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Before you assume that all of us therapists are out there for your time and money, please take a deep breath and consider the benefits of mental health parity.
Now, I am usually all for a more conservative approach to treatment, both medical and psychological. A good counselor will know when a client no longer needs treatment. A great counselor will actively work with a client to ensure that they are not in treatment longer than is absolutely necessary for his or her health.
Having an academic and professional background in counseling, I am trained to assess, conceptualize, and put together treatment plans for my clients. Sometimes symptoms warrant a diagnosis, but when diagnosing can be avoided I am of the camp that believe that it should. It stands then to reason that many would find it suspect that one's treatment can be ever finished; if the problem has no name, how can there be a treatment? If there is no standardized treatment, how can you know what a successful outcome would be? And if you can't measure the outcome, how can you ever truly be finished?
If you are seeing any professional counselor, you have the right to know what treatment modality your therapist is using, and you should ask him or her. All licensed therapists are required to use only empirically supported treatments that are appropriate for your unique situation, and have been shown to be effective. Similar to doctors who have taken the Hippocratic oath, counselors too are ethically bound to do no harm to clients and provide only treatment that is efficacious and appropriate. That is not to say that there aren't swindlers out there, but to view the profession as fraudulent is grossly untrue.
Regarding length of treatment, if you, the client, never left therapy, it would mean that our work together isn't really working, and that would make me, the therapist, a failure. And trust me, therapists do not want to fail their clients. Long gone are the days of psychoanalysis which took years to finally uncover the unconscious. Today, most providers utilize brief and concise empirically supported treatment modalities that are specifically designed to achieve symptom relief quicker and more efficiently.
Treatment outcomes are not vague, in fact, they should be specific and discussed from the initial session. So if you are concerned that you will be stuck forever in treatment, make sure you know what it is you hope to accomplish...For some the goal is less frequent arguing with a spouse. For others it is being able to go from a 6 on a scale of sadness (1-10) to a 3. There are measurable goals in therapy, and if you are working with a good therapist they are attainable.
In previous posts I address the stigma of mental illness and the difficulty many have in getting treatment. Sometimes the difficulty lies in treatment being not affordable, or simply not covered by insurance. Is it possible that some people in this country take advantage of benefits? Yes. However, with 1 in 4 of us experiencing clinical depression in our lifetimes, to ignore the necessity and validity of therapy would be unethical. And yes, it is true also that there are professionals and paraprofessionals out there who would gladly take advantage of you and keep you coming as long as they could. But then again, don't we see that with nearly every other profession, too?
There is a fine balance between appropriate treatment and over treatment in both mental and medical healthcare. However, there are far more serious and sincere medical and psychological cases that need attention. As long as health care professionals are held accountable for the efficacy and necessity of their treatment, mental health parity should help our neighbors get back to living and loving the life they have.