On the ultimate quest for happiness, I decided to give therapy a try despite my skepticism towards it. Not that I'm thinking of jumping off a cliff or anything, but due to my course load this semester and other issues, I've been feeling a lot of stress lately. And this stress has prevented me from sleeping, and the lack of sleep has made me tired all the time, and I become inefficient when I'm tired, which in turn prevents me from completing all of my work, which causes more stress...and the vicious cycle continues.
Tuesday was my second session with my counselor at Gannett and honestly, I don't know if it's helping. (Okay fine, two times maybe isn't exactly giving it a chance, but I don't know if I'm willing to spend more time figuring out wheter or not it is.) I'm not exactly sure what the point of therapy/counseling/services alike is. I mean, okay, so you're messed up, and you want a counselor help you figure stuff out, clear your mind, help you get a perspective. But couldn't a friend do that? I have plenty of friends who offer excellent advice and as an added bonus, they always try to make me feel better afterwards. I guess there's always the I'm-your-friend-and-therefore-I-should-tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear bias, but they always try to be impartial when I tell them to. A therapist, on the other hand, want you to figure things out by yourself while they give you some guidance, if they deem necessary. Sure, I guess they have the advantage of the unbiased third party, but is it really of any help that they don't know, say, Jason, at all? And all they hear about Jason is from me, which, of course, will be biased. At least with a friend, they most likely will have seen Jason and perhaps my interactions with him and form their own opinions.
When I talk about my problems with others, I look for feedback, what the person to whom I'm talking thinks about, say, how I've handled a situation. I don't just want to talk on and on and not hear anything from the person I'm talking to. That's no different than if I were to just think about things in my head. If they're not giving me any input, they might as well as not be there at all. This is how I feel about therapy, at least, from what I've experienced so far. My therapist will just let me talk on and on without saying anything. I almost feel like I'm talking to a wall. And whenever I ask her to give me advice/feedback, she doesn't really say much at all, nothing I don't already know, no new insights. I don't know if this is what should happen--i.e. by not saying much, yet prodding me with the right questions, I'll eventually arrive at the solution myself. Except I don't think her questions are leading me to any conclusions. In fact I think they've complicated matters, if anything. And I don't know if that's a good thing... It's just so frustrating to talk for most of an hour and at the end still feel the same way (if not worse) as I did walking in.
Isn't the point of talking about your problems--things that bother you--so that you'll feel better? Actually, I guess that's not necessarily the outcome, but I would think that that should be the goal anyway.
