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As a practicing master’s level mental health clinician, it might seem like I have a vested interest in convincing people that therapy is essential. After all, it’s what I get paid to do. But long before I was ever a practicing therapist, I was a client.

I remember the first time I sat in the waiting room of a therapist’s office. I felt a mixture of embarrassment, shame, and fear. I didn’t grow up in a family that went to therapy. It wasn’t normalized in schools or churches. If I was going to therapy, something must be wrong with me. I must be crazy. At least, that’s what I told myself while I was waiting to meet the therapist who would change my life.

I was surprised to discover that therapy was nothing of what I had heard about or feared. It has been the single most helpful thing I ever did for myself. After that experience, I studied to become a therapist, but that wasn’t my last time sitting in a chair as a client. I still have a therapist I can call as needed — one who has been essential in helping me heal from trauma.

Dispelling 3 Persistent Myths About Therapy

With all that being said, I thought it might be helpful to dispel a few persistent myths about the process. I still hear these all the time. Let’s talk about a few therapy stigmas that just aren’t true.

1. Therapy Blames the Parents

There is a common misconception that therapists will inevitably blame the parents. It’s a misunderstanding of the process. Therapists don’t go looking for someone to blame. Because psychology is the study of human behavior, we’re curious about the why of things. We want to know how the behavior developed so that we can find approaches that might help clients heal and change.

The truth is that we are all products of how we were raised — whether we mimic our raising or rebel against it. Families hand down a legacy of behaviors, attitudes, and habits. We have intergenerational curses, if you will, as well as strengths. Learning where some of our behaviors or reactions come from can help us understand them. It can also help us become more accountable. We learn to break the cycles because we’re paying attention to them. We find our accountability within those cycles.

2. Therapy Will Fix the Problem Person

In couples or family therapy, there’s often a person who is identified as being the problem. However, the truth is that the person identified is often a symptom of a systemic problem within the family. While there will always be exceptions, I have found this to be true in most cases.

Families aren’t dysfunctional because of one person. The system itself has dysfunction, and each member has accountability within it. Believe me — personal accountability for my family dysfunction wasn’t something I enjoyed hearing when I went to therapy the first time, but it was something I needed to hear. The system might have been flawed, but I was contributing to the flaws and not the health of the system. Just as I could contribute to the chaos, I could also be a part of contributing to peace and healthy relationships. I just had to learn how.

A competent therapist won’t look at changing the one person identified as the problem. Rather, we evaluate how we can help the system as a whole function in a healthier way that benefits everyone. We help each spouse or family member learn ways to take responsibility for themselves while working to improve their relationships.

3. The Therapist is Responsible for Healing You

I always chuckle a bit when people talk about someone being a bad therapist. Don’t get me wrong here; incompetent therapists exist. Sometimes, we find a poor fit, but the people most likely to complain that their therapist isn’t effective are often under the mistaken impression that it’s the therapist’s job to fix them. We don’t do that here.

Rather, the job of the therapist is to be a guide in the healing process. Our role is multifaceted, but we cannot be the change a client is unwilling to embrace. We aim to facilitate the goals of our clients, but we can’t make someone ready to change or even willing to do it. We can only show up to listen and help clients learn the tools that can aid in healing. We’re in a supporting role, but the clients are the stars of the therapy process.

The Importance of De-Stigmatizing Therapy

I fully believe that every single person could benefit from participating in therapy, and I have believed that since my first time as a client. It’s important to dispel the myths that contribute to therapy being stigmatized. Some people won’t go to counseling because they’re afraid that their parents will be blamed. Some people will avoid going because they assume someone else is the problem in the relationship. There are even people who think that they have to heal by themselves, as if that makes them somehow stronger to struggle alone when professional help is readily available.

But therapy can change our lives. It certainly changed mine. It gives us a chance to challenge our belief systems and consider a new perspective. It helps us build empathy for ourselves and others, and it can teach us communication and coping skills we might not have learned growing up. It can make our relationships closer, and it can help us develop greater strength and resilience.

I think back to sitting in that waiting room the first time I went to therapy. I didn’t know that my life was about to be changed in beautiful ways. I only knew that I was scared because I had an impression of therapy that was based on myth, not fact. I wish I could go back and gently put a hand on my shoulder and say, “That’s not what we do here.”

Originally published on Medium