“A good friend is better than a therapist” is an old adage that misses the nuances and true benefits of working with a therapist. Not to deter from the many wonderful things that our friendships bring to our lives, here I’ll discuss some of the many ways that working with a therapist can take your conversations above and beyond where they currently are.

Friends are Your Cheerleaders, Your Therapist is Your Coach

Part of what makes someone attractive as a friend is that they have your back. They’re there to support you when you need it. Our friends are often the first people we turn to when we need a boost in morale and a shoulder to lean on. The benefits of friendship would be a whole other article and are not to be discounted, however part of being a friend is that they take our side, unconditionally even when there’s more to gain from the situation than our personal perspective gives us access to. Though there are those friends that like to play Devil’s advocate, even their opinions are biased by the need to support the opposite position to ours.

Alternatively, your therapist approaches each session with you with a more neutral perspective. Without the added personal opinions and emotions that our friends bring to conversations, youth therapist is able to develop a uniquely non-judgemental relationship with you that creates open and genuine communication. The advantage of this is that they are able to unbiasedly encourage you to explore different aspects of the situation you are working through, helping you to gain a new and often more balanced position. This is an incredibly powerful place to stand in as a client. We all tend to fall into patterns of behaviour and thinking, and it is helpful to practice taking different perspectives to broaden our options for how we interpret and respond to various situations.

What difference does this make? The relationship you have with your therapist will be like no other relationship you have in your life. Together you’ll create a space of safety where the difficult conversations can happen and we’ll tell you what your friends won’t – always in respectful and supportive way. While your friends are your cheerleaders focusing on your successes, your therapist is more of a coach, helping you to examine your game play, identify the areas that need practice for improvement, and supporting you step-by-step, both in practice and on the field.

Golden Rule of Friendship Does Not Apply: Remember to Share and Play Nice

The expectation of reciprocity in friendship requires us to share air time with our friends. As much as they listen when we need to talk about something, there is the expectation that we’ll do the same in return. As much as you may love being able to be there for your friends in return, sometimes we need more personal talk time to fully process what is going on for us. Typical conversations with friends does not allow for this though, or if it does, we can feel as though there’s an imbalance in reciprocity which can lead to feelings of resentment if it happens on a continual basis. No one want to overwhelm their friendships and it’s actually a demonstration of healthy boundaries not to dominate your time with friends.

The benefit of working with a therapist is that the whole 50 minute session is all yours! In this time you can talk about anything and everything you want, without the need to share talk time. This is helpful in two way. First, you have no responsibility to us, the time is yours. If you need to talk about your break-up for what feels like the 100th time, you can and this is the best place to do it. Second, the full therapy session gives you the uninterrupted time to more fully process what is going on for you, which leads to progress in what ever area of concern you’re working on. Even better if you’re able to return the following week to continue your work in this area, having spent the week interacting with your world and applying the new perspective you practiced in your last therapy session.

We’re Really Listening

Do you ever feel like as much as your friend is engaged in a conversation that you’re having with them, that they’re not completely hearing your perspective? Or that the conversation doesn’t fully satisfy your need talk about an issue? It’s human nature to think about and prepare a response before the other person finishes speaking, and this often takes the conversation to a more personally focused direction. We’re all guilty of it.

A magic skill therapists are trained in active listening – listening both to what you’re overtly saying as well as what you’re not saying that is also pertinant to what you’re sharing. A therapist works on helping you to slow down your processing, to connect with what’s not only happening in your thoughts, but also your emotions and how they impact your body’s experience. This allows you to deepen your understanding of your issue and make more thoughtful and intentional decisions for action. With this focusing on you and what is impacting you in the session, you’re able to work through what is bothering or challenging you in ways you just can’t with a friend. You’ll find that working with a therapist, you truly get to what is at the core of your issue, without those shifts in conversation that naturally happen with a friend.
Yes, talking in this way can feel intense, and that’s part of why conversations with friends usually ebb and flow to talking about more light-hearted topics as well. However, a therapy session only lasts for 50 minutes and your therapist will work with you to manage your session so that you leave in a grounded and safe place.

Everything is on the Table

In every friendship conversation we censor ourselves to a certain degree. Even with the friends that we believe we can tell anything too, we tend to hold back aspects about how we truly feel about a situation to either save their feelings, or their perceptions of us. We all have that deep, down part of ourselves that we fear sharing with the world. This being said, there’s not a topic that you cannot share with your therapist. Even the taboo topics. Trust me, you won’t offend us. The list of possible topics for counselling that I’ve had clients share with me that they felt they were unable to share with their friends is endless. Sometimes there are those topics that you feel like you’ve exhausted with your friends, such as a difficult break-up that you still need more time to process. Or maybe topics your friends might take personally, including your relationships with your friends. Then there are the topics that you have never felt you could share with anyone, but impact your life in a meaningful way.

Therapy is a unique environment in which you can let it all out without the fear of judgment or rejection. Your therapist views you as a whole and complete person. Your flaws do not determine your worth, or impact you’re therapist’s opinion of you. To be honest, from my perspective, being witness to me client’s often hidden sides has only brought me more respect and admiration for them. It’s from this place that true change and progress is possible, and you can feel free to let it all out.

All in all, speaking with a therapist is uniquely different from having a conversation with a friend. Friendships are supportive, affectionate and amazing aspect of our daily lives – I do not want to deter from this. Working with a therapist, however, brings a new perspective to your issues and allows you to process and make progress in new ways.

~ Meredith of Parallel Wellness

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