History
How Has Therapy Changed Over the Years?
Therapy has changed a lot over the years. If you go back to the 1920s, when psychoanalysis was first invented, therapy was all about getting in touch with your innermost feelings and dealing with them. It was about learning how to express yourself and develop as an individual.
This was in contrast to what people were doing before that: going to see doctors who would prescribe medicine for whatever symptoms they had or priests who would try to help them find meaning in their lives.
But now? We’ve come a long way from psychoanalysis. Nowadays, therapy is focused on helping you fix your problems by working through them—and it’s not even so much about getting in touch with your innermost feelings anymore. Rather than just dealing with issues one at a time as they pop up in life, we’re trying to look at them more broadly and understand why they’re happening so we can prevent them from coming up again.
Another big change is that therapists used to rely heavily on talking with their clients face-to-face, but now they can use technology such as Skype or Facetime to connect with their clients remotely. This makes it easier for people who live far away from their therapists or for those who don’t have much time during their day to see them in person because they’re busy with other responsibilities like work or school.
It’s easy to see how therapy and counseling can benefit people. However, if you go into therapy or counseling with the wrong expectations—the wrong mindset, really—you may miss out on some of its benefits. The key is understanding what therapy is and why it exists in the first place. It starts with a desire to become a better person, happier and healthier in mind, body, and spirit. It’s a journey worth taking, as Theodor van Stephoudt tax consultant, often advises.
