National Psychotherapy Day

Today marks the first National Psychotherapy Day; a day to promote the utilization of therapy in general, to help fight the stigma that comes with going to therapy, and to bring awareness to the improvements needed for community mental health programs. Although there seems to be a National Something Day virtually everyday, this is one that has a good mission and one I'm hoping makes an impact. Due to the stigma attached to mental illness, there is also a stigma attached to going to therapy. This is in part a byproduct of the bias that views medical illness as more acceptable than psychiatric illness. In fact, they are both types of ailments that humans can have and they both need and require treatment. Once we equate medical and psychiatric illness, society will devote more resources to mental health services, the stigma of mental illness will be eliminated, and people will not be reluctant to seek therapy. I'm hopeful that some day in the near future, therapy will become so common and acceptable that people will talk about their "general therapist" the way they talk about their "general practitioner." Another myth that leads to the stigma of therapy is that going to therapy means you are "crazy" or have "serious issues." This is definitely not the case. People go to therapy for all kinds of reasons and issues, from very minor to serious, and many people enter therapy just to learn more about themselves, without any significant "problem" bringing them in. As a therapist, I know that for every person in therapy, there are many more people not going to therapy who need it even more. Going to therapy should be recognized as a sign of strength and responsibility, rather than a sign of being "weak" or "crazy." The truth is that the process of therapy can be healthy and helpful for everyone. And there is a lot of research showing that psychotherapy works. Many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of therapy, and even shown it to be as effective or even more effective than medications in the treatment of common mental disorders like depression and anxiety. Additionally, even in disorders where medication is necessitated, adding psychotherapy will almost always facilitate healing and recovery and help prevent the relapse of symptoms. So it's very clear that psychotherapy works. Hopefully more and more people will let it work for them.