My experience with therapists, having dated one for several years and having known several others in my personal life, is that they’re usually just normal people - often with traumatic pasts themselves - who want to help others. They don’t have any magical therapising powers; what sets them apart from just venting to a stranger is that they’re genuinely trying to help you, and generally know how to prompt you to be more introspective.

I think a lot of people put the idea of therapy - and therapists - on a pedestal, and people go into it expecting the therapist to just fix things in a nice, simple way. In reality, therapy is about venting, introspection, and attempting to give the person the tools to change things for themselves. It still takes a lot of work (and time) outside of the therapy session for the person to actually see change, and people who don’t put in the time or effort probably won’t see much benefit from therapy.

Finding the right therapist for you can also be difficult. You need to find someone you’re comfortable opening up to, and who you feel “gets” you, which can be easier said than done. And then there’s the pricing which can be an issue, of course. With potentially incorrect expectations, and not finding the right therapist, it’s easy for people to try therapy and find it useless or actively bad.

As for my experience with therapy itself: I had therapy for some issues relating to sleep. The therapy itself didn’t help me, largely because the therapist didn’t necessarily have a better understanding of sleep than I did. Which isn’t to say she had a poor understanding; I studied psychology in the past, and also spent time looking into sleep myself to try to resolve my issues myself before I went to therapy, so my understanding of sleep is well above average. But it meant she wasn’t really able to help me. She did end up pointing me to a resource that resulted in a diagnosis for me, though, so it wasn’t entirely wasted. And with what I was diagnosed with, therapy can’t really help anyway, so I can’t blame her at all!

I’ve never officially had therapy for any emotional issues or mental health stuff, although obviously having dated a therapist, there was a lot of “casual” therapy. I feel like I probably would have benefitted from therapy quite a bit before that relationship, but since then I do feel I’ve had the tools to deal with things myself more. I’m sure I’d still probably benefit from therapy, but I’m quite happy now so I’ve not felt too much of a need.