Think of arachnophobia - exposure therapy works great for that. You might not learn to love spiders and like them crawling over your body, but you will learn to get near enough to them that you can kill them.
I would assume that it helps people with social phobia the same way.
Then I believe in "crisis" therapy. As in you encountered a bad event in your life and you can talk through it with a therapist. Good therapists will not direct you to anything, but help you sort your own thoughts.
What I don't believe in is this "1 session / week for years" therapy in cases like trauma / depression. Therapy needs to be goal oriented and needs steady progress. If you don't have any progress and just visit your therapist once a week and that's it - basically treating them like a person who you just talk to, who doesn't challenge you, ... then it's a waste of time & money.
A good therapist though will tell you that and maybe offer to refer you to another therapist.
Therapy is working.
Think of arachnophobia - exposure therapy works great for that. You might not learn to love spiders and like them crawling over your body, but you will learn to get near enough to them that you can kill them. I would assume that it helps people with social phobia the same way.
Then I believe in "crisis" therapy. As in you encountered a bad event in your life and you can talk through it with a therapist. Good therapists will not direct you to anything, but help you sort your own thoughts.
What I don't believe in is this "1 session / week for years" therapy in cases like trauma / depression. Therapy needs to be goal oriented and needs steady progress. If you don't have any progress and just visit your therapist once a week and that's it - basically treating them like a person who you just talk to, who doesn't challenge you, ... then it's a waste of time & money.
A good therapist though will tell you that and maybe offer to refer you to another therapist.
Exposure therapy to humans in social situations will help me learn to get close enough that I can kill them? Where do I sign up? :^)