmental or talking at the client like a child. Advice doesn’t have a collaborative approach, it is heavily suggesting to the client based on what the advice giver knows of them and how they would want them to handle the situation. Your relationship with your therapist also maintains confidentiality. Based on my experience, giving advice usually gets to other parties as well, especially in family or friends.
Thirdly, therapy focuses on solutions/coping and gaining skills and knowledge for long
term changes in the client’s life. Therapy takes time to build client rapport, get to the root of the presenting problem, establish ways to overcome or cope with the problem, and continue to follow up until the client feels prepared to independently exercise these skills into their daily lives. Therapy gives the client the opportunity to move at their own pace and allows them to process. Receiving advice is an “in the moment” fix. It most likely won’t help for long because the solution or skill did not take time or practice it needed to help the client long term.
In conclusion, therapy is great for long term improvements based on the client’s goals.
The counselor will help them bring things to the surface for them such as triggers and how their thoughts contribute to the behaviors, and how to cope in situations they might not have control over. The counselor will provide a judgment free zone so that the client can feel comfortable to share things they might not feel comfortable enough to share with their loved ones. Therapy should be a safe space for the client and the counselor should be their biggest advocate and supporter to their goals. These components that therapy offers do not come with advice given from loved ones. It may offer some but not all which makes therapy more beneficial to long term changes for the client.