Jan 28, 2021
IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME
Need therapy? Save $5,000 If You’re Willing to Do the Work
Most people want the world to do it instead
When I was in graduate school, the department head said in class, “In 30 years of practicing, I never had one client who didn’t want me to wave a wand and make the world around them magically change so their pain would go away.”
It’s far too true.
I was a therapist with a population who were often skeptical about therapy. Some lasted about a month. Almost all quit before three months. Not coincidentally, they spent every session explaining why they didn’t need to change. Here are the reasons I heard time and time again:
- I didn’t do anything wrong.
- They shouldn’t have done that to me.
- No, I don’t want to do that.
FYI, a nonprofit mental health clinic will have a sliding-scale fee that makes therapy affordable. But if you go to a private therapist, you will pay $150 or more for a weekly session. This means that a person who attends for:
- one month wastes $600 dollars
- three months wastes $1,800 dollars (yikes!)
Therapists have said that anecdotally clients start showing real progress somewhere between six to 12 months of therapy. Why? Because it takes them that long to realize that all the excuses they give are just that — excuses. Then they become more open to doing the only thing that works: look honestly at their situation and start deciding what they’re going to do differently.
No matter what their problem is, no matter what the environment around them looks like, the only thing they can control is what they do.
So let’s look at the numbers. Assuming that the client begins to change after nine months — and that’s still a conservative number — their therapy has cost them 9 months at $600 per month. That total comes to $5,400.
So what’s the best way to save money on therapy? (Think about this for a moment.)
Your answer is probably something like stop hiding behind excuses and start working on yourself.
Here’s what you should keep reminding yourself when you begin therapy:
- I have at least some role in having this problem at this time in my life.
- I can’t change what other people do, but I can change what I do.
- I must be open to the ideas and behavior changes that the therapist offers me.
In other words, you must be motivated to “do the work”. This prevents you from wasting your money entirely and gives you much more likely to improve your life.
Boom! You’ve just saved between $3,600 and $7,200 dollars.
Now find a therapist and get started.
