What You Need to Know about Therapy
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I’m beginning 2026 with some reflection of our field and a re-grounding in why we do this work at all, why we show up, why we care, and why it matters.
See, I read a piece the other day about therapy diaspora. Essentially, this is the TikTok trending discussion that individual therapy within traditional mental health structures must be reevaluated as people gravitate to communal spaces of belonging, oftentimes now online, as more relevant and valid places to heal. The discussion mentions that traditional mental health treatment systems are inaccessible and do not address collective trauma within cultural groups, often even accelerating oppressive wounds through the rigid structure.
The System Is Broken, Not Therapy
This discussion is not wrong, and our mental health system is broken, and it is true that colonized healthcare models can retraumatize. We do not have enough behavioral health resources at hospitals, schools, or in communities. The cost of insurance continues to rise, along with inflation, pricing many people out of affordable options in the marketplace or at their employment. Additionally, only a few insurance providers pay fair and reasonable wages to psychotherapists, thereby gatekeeping access and forcing clinicians to choose between their own standard of living and providing affordable care.
Many psychotherapists are choosing to leave the field altogether, trying their hands at influencing, coaching, consulting, and more group work. But social media is not a steady or reliable place to gain new clients - algorithms change, “pay to play” is becoming the norm for smaller accounts, and one viral video increasingly does not guarantee some big payday.
I see the allure of bucking the system. We’ve been let down by traditional corporate overlords time and time again. The number of times we, a small mom-and-pop mental health company, have to plead to these billion-dollar “non-profits” to pay us for the work we’ve already completed, arguing against AI bots, is demoralizing. But while yes, the mental health system has so much room to improve, I’d argue that therapy itself is not broken. In fact, I think it’s more important now than ever.
Understanding Therapy’s True Purpose
Therapy is not about fixing someone.
I had a conversation with a lovely mom a few weeks ago, as she was looking for a new therapist for her teen daughter. She said how her daughter’s current therapist isn’t “doing enough”, as her daughter is still moody, defiant, anxious, and sad. The mom is looking for more practical steps, worksheets, and actionable items to measure her daughter’s improvement.
I hear this same sentiment at least twice weekly. I think our intake manager hears it 10x a day. But I’ll tell you all what I told this mom: Therapy is a long game. It’s not about fixing your daughter’s mood right now - especially since teen girls are likely to remain moody and unstable for many years. For a teen, especially, the therapy she is in is about relationship building. It’s about building trust in someone else through weekly sessions, so she can learn to ask for help, rely on others, feel comfortable getting feedback, and trust others. Therapy is a building block, with every positive encounter paving the way back to this resource whenever she needs it in the future.
Therapy is also not about crisis intervention. If someone is actively suicidal, a weekly session is not going to fix that, nor should it be expected to. When someone is so despondent, so depressed, so in the depths of despair, therapy cannot be the only answer. When a crisis occurs, we have to rely on a whole host of help: loved ones, medicine, leaves from work, systemic supports, exercise, nature, and faith/meaning/purpose larger than oneself.
To assume therapy alone will fix someone is to accept failure.
Therapy is about being with another human.
Relational therapy, the one where you sit with another human (ideally in-person, but online works too with the right person), is so unique. It’s unique in that it is 45-60 minutes where you are allowed to show up, be heard, given attention and time and tenderness and compassion and attuned feedback - about the pains of being a human- with another human. We do not often get this opportunity from others. Friends, partners, parents - they all try to do this for us in their own loving ways, but it’s often filled with their own stories and perspectives. This is no fault of their own; they are not trained on countertransference and bias like licensed professionals are. We also cannot rely on AI bots and texting to drop into the nuance of this shared space.
So to be in a room (or on a screen) with someone who gives you their undivided, attuned attention to your lived experience - your stories, your feelings, your thoughts, your body language, your pain, your suffering, your hopes, your fears - without any judgment or expectation from you - is so fucking special and unique these days.
Part of therapy is in the tiny acknowledgments. It’s the tears in your therapist’s eyes as you recount the story of your abuse. It’s the consent to hold your hand when you share about losing your mom. It’s the way they lean in when you speak more softly, having a hard time sharing. It’s the way we take deep breaths to co-regulate with you, pause to allow you to reorient, and hold your gaze when you cannot meet your own.
Only humans, being human together, can do this for each other. And each tiny human interaction is a validation that yes, you exist and matter - to me, and to this world. Thank you for being here. I see you and welcome all of you.
Therapy is about cultivating safety.
It truly does not matter who you are, where you are from, how you’re wired, the color of your skin, the language you speak, or the amount of money in your bank account when it comes down to one essential need in therapy: safety.
And a well-trained psychotherapist does not need to know your exact experiences or share them to create a container for you to feel safe. A well-trained therapist is culturally affirming and responsive; open-minded and inclusive to all. Too many therapists (and humans in general) have criteria for the people they surround themselves with or serve; this judiciousness is not doing the field any service in cultivating collective healing for harmed groups.
When we hold safety in mind, we engage with each individual’s nervous system from the very first interactions. It’s in how we reply to emails, pick up the phone, and build our marketing. It’s in language, colors, and office aesthetics.
Keeping attuned to a client’s nervous system also means therapy can be slow when we follow the patient’s pace, and that is okay and important. If we rush the process, set artificial goals, project our own agendas, and come in with timelines and prescriptive treatment plans, we are continuing the unhelpful patterns of disassociation. In a traditional mental health clinic subject to insurance regulations, this can pose a problem, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle.
We are also building safety through many subtleties during the session as well: the way we speak to you, the way we arrange the furniture, the way we pause and watch you, mirroring our own body position. It may be in the way we ask you to pause and breathe, or notice where in your body you feel that thought, or how your body wants to let out that feeling. It may be in listening to music together, going on a walk, smelling chocolate, stretching your neck, visualizing your happy place, practicing meditation, or drawing. It may be quietly nodding as you vent about your parent and boss, cry over your lost pet, or sit in silence in our company.
Cultivating safety has no destination point. It’s ongoing. It’s titrated, slowly, pendulated with catharsis and breakthroughs, and brought back down to simple measures. It’s tested, in each interaction, through small invitations.
Therapy is remembering who you really are.
It is an ideal “outcome” of therapy to, with guidance, slowly and carefully explore how you’ve built strategies, walls, reactions, personality traits, parts, boundaries, behaviors, and stories in an effort to feel safe in this harsh world and then, eventually, let those coping mechanisms and strategies go to reveal a more peaceful state of being.
In therapy, we aim to familiarize you with contemplation space - the space between your thoughts, feelings, and actions. In this space, you are the observer of all the noise that gets mixed up within your mind and creates narratives about who you are.
As we engage in the process, we’re slowly building resilience with you so that you can become aware of the witness within you and then withstand the quiet reflection and what arises. We’ll help you determine and work to overcome the barriers that get in the way of you creating a contemplation space. We’ll practice being regulated enough to settle into a place of reflection with curiosity rather than judgment, urgency, or force. We’ll work with you to discern the voice of your ego/monkey mind/strategies/parts from the deliberate, authentic voice of your inner wisdom and essence. Then, we’ll be with you as you respond to what comes up - the uncomfortable urges, the cathartic release, the fear, pain, anger, and sadness.
I reflect on a client I’ve been working with on and off for 7+ years. This client took years to work through survival strategies, finally becoming aware of the strategies they mistook for who they are. While they are hanging out in feelings of anger and resentment, I have maintained by just holding space. I have no agenda, no timeline, no need to push them along. What they are doing - uncovering, unlayer, coming to terms with deep trauma - is a laborious and painful process. But they keep going. They have, through the years, shifted from denial into activated anger. They are closer to acceptance. They keep being brave, vulnerable, and not just showing up. And by doing this work, they are coming out of their shell, slowly unveiling their true self to their spouse, friends, and children - it’s a self that is unmasked and vulnerable. And guess what? They finally feel less lonely. It’s in finally revealing their authenticity that they feel a true connection.
This ongoing process gets you in touch with your true self and, hopefully, provides a roadmap to help you find your own “reset” moment to self-guide yourself through challenges.
Therapy must be engaged with, not just attended.
There is a difference between “going to therapy” and “being in therapy.” The latter, to be in therapy, is about active engagement in the process. Therapy is not a passive endeavor in which, if we just show up each week and share what’s been going on, we’ll be miraculously better.
Like most things in life, effort is essential in order to see real transformation. To engage in therapy, clients will come motivated to be challenged and get uncomfortable. A client who is in therapy comes to the session prepared, with notes from the week, their own journal reflections, and items to address in the session. Even in a more structured setting, such as EMDR, a client must be aware of the events they wish to reprocess and willing to confront painful memories.
Therapy is dynamic, non-linear, and completely dependent on participation. Therapists are patient people by profession - it’s not about how long it takes for a client to feel better, but it is about how willing a client is to try. When therapists recommend activities outside of session, it’s not for our own CYA; it’s truly because what happens outside of session is incredibly important to inform what can happen in session.
When therapy is treated like a checkmark on the to-do list, it feels transactional and superficial. However, when therapy is treated like an experience, honored by commitment, vulnerability, honesty, and effort, that’s when we see it working. The way someone shows up to therapy often reflects how they show up in many areas of their life, so being in integrity with the process may be the start of seeing shifts elsewhere.
Rediscover Your Purpose
But we know, deeply, that individual connection is not enough. When an individual asks for help, it lays the foundation for someone to feel brave enough to reach out to a community. It’s in community and engagement with the world where humans can find purpose again. When we do the work in therapy to free ourselves from the noise/distortion/ego, we have more capacity to show up for ourselves and others - in times of need and celebration - to be of service and give back to humanity - the purpose of our lives becomes clearer.
Lastly, and this is where I do agree with the urgency to culturally affirm collective wounds and empower groups of people, coming together is essential. I just hope we have individuals who have engaged in the work first, sincerely, so that we do not perpetuate themes of power and manipulation. We must be discerning consumers and contributors in the saturated self-help marketplace, grounded in both ancient wisdom and credentialed expertise.
When we cannot authentically, without ego, transmute what happens with our personal growth into collective good, we’re missing a large part of the point. A bunch of people “healing” in isolation is not helping this world. We must take what we create in pure uplifted energy and apply it to service, connection, and raising the vibration of others through our own compassionate presence. That is the true purpose of therapy.
Support for Your Mental Health
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Conscious Transparency: This newsletter was edited by AI for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, but every idea, tone of voice, perspective, and word choice was my own. This newsletter is imperfect because a human wrote it. Thank you for your graciousness.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: I think we may be at a point where almost anything could be questioned as true information or reality. It’s a scary place to be - images people post can be AI-generated (like the ones I used today) and articles crafted with clickbait headlines, sourcing events from 4+ years ago. AI may cannibalize social media, and I’m okay with it. But I’m not accepting it without trying to do better. Substack, this corner of the internet where authors are (I hope) ethically publishing pieces they have genuinely authored, gives me hope. And each time I stay up late, blearily eyed, typing something I’m called to write, I feel I’m doing my part to keep authentic art alive. I hope you have a medium for that, too.
Gratitude: Vulnerability. I’m so grateful for my friends who come in hot with “please check my sanity” or “I am so burned out” or “this is REALLY hard” - those moments of honesty are true connection and validating that yes! Being human is hard! But you’re not alone! Share it, tell it, someone wants to hear it. Because what you see on someone’s Reels is NOT the whole truth. Trust me - I get paid to hear the truth ;)
Innovation: Jonathan Haidt has done it again - the author of Anxious Generation published a kid-facing book, The Amazing Generation, all about teaching and empowering kids to choose a life less reliant on tech. Go out and buy for every tween and teenager you know, please!
Feels: 2025 was the year of the snake, and sloughing is a word that feels relatable to the year. This year, the year of the horse, I’m seeing themes of boldness, fire, strength, and resilience. For me, it’s a year of ease and surrender. I did a lot of efforting the last few years, and slowly tending my fire in a held container, just maintaining it without force or attention, is the vibe. I look forward to helping others build their fires, their boldness, their lights, without needing to prove my own. I’ll check in down the road on how this is going…