This is somewhat inspired by the recent male loneliness post.
I often see online the phrase: “Everyone needs therapy”. While I do agree with the idea that controlling your mindset and attitude towards yourself and the world is an important part of personal growth, I disagree that the best way to do this is therapy.
The best way to do this is exposure to different people around you, and different lives and experiences. This shows you the errors with your attitudes directly, costs less, and is more natural and enjoyable.
I think therapy when used as a way to vent and talk about your day is just a bad stopgap to replace the role that your friends should have in your life. The reason therapy gets suggested so much is because people have lost the will or ability to socialise and make friends easily and quickly, or to go up to strangers and talk.
If you have a specific mental condition, such as schizophrenia or you’re bipolar or have childhood trauma, then that’s a job for a therapist. But most people don’t have these problems, thankfully :)
The reason the phrase is used frequently despite all this is because people with certain ideologies are still trying to destigmatise mental healthcare, instead of questioning what the best methods for what they’re recommending are. If you want people’s minds to be healthy, they need healthy lives, friends, and experiences, not to pay someone to talk to.
Edit: Just to add to how it’s inspired by the male loneliness post, in my opinion society at large does need to take responsibility for individual mindsets (because of my view as expressed in this post). If a man is lonely and blames the world for it, they may well be right, not just toxic and entitled. I’m happy to discuss this point too.