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Anonymous10/19/25, 02:18No.16820466
Is psychotherapy a scam?
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Anon10/19/25, 02:33No.16820469
Yes
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Anon10/19/25, 02:55No.16820474
Yes.Any reputable shrink nowadays will set out a plan in your first few sessions. If you are going to a shrink on an open ended basis he is a snake oil salesman. Also most shrinks do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy now. Talking about your mom is so 1995.
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Anon10/19/25, 03:23No.16820487
No
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Anon10/19/25, 15:01No.16820757
lmao good will hunting shit
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Anon10/19/25, 16:50No.16820835
It’s not TECHNICALLY a scam. For example, is calling a licensed plumber to fix your toilet after you clogged it with a big fat shit a scam? No… unless you have the skills, means, and time to fix the toilet yourself. After all, doing it yourself in an hour with parts you bought would cost significantly less than hiring a professional who tinkers around for two hours and is on his phone most of the time. However, if you CAN’T fix your own toilet, it’s not a scam, unless something immediately goes wrong with whatever they manipulated or it takes an exceptionally unreasonable amount of time.Psychotherapy is like that. Some will scam you by getting you addicted to medications only they can provide. Some will artificially induce stress to gaslight you into requesting their services. Some even force you to pay a deposit for “long-term care” and then don’t actually do anything to help you. But, that’s all fairly obvious, and probably not what you are asking.Beneficial psychotherapy, like fixing your plumbing because you shit too big, is a scam only if the therapist is providing a service you are incapable of performing yourself. If you lack introspection, awareness, and self-motivation, then a good psychotherapist can help you. If you have all of these qualities, then you would be scammed if you went to a therapist, since it would be more efficient to fix your mental state on your own.
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Anon10/19/25, 16:56No.16820841
Therapy only works on NPCs with no introspection. If you have introspection, therapy will probably just tell you what you already know.https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/men-will-literally-have-completely>If you have no ability to systematically think about and solve your problems, you should probably tell all your problems immediately to someone who does, and maybe this person could be a therapist.>But also: people vary really widely in their ability to do something sort of like hold a conversation with themselves - for example, some people totally lack an inner monologue. Nobody has ever checked if those people benefit from therapy more, and I don't want to actively predict that they would. But I know that I talk things over with myself a lot. Does this help me stay emotionally stable? Not sure; seems plausible. If I didn't have an inner monologue, maybe the only way I could get that same effect would be by talking them over with another person.>Other people obsessively seek external reassurance. I talked here about the phenomenon of hypochondriacs who go to their doctor to be told that their latest concern (maybe the 25th time they had a certain symptom) isn't worth worrying about, same as the last 24 times. They're not even asking for an x-ray or something! They're just happy to hear the doctor say the words "given that your last 24 symptoms were nothing, I'm assuming this one isn't anything either". Then they are delighted and go home! I sometimes think about this by analogy to "you can't tickle yourself" - some people can't reassure themselves either, and are very happy to hear thoughts they could have easily generated themselves coming from other people's mouths. Are these some of the people who benefit from therapy? Seems plausible.
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Anon10/19/25, 17:12No.16820850
this person put it pretty well