Why Are Gays So Obsessed With Therapy?
Q
Is there any room in the queer community to NOT think therapy is the end-all be-all solution to your problems? I’ve been in therapy quite a bit, and did have one therapist who helped me a lot through a specific issue before i moved and couldn’t see her anymore. but i haven’t really found the right person since then, and i really am starting to feel resistant to the idea that therapy is always a good idea, or always helpful, or totally the “cure” to all of one’s issues. every argument i make against therapy (e.g., i feel like they’re often on my side because they only hear my side) is met with, “well, a good therapist wouldn’t do that.” but it’s not like i’m only seeing bad therapists, like these are good therapists who work for other people. also how much time can i put into finding someone to listen to me talk about myself? i don’t know. it just feels like therapy is like VALORIZED and i’m curious if there’s anyone out there not sold on it.
A:
Summer: I’m trained in therapy and did a Master’s in Psychology and I’m very careful about recommending therapy to anyone who asks questions. I think there’s a difference in context because the rise of mass-market talk therapy (more in the USA and Europe) has brought with it a matching wave of marketing. Marketing and general discourse now portrays therapy as this decade’s emotional cure-all. It used to be healthy eating and exercise. Then something else before it.
Large, for-profit therapy companies (like that very questionable BetterHelp) have an impetus to sell therapy as something that works and pull people in for a subscription-based monetization model. As BetterHelp’s track record shows, the quality of therapists and services isn’t a major priority. This will likely be the case in any large-scale online therapy provided in the USA because the US has so many loopholes and shortcuts that companies can take to start delivering therapy without upholding rigorous standards.
Therapy is a challenging process and finding a good provider is difficult at the best of times. A collapsing economy filled with predatory companies trying to score a subscription fee is far from the best of times. My personal view of therapy is that it warrants the same cost-benefit analysis as any other healthcare. I do believe that the ‘right therapist’ can utterly change your world and improve your life. But is the effort and money spent finding the ‘right therapist’ worth it compared to potential alternatives?
Mental health is not a single-facet thing. Marketing by counselling companies tries to bill themselves as a one-stop solution because that’s the solution they are selling. But mental health can be addressed in numerous ways and each one is different. Locking oneself into one path and excluding other possibilities for something as personalized as mental health is just a sure sign that someone has internalized the marketing. Talk therapy comes in numerous modalities depending on the provider’s qualifications and skills. And it’s personalized. It’s undoubtedly a good option, but it’s not the only option.
In my (individual) case, the biggest improvement in my mental health happened when I talked to my general practitioner about an SSRI. And then started that SSRI. And stayed on it. My mental health also improved dramatically after I got an autism assessment that allowed me to better understand my needs and thought processes. Neither of those were therapy, but they were more impactful than the two years I did spend in therapy. My time in therapy was insightful, but it wasn’t a silver bullet for my well-being and I’m glad I never had to put up with marketing and discourse about therapy being that solution when I was vulnerable.
Ashni: I’m sold on therapy, but only with the right person. I’ve been in and out of therapy for the past decade, though it’s been longer if you count the childhood therapy. I used to be a little insufferable about it in my early 20s. I’d want the people I was dating to be in therapy, I’d form value judgments about people who weren’t. None of this was fair, and even worse, it’s not like I was doing any meaningful work on myself in therapy at the time. I would show up, I’d run through the drama of the week (my goal was to make my therapist laugh; I often succeeded), I’d be validated or maybe asked a few probing questions if I was lucky, and then I’d be sent on my way, one copay poorer and having done the equivalent of writing in my diary. Or at least, that’s how it felt. I had a few, fleeting experiences with good therapists early on (first an OCD therapist, and then a relationship therapist that my best friend and I used), but for the most part, the therapists I saw in my early/mid 20s were decidedly mid. Great for other people, just not for me.
I have an excellent therapist now (I’m being challenged to grow and change!) but to your point about how much time you’d want to put in to find someone good, I spent a long time looking for her, and she came on the heels of a string of mediocre therapists (I settled, for a long time, because I thought it was better to be in therapy even with someone who wasn’t great just so that I’d have someone on retainer in case things went horribly awry). I do firmly believe that the right therapist can work wonders, but it can take a lot of time and energy to find someone who’s a good fit, and that might not be worth it to you right now. That’s okay. But if you’re still on the fence about whether it’s worth it, I’d encourage you to continue on in your search a little longer. The worst that happens is you cross a few more names off your list. But the best that happens? You find someone who’s actually a great fit for you.
Riese: I do think it can help sometimes to take pressure off your other interpersonal relationships to have a therapist who is paid to listen to you talk about the things you’re obsessing over that nobody else in your life wants to hear you talk abut anymore. Just, hypothetically.
You’re not wrong that therapy doesn’t always help, or that there are some types of people who will use therapy to validate destructive or unhealthy behavior in a way that is not necessarily productive for that person’s life or relationships. Therapists can be misled or manipulated. And there are some who aren’t very good! I’ve had four good therapists in my life, all whomst I’ve seen for multiple years, and then … eight? Who I stopped seeing because they weren’t a good fit. It’s very hit or miss.
She Won’t Stop Calling Me a “baby Gay”
Q
I started going out with this woman. She’s my first fling and first hookup but she won’t stop calling me a baby gay and talking about how little i know. I know I’m behind but I’m worried I’m not… lesbian enough or something
A
Summer: Like most diminutive turns of phrasing, ‘baby gay’ is cute until it stops being cute. She probably thinks it’s endearing and considers herself a guiding presence since she’s your first fling + hookup. But that’s no help when it’s starting to affect your self-esteem.
My usual suggestion is to talk to her about it and express your feelings. Tell her it makes you uncomfortable and why. Then use her response to gauge whether she’s a good fit for your life, since it will show how she responds to someone setting boundaries.
Oh, and uh… you are lesbian enough. Or gay enough. A ‘baby gay’ is still gay, after all.
Valerie: I agree that to her she probably finds it endearing, and not like you’re not “enough” but I can see how that kind of talk could make you self-conscious. Plus, if you’re actively flinging with her, you’re probably out of “baby gay” status by now, so you can definitely ask her to stop or tell her how it makes you feel or just clarify why she keeps talking about it. Instead of talking about how little you know, she could just be teaching you. There’s no such thing as “behind” – whether you come out at 12 or 92, if you’re a lesbain, you’re a lesbian. There’s no too gay or not gay enough, there’s no “right” way to be a lesbian, that’s just not how any of this works, and I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel that way.
Ashni: Well, you’re dating her, so you’re certainly lesbian enough. I’m sorry that she’s saying this to you! I want to assume positive intent here, that maybe this is meant to be a joke that’s being poorly delivered, but there’s a part of me that’s stuck on the power imbalance of it all, and I don’t love that she’s playing into it, even if it is a joke. I’d say something to her about how you don’t like it, or would appreciate if she didn’t say something like that again. If she continues, that’s your (unfortunate) answer.
Submit your own advice questions right here!
AF members get the benefit of having your advice questions answered by the team. We do our best to answer every question, which is like, 99% of them — very rarely do they stump us. Questions remain anonymous!
Comments
therapy has changed my life, including in getting diagnosed with a bipolar spectrum disorder and subsequently learning how to manage mood swings. I’d been seeing the same therapist for 3 years at the time (and now it’s been 7 years), and I don’t think I could do the work I’m doing with her with someone I’d known for less time. for me, I expect and hope to be in therapy every week forever—partly as one pillar of support for mood stability.
but I have (queer) friends who are skeptical of the blanket valorization of therapy that is common in our communities, and I’ve learned a lot from them. one has said, “having a bad therapist is worse than having no therapist,” and I think that’s true.
it makes sense to me that the queer community at large would be into something like therapy—I imagine there are higher rates of family trauma to unpack than average(?), and that it can feel healing to be prioritized and taken seriously in that space.
I think you’re right that it’s not a one-size-fits-all thing. I kind of think of it like the gym, or exercise… you get what you put into it, and different bodies need different types of movement, have different challenges, etc. same for brains.
I understand your frustration at the lack of nuance from the people you’re around. maybe there are people around you who agree with your take, but also don’t really speak up given the sense of uniformity from others? I hope you can maintain the sense of nuance in your own perspective that you feel is lacking from the community around you—that it’s a genuine solution for some people and in some contexts, and not others, and that we can hold both of those things—which will probably be made easier by not feeling alone in your skepticism or frustration with the status quo belief.
I’m a therapist, so clearly I am biased, but the reason I became a therapist was because of my experience as a patient.
There are many different types of therapy, so saying “go to therapy” is like asking for Netflix recommendations, and your friend responds with “watch a movie.” Calling all of these different things “therapy” feels inaccurate, especially when it becomes a blanket/default.
I work psychoanalytically (and am in training to become a psychoanalyst), and my approach is very different than a behavioral model like CBT or DBT. There is a lot of overlap within the “alphabet soup” of modalities, but they generally fit into categories of therapy, often established in rejection of the other.
Therapy is really inaccessible, especially in the US. A lot of therapists don’t accept health insurance because doing so is not financially sustainable for the therapist (insurance companies enjoy not paying therapists, plus and the infamous ‘jk lol’ “clawbacks,” where $10k suddenly disappears from the therapist’s bank account because the insurance company paid them then retroactively decides to not cover it and takes the $ back, sometimes without telling them). It’s a horrible system we’re caught in the middle of, hence BetterHelp and other Shein-quality therapy sites.
If you are interested in psychoanalytic therapy (which is different in practice than the stereotype old-bearded-white-man), many psychoanalytic institutes have clinics that accept insurance and/or sliding scale. With Telehealth, you don’t have to live in a big city with an institute, just in-state.