TV therapists wipe away the pain. Here in real life, it’s not so easy
Therapy: that catch-all, silver-bullet, one-size-fits-all solution found in every comments section, Reddit thread, relationship on the rocks, fourth act of Millennial women’s fiction, and politician’s buzz-wordy statement after a completely avoidable tragedy.
It’s prescribed freely by everyone except those in charge of making mental health care accessible and avoidable, all of us under the belief that anything, from social anxiety through to unbridled violent impulses, can be addressed in a psychiatrist’s office – but I fear we’ve got the picture all wrong.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
When we imagine ourselves going to therapy, we probably picture a chaise longue, a Rorschach test, maybe Jung’s seedy little moustache. If Mad Men and The Sopranos are anything to go by, we picture a balding little man in round glasses and an immaculate suit, or a severe woman in a twinset, armed with a notepad and incisive insight.
We watch the story play out, nodding grimly, waiting impatiently for some big, harrowing realisation to force our character’s development along; a memory unrepressed, an antagonist caught. Once the root of all our problems has been identified, the therapist disappears from the script, never to be seen or spoken of again. We’ve had our epiphany. We’re cured. Right?
I’ve been in active therapy for five or so years, and by all accounts, I’m pretty good at it. Maybe that sounds contradictory. Maybe, you think, I should have graduated by now, or that my therapist is milking me to pay for her beach house. After the first year or so, when I’d run out of rebated sessions and watched a not-insignificant portion of my pay cheque disappear every fortnight, I began to wonder the same.
All the exercises we did, the chair work and the role plays between my inner child and healthy adult self, talk of schemas and traumas, the new language I learned in the effort to rewrite the way I speak to myself, when would it all pay off? When would it all become muscle memory?
Wounds hurt, especially old ones. The cool sting of antiseptic is agony, and stitches itch as our bodies heal – but healing isn’t the hard part.
True, I no longer self-sabotage as effectively as I used to. Rage and resentment doesn’t simmer beneath compulsive people-pleasing. Anxiety no longer keeps me awake for days at a time. I’m no longer addicted to toxic romantic partners and I no longer self-harm. I can breathe through triggers, self-soothe and medicate responsibly. I’m stable. I’m doing well. Progress has been made, but it’s not a straight line, and there’s still an infinitely long road ahead.
It’s like this: no matter how hard you train, running a marathon never gets easier than lying on the couch all day. You never stop needing the guiding hand of support and understanding. If better is always comparative, then it’s not something that can be achieved, only ever pursued.
Knowing this, resenting this and finally accepting this, I get a bad taste in my mouth when a comments section is flooded with excuses about mental health after a monstrous act. Why were we ever under the impression that treatment was anything less than a lifelong commitment?
More than that, it’s expensive. Under Medicare, a mental health care plan gets you up to 10 sessions per year. The additional 10 they gave us during COVID have been snatched away, as though any of us have experienced an incline in our mental health these past few years.
What happens when someone doesn’t have the luxury of paying out of pocket? When we’re stripped of our resources and spin out without treatment, what’s our recourse? Thoughts and prayers?
“We need better access to mental health,” says every news outlet and armchair psych whenever an unsettling story emerges. I speak about talk therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy because that’s the area I know, because it would be unconscionable for me to commentate on inpatient therapy, treatment for personality disorders, debilitating diagnoses that require caseworkers and in-home care.
But if it’s difficult for me – with my comparatively “light” diagnosis – to keep putting one foot in front of the other, can you imagine how much harder it is for people who have it tougher? Forget the long, hard road ahead: it’s hell trying to get onto the highway in the first place, and harder yet to stay on route.
Maybe if we weren’t so ready to suggest therapy then wash our hands of our concern, if it wasn’t treated like a get-fixed-quick scheme, if we approached it as the essential medical treatment it is, we would all be on the road to better sooner, with fewer tears and casualties in our wake.