We are aware of the generation that’s now a talk among all of us, a generation that some parents are struggling to deal with and to even understand. It in fact is a generation that holds a very complex emotional intelligence and outlook, but there is one thing that this generation had been able to achieve that nobody else could, normalising therapy !
Therapy is something that we’ve heard about a lot. In most of our minds it’s just a concept that is too complex to even understand. Most people think that it’s where you go when you’re considered mentally unstable. People hold themselves back from taking therapy baca use of this very taboo that “it’s for the mad” !
So what exactly is therapy? It is just a one to one interaction between a trained professional and just anybody else. Is talking to your parents or friends therapy? Well that can be considered an unpaid form of therapy, but it differs in the fact that these friends or parents are not professionally trained to do so. They’re definitely well-wishers and are probably trying to act in your best interests. But since they’re also closely related to you, a lot of their personal ideas and beliefs could guide their words.
To understand this better let us take the example of a parent trying to get his son to pursue medical education and become a trained doctor. Now the father must be trying to motivate the son to do so because he is from a generation that thought that engineering and medicine are the only two career choices after 12th grade. It could also come from a lot of repressed desires because in their times people just had to choose work early in order to provide for the family , keeping aside dreams and ambitions.
In the above case the father is still not trying to hamper the child’s emotions but is still putting unnecessary pressure won the child. A therapist on the other hand is paid to only give advice and ask questions to the child to find out what he actually wants to do with his life. The child also may not he aware of this but through various questions put forward the therapist might be able to uncover the hidden desires.
Not just that, there is a significant amount of generation gap between parents and children these days. It’s not necessary that apparent will be able to understand everything his/her child a trying to express, and vice-versa. This can lead to conflicts. So a therapist can form a safe space where communication can be open and without filters.
We now live in a world where mental health is give a s much priority as physical health. When compared to the earlier generations, it has also been observed that the mental strength of kids these days have probably reduced , because of the social setup that they've been brought up in .
In such a society therapy hold great importance to shape minds. Also it’s not necessary that parents these days have as much time when compared to previous generations because we live in a world where women are now equally independent. There’s no field in which you can’t find them. With this kind of a setup, the children may not be able to receive all of their parents’ time . They thus will need someone to talk to in case of times of distress. Therapy has been able to play an excellent role in that.
Dating culture has also significantly changed over the years. It’s hard to say whether it’s helping people find company or putting them in a state where they find themselves to be lonelier. Dating has now been normalised to the extent where everyone is dating irrespective of age. This also adds onto some emotional stress and disturbance because it’s not necessary that these kids who are dating even have the emotional maturity for it .
Whatever said and done, taking therapy is now considered cool which has been able to lift the taboos about it. No one is now considered nuts to take therapy. It has brought about a change in the number of suicides and in the emotional status of people. Just having someone to talk to can make a huge difference in one’s life. It’s not just about talking to someone, it’s about feeling heard, it’s about feeling that your emotions are valid, about how it’s okay to feel bad about something.
It’s high time that we all normalised this too and probably even take up therapy in times of difficulty as it might help us gain a lot of clarity about whatever is disturbing us .
