Therapy on TV is Fake
Do you know what your problem is? Because I do, let me tell you...
As a therapist, I often cringe while watching TV shows and movies depicting therapy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that mental health therapy is becoming more normative, and I partially attribute that to therapy being more commonly portrayed in media these days. But the way therapy is portrayed on TV isn’t exactly realistic.
To be fair, most of the time real therapy would be too boring for TV and the hyper fast-paced movement from scene to scene. Believe it or not, it is NOT your therapist’s job to briefly listen to you and then tell you exactly what your problem is based on their interpretation. That is not how therapy works. And if that’s what your therapist does, it’s probably time to find a new therapist.
This discrepancy results in people going to therapy with a very unrealistic expectation of how therapy will go and how much effort will be required of them. And that is not okay.
In reality, therapy is hard. The kind of hard that takes effort and time. There is no quick fix for working through and processing your experiences.
On TV, the “therapist” typically has a minute or less to really wow the client and create that breakthrough scene that everyone craves. Usually by the time the therapist shares their “insight,” we’re all wondering why this clueless person doesn’t see how they are sabotaging their own life. Almost as if it were scripted. Oh wait…
Real life isn’t scripted. There isn’t only one super obvious solution that resolves the major life issue and turns things around. It would be nice if it was that way, but humans are way too complex and interconnected for that.
People often walk into my office and say something along the lines of, “If I could be better at this part of my life, my life would be better … so how do I do that?” There is this preconceived expectation that going to therapy is just like taking your car in for an oil change — drain the oil, switch the filter, refill it, and you’re good to go.
In reality, starting therapy is closer to the car repairs you need after an accident. Before the mechanic can give you a detailed description of everything wrong, they have to spend time painstakingly disassembling parts to expose everything hiding beneath the surface.
As they remove the external shell, issues are revealed under the surface that require attention. It is a slow process that involves significant time and attention. Just like therapy.
When people walk into therapy with the expectation that we’ll talk for a few minutes, they’ll have their breakthrough, and leave, they are usually disappointed. Those pivotal life-changing breakthroughs you see on TV can happen, but not every session. And they definitely don’t typically happen in the first 5 minutes of every session.
Breakthroughs come as the result of a lot of effort and patience. Similar to almost every other worthwhile thing in life.
True therapy is not like TV therapy. It isn’t scripted; the conversation doesn’t flow so perfectly from problem to solution. And it takes a tremendous amount of effort and vulnerability. Anyone who goes to real therapy expecting the sort of stuff you see on TV will probably walk away frustrated and disappointed. That is sad because real therapy is 100% worth the work.
