The Nature Of Talk Therapy (Part Two)

Just listening to even a perfectly rationalistic talk therapist, whom is very unlikely to ever be found, does not cure anyone who does not accept the truth or face themselves.  Someone whose depression is rooted in gender or racial stereotypes about themself that saddens them, for example, will never make progress unless they hold to verifiable philosophical truths of egalitarianism about the matter while trying to reorient their emotions and behaviors around them.  Talking to a therapist, no matter the real personal honesty involved, only verbalizes the problem, doing nothing on its own to actually address it if someone is against actually doing what they can to rectify a psychological affliction.

An emotionalist, a hypocrite, and a philosophically apathetic person would still have their flaws or trials and they could simply wallow in them.  If there is a need to change behaviors for the sake of reason and morality, and a patient refuses, what can therapy accomplish besides at most drawing their direct attention to things they, to a significant extent, could or should already know?  Will talking to someone about a tendency to extreme, disproportionate anger that is allowed to dominate the patient's life remove the anger itself?  Will a selfish person actually benefit from talk therapy if they cling to the fallacies of ideological selfishness?  Absolutely not.  The person is the problem here and not therapy.

This is not because talking is never a powerful remedy or help in itself.  Apart from the listening party (in this context, the therapist) actually saying anything and without any sort of ideological improvement or behavior-based follow-up on the part of the speaker, having the chance to openly acknowledge things out loud or recount personal struggles can truly be empowering and relieving, in some cases enough to calm deep anguish.  Catharsis alone can eliminate some psychological problems altogether or make them much more emotionally small, as in less turbulent, and thus easier to handle alone outside of therapy meetings.  If someone has this kind of issue, then talk therapy has a likelier potential to be incredibly helpful.

This is all true, and still therapy of various kinds, especially talk therapy, might have wildly varying levels of treatment success--not only because of irrationality on the therapist's part or that of the patient, but also because of the specific problem a patient has, their psychological constitution, and more.  The problem, the person's willingness and emotional state, the effectiveness of the therapist in inviting openness or stirring up introspection, and so on are all vital factors here.  Talk therapy needs willingness and honesty, two things plenty of people are unwilling to channel in any direction that removes them from emotionalistic comfort.

To someone philosophically lost and emotionally distressed, facing themself could be one of the most terrifying things they have done in their life.  So many try to distract themselves from any kind of significant existential soul searching, dismiss their own faults on the irrelevant grounds of convenience, and actively fight against any sort of prolonged confrontation with who they really are as an individual.  Perhaps at times this is partly driven by the desire to blame things on others, when a problem is only of one's own doing, and at other times it is the terror of giving up comforting or familiar assumptions that could deter some from seeking introspective clarity or resolve on their own.  The combination of introspection and communication to an outside party is what makes talk therapy helpful in possibly breaking down their resistance to necessary self-awareness and change.