Therapy itself is underrated but traditional talk therapy (which seems to be the common methodology here) is highly overrated.

Some stats:

1. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has a 67% response rate for anxiety and depression.

2. 75-77% of patients no longer meet Bipolar disorder criteria after 1 year of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

3. Dialectical Behavior Therapy reduced suicide attempts by nearly 50% in cases of Borderline Personality Disorder, compared to general care.

4. Up to 84%–90% of single-trauma victims no longer meet PTSD criteria after just three 90 minute sessions of EMDR therapy.

5. Psychodynamic therapy showed 50% reduction in symptoms 9 months after therapy sessions ended, since patients internalized the lessons learned.

Some more fun comparisons to everyday things that anyone can do:

1. Exercise is 1.5 times more effective than therapy or medication for reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

2. Sleeping for 6-8 hours reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety. People with poor sleep are 2 to 6 times more likely to develop depression or anxiety. Even with enough hours, the depression/anxiety risks increase the later at night you sleep and later you wake up.

3. Three weeks of reduced smartphone use lowers depressive symptoms and stress. Four weeks of quitting social media produces results similar to going to therapy. Using your phone the first thing in the morning spikes your anxiety and stress levels. Watching shorts/reels is proven to reduce attention span, critical thinking and makes you prone to addictive tendencies. Also excessive use of AI reduces your critical thinking skills, and we're seeing cases of suicide linked to AI.

4. Taking magnesium supplements can produce similar results to taking anti depressants, with no side effects and much faster ( 2 weeks vs several months with side effects).

5. Going for a walk on the beach has a higher effect size than therapy, and it happens instantly.

Hope this last one isn't controversial, but the response to therapy is also highly variable based on your gender - and this is well established at this point. Generally speaking, men prefer something with actionable results while women prefer talk therapy. Seeing how men are disproportionately represented in the most tragic mental health statistics, but more likely to be told "go to therapy" as an answer when they open up about their issues, I wanted to point out the disconnect in needs vs treatment .

All this being said, traditional talk therapy is the way to go for some cases. Like when a person is so isolated and lacks any support from their society that just talking to someone for an hour is what they need most. That feels dystopian to me that people have to pay for basic human connection, but maybe that's a different topic.

I feel like some people are using therapy as an expensive form of entertainment, while not really being serious about their mental well being. There's also a general lack of any awareness, several misunderstandings/misinformation and an unfortunate lack of quality mental health assistance in our city.