Reddit reviews The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients (Covers may vary)

youre talking yourself into staying miserable or numb, and paying someone to validate your internal status quo.

That's pretty sad and wasteful, because youre then going to use this failed therapy to further tell yourself "SEE I TRIED" to stay stuck indefinitely.

I've met and talked to lots of sad 50+ yr old self-bullshitting intelligent men like that in my neighborhood. They're well-educated lonely assholes who just can't see themselves from the outside. I was a 20something at the time and they'd chat with me about their lives (craving female company I guess) thinking I would be sympathetic, but I could see all their self-sabotaging patterns, subconsciously we are all exactly where we want to be. They had no intention of changing just a life of 'trying'... As a defensive neurotic person not willing to stay that way, it was a real cautionary tale.

I don't want to bullshit myself out of a good life....anyway

Maybe you should pause therapy, read a bunch of books on how it works, and then go back with deeper appreciation for the "type" of work involved and asked of you.

If you're lazy and like binging tv Could also watch the old HBO show "In Treatment" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835434/

(season 1 and 2 are the best and a nice set of varied patients in each) if you want a well-written fictionalized sense of how therapy could be, how different patients bullshit themselves emotionally until theyre sick of themselves and their trust in the therapeutic bond helps them change. Each character has a real arc, about 5 characters each doing weekly sessions.

You can pirate/stream it /buy it in a few places I think. The only downside is unrealistic expectations because most therapists are'nt that emotionally skilled/ attentive and most patients don't reveal their symptoms, absorb insights, or go that deep in 8 sessions. It's idealized and strangely fun to watch for two people talking, but it helped me believe in the process before I invested in real life.

P.S. if at some point you don't bring it all back to childhood, you have wasted your money. In my opinion CBT and the rest of the "thinking" based stuff are bandaids, playing whack-a-mole with symptoms that will rear back in new forms.

Also, once therapy helps you get the initial emotional bond with yourself, you can better help yourself, self-help books etc go a long way when you can actually feel and intuit the messages better. None of those resources make sense or will help you at all while you are cut off from your body and unconscious self.

Thats the best bang for your buck in my opinion, read a bunch to prepare yourself on how it works under the surface, spend all the time in therapy feeling things you may have repressed, avoided, talked your way out of, then leave therapy better able to sort out which resources you can use (The books I've found have been more profound for me than therapy but I wouldn't have known which subjects to search for or been "emotionally available" enough for the words and insights to reach me)

this is also just a nice intro book and super short https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617

(the pdf is floating around libgen / web if you're feeling cheap) good luck

EDIT -- also you sound really stiff, why don't you watch some School of Life youtube videos just to get a better grip on the emotional rhetoric involved. Videos like this one always get to me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fG9-W-OwCs

Here are some books that helped me starting out:

https://www.amazon.com/Therapy-101-Modern-Psychotherapy-Techniques/dp/1572245689/ref=nodl_


https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Counseling-Techniques-Beginning-Therapists/dp/1403383278


https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Every-Counselor-Should-Know/dp/0134694899/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_2/140-3603070-6736458?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0134694899&pd_rd_r=6244c735-a8ca-477d-b6da-c7479d997978&pd_rd_w=ApuBS&pd_rd_wg=P7EIR&pf_rd_p=1c5a26b5-ed76-40f7-b20c-b5d5bd4bc6be&pf_rd_r=CB0QXMR53WBGJ8149ZZ5&psc=1&refRID=CB0QXMR53WBGJ8149ZZ5


https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_3/140-3603070-6736458_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0061719617&pd_rd_r=87c54203-1b24-4fc2-a300-c79a7561e18c&pd_rd_w=F5pJ4&pd_rd_wg=m066p&pf_rd_p=6e6afc8a-fbbd-4649-97cf-4e08f5113612&pf_rd_r=DXCB9181CMTWCT0EEPTM&psc=1&refRID=DXCB9181CMTWCT0EEPTM

If you have any interest in therapy, I unequivocally recommend The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom. In fact, I recommend any of Yalom's books.

Hi -- I just came across your post.

You've gotten some good replies on here. To add to them, I'd just like to point out that many people who go into a psychology field for their master's degree have a different undergrad degree.

From what I understand, most schools will require you to get a certain score on either the GRE or the MAT, demonstrate that you have decent writing skills, and have a few people recommend you. Also, interviews are common. Typical interview questions often try to get a sense of your maturity, your motivations for wanting to be in the field, possibly some degree of cultural competency, and how well you can present as professional and articulate.

It sounds like you're on the right track to being an appealing candidate, especially signing up for the hotline. I'd recommend, if you haven't already, doing some reading about what the counseling process is like. This will help give you a better sense of what to expect and allow you to speak more fluently about the topic. There are a few good books on the topic to check out.

Also, if you're looking for a master's program with a more clinical focus, it might be a good idea to look at counseling programs as opposed to social work programs.

Best of luck!