Did anyone watch Jonah Hill’s Netflix documentary about his psychiatrist, Phil Stutz and his model of therapy?
If you have/had a therapist, what’s your story? Did you find them helpful and inspiring? Any lessons learned which you see as worthy of sharing?
I haven’t seen this show, but will watch it.
I think the #1 problem with starting therapy isn’t the therapist. It’s that many people don’t understand from the outset that therapy takes a bit of time. It’s much better if someone seeking therapy is aware that it’s not meant to have instant results, though there are certainly ways a therapist can help in the short term.
I always come back to this analogy, which is a bit labored, but bear with me—
Using therapy is similar to having a really tricky jigsaw, like one with at least a thousand pieces. You have all the pieces, and you know what the picture is supposed to look like: you. But there are so many pieces that you don’t know how they all come together. The therapist helps you put together the jigsaw, but they don’t actually know what the picture is supposed to be. As they learn to understand your picture, they can help you put the puzzle together.
You lay the pieces out so you can see them all, and at first, maybe you can only put together a few pieces. Some days you put together a lot, other days only a few. Then you might start noticing all these pieces in random places which you hadn’t noticed before, and they are important too.
Eventually, you’ll get closer to finishing the jigsaw and you’ll feel much better about it as it nears completion. Some people might lose a piece of the puzzle, others might run out of steam, or some might make really slow progress and have to keep plugging away with the therapist’s help. There are all kinds of outcomes. Hopefully, if a person had a good therapist, they might be able to complete the puzzle themselves, using all the therapist has helped them understand.
I found therapy to be incredibly important. Losing three parents (including in-laws) during the pandemic, and, of course, the pandemic itself, was very stressful. I knew I would benefit from seeking the guidance of a therapist. (I have seen social workers, not psychiatrists or psychologists, to clarify.)
I personally think therapy is incredibly helpful and that most people could benefit from it. Unsurprisingly, there were physical issues that seem to have abated since I sought the help of a therapist. Mental health is totally related to overall health. I think it’s disgraceful that many insurance companies don’t make it easy for people to seek therapy.
Well put. Human psyche is a puzzle and often with missing pieces.
As it’s expensive and time consuming to see therapists, majority never sees one. I fee like there should be required mental health courses in schools and colleges and helpful tools should be available as a public health service on tv and on community level so everyone can benefit.
Everyone but specially every parent needs empathetic communication skills to better connect with and raise mentally healthy children.
In many cultures people avoid uncomfortable topics, which leads to long term mental health issues.
Our therapist said that people tended to quit therapy when the “real work” began. The hard stuff.
The only form of therapy that really took a hold for me and mine is Imago. In its most basic form it’s about understanding that when in a relationship (of any kind) one is simply reflecting themselves. We choose the people we choose to help us heal the wounds, because while they most certainly look different to us, the wounds are the same or at least similar. It’s not unlike my Buddhist learnings, but in no way is it a Buddhist thing. It’s just how I saw (see) it. I am you, you are me. A thousand years ago I wanted to make the license plate IRUURI2 but they were expensive (maybe still are) and I sure didn’t have the $ for that!
I haven’t seen the documentary (don’t have Netflix), but googled it to learn more. Sounds interesting. I especially liked the discussion of different tools that therapists can use. There are a variety of approaches to therapy these days, some that didn’t exist–or I was unaware of–earlier in my life.
I spent the better part of my 20s in therapy trying to come to terms with a difficult childhood family situation. At the time I had no knowledge about alternatives; I thought all therapy was the same, and I just had to find someone I liked (and could afford!).
For several years I saw a woman whose method was the stereotypical “Hmmm [nod]. And how did that make you feel?” She said very little, just the occasional question and the even rarer comment. I guess I was supposed to figure things out by listening to myself talk. And though I did come to understand a lot about my family, it really didn’t do anything to alleviate my depression.
I’ve heard of people who spend decades in analysis with this type of technique. But for me, I eventually felt stuck and stopped therapy.
In contrast, at another time I saw a therapist whose sessions were much more like a conversation. He’d ask questions, comment on what I said, and even offer his opinion, not as in telling me what to do, but as a different perspective to consider. Granted, I was older and wiser, and was seeking help for a particular problem (though we ended up delving into much deeper issues), but I made more progress in 6 months with him than several years with the previous therapist.
My preference is for therapies that give me tools to deal with my life as it is now. That may require delving into the past, to aid understanding, but that alone is not enough. I can’t change the past, but do want to change the way I live in the present.
I finally found a therapist like that. He’s already helped me a lot after just a few sessions. He has lots of good insights and recommends good books. I’m so glad to be seeing him.
Not many therapists are worth the couch, they charge for you to sit on. Most are average or below average and want you to keep coming and paying because their living depends on your hourly payment. If you don’t feel a good connection and beginning of a productive outcome after 10 sessions, move on to another one, until you find someone who’s teaching style clicks with your learning style.
It may help more for making mental health education a preventative health tool to improve us cumulatively so individual therapy becomes less of a necessity. New parents, teens, new couples, elderly, disabled can specially benefit from having skills to decrease the need of therapy.
While I think there’s some truth in what @JustaMom’s therapist said, there is also an inherent conflict of interest in the way therapy is done. A good therapist, like a good teacher (or parent, for that matter) understands their job is to get you to the point where you don’t need them anymore.
The woman I spent years with tried to dissuade me from quitting, because she felt I still had important work to do. I knew on some level she was right, but what I couldn’t articulate at the time was that I wasn’t going to get there with her.
The man I saw for 6 months agreed we had reached a sensible stopping point and helped me “wrap up” in a helpful way.
My H and I were just talking about this tonight. I’ve been to therapy 4 times - when our son died, when we were having issues in our marriage, when my mom got sick, and when my parens died. I found it incredibly helpful every time, for different reasons. There is something incredibly helpful in talking to a professional who isn’t emotionally invested in the situation and can be totally impartial.
I found the experiences to be very affirming and positive and would recommend it to anyone who is struggling.
The Stutz documentary on Netflix is excellent. So excellent that I’m going to make my teenage kids watch it. It’s really really really good. Full of solid mental health advice. Best thing I’ve watched on TV in over a year. Truly awesome.
Folks interested in this topic may enjoy the book “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb (A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed." I enjoyed it. It’s a bit behind the curtain of a therapist. Looking it up I guess they are making it into a show. I have been interested in Stutz but will watch now, this thread put it on my list!
I might give it another try. I stopped when Jonah Hill was astounded to learn that some key basics to improving mental health were exercise, diet, and sleep. I’d been telling DS (and myself) that for years. 
I watched it for about about 40 minutes then I got a bit turned off by the love fest. I did find Stutz an interesting person, and Hill clearly is very grateful to him and regards him as a friend, but it also felt a tad cultish.
I love, love, loved the book, which I read shortly after I started my psychotherapy career, and the movie too. Yeah, a little weird with the green screen, etc. but I appreciate Stutz as a psychiatrist who tries to find something to help patients/clients right away.
I am going to a psychology conference in March and looking forward to a keynote by Lori Gottlieb.