Why do some people get therapy, and others don’t?

22 Oct

At the weekend I was having coffee with a friend, talking about our complicated mothers.

This was a relatively new friend; she asked me many questions about my childhood, my mother, and, more importantly, how I had laid to rest my disappointment in the parenting I had received. I truly am at peace with my relationship with my mother.

My mother passed away about four years ago, and I was so happy that I had done all of my processing of our difficult relationship before that happened. It meant that as she left this earth, I was okay.

Over the past few years, as I’ve learned and grown both in myself and as a therapist, I really feel that I’ve almost got to know my mother better than when she was alive. I know how troubled she was, and now I wish I had all the knowledge I have now; maybe I could have helped her. So I now have nothing really but compassion and understanding for her.

This conversation led to a very interesting question.

My friend said, “What do you think it is that makes some people who have a really difficult background get therapy? And what do you think stops people who had a very similar background from getting therapy?”

In some respects, this is an incredibly complicated question with a very, very simple answer. I have my theories, but actually, I found this question so interesting that I spoke to a couple of other therapists I knew, so I was interested to see their thoughts on it.

We all have come to the same conclusion. We may think of it in slightly different ways, but it all boils down to this.

Willingness.

It doesn’t really matter what you’ve been through; what matters is whether you choose to do something about it. Whether you decide to take yourself into some difficult spaces, sometimes emotionally, sometimes practically, but you are going to take responsibility for your life.

Many people struggle with this, as their issues mainly stem from what their parents have done to them, both difficult parents and well-meaning ones. We ask ourselves, why should I sort this out? It’s not my mess.

Unfortunately, it is your mess, and it’s also up to you to decide if you want to spread that mess throughout the lives of those around you. That might be your children, your partner, your friends, or even your work colleagues. It is your responsibility to heal so that you can be the best version of yourself that you want to be.

I explain it like this. Think of it like a chain of events, right back to even people that you didn’t even know. Your great great great grandparents for example, difficult things happened to them too. Unlike you, they didn’t live in a society where therapy was even a thing. They might have had social, cultural, or historical traumas and stresses that they had to live through. Looking back through history, it appears that most people would simply try to get through the day. Trapped in unhappy marriages, sent to wars they didn’t believe in, living in poverty – it’s not that different from today.

So many people live without love and compassion. These things carry forward.

There’s a huge amount of research now, ranging from neuroscience, biology, psychology, epigenetics, somatic work, and even our spiritual selves, and all of these are showing considerable research that we can pass stress and trauma generation to generation, just as we do habits and opinions. I personally think it’s a bit like a slide, and unfortunately, I’m standing at the end of it.

It’s now my choice to decide whether I continue to let it slide onto the next generation or if I do my best to stop it. For me, having children so young, this never really seemed like a question just something that I automatically stepped into. I don’t believe in any way that I have 100% cleared all of the generational trauma from my family. But I do believe I have cleared a lot of it. On top of that, I have also modelled my children, to my friends and those around me to get their own therapy, to look after themselves, and to clear as much as they can.