Why women are questioning the value of paying thousands for therapy

Why it’s NOT always good to talk: Britain’s stiff upper lip has been replaced by a compulsive need to share but these women are questioning the value of paying thousands for therapy

• Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Fearne Cotton and Prince Harry are among the famous faces who have praised using therapy for mental health
•  However, some therapists believe analysis paralysis’ is real and too much therapy can make people self-centred and unable to accept the past or move on 
• Clinical psychologist Mairead Molloy recommends short bursts of therapy, followed by periods of reflection to clients 

Alex Delaney was 34 and about to embark on a second cycle of IVF when her previously healthy husband died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism.

The shock and heartbreak of losing Nic, her husband of four years, and with him their hopes and dreams of a family, were so devastating that Alex took no persuading when friends steered her towards a grief counsellor.

After all, that’s what we do nowadays, isn’t it?

Whereas generations ago — rightly or wrongly — the attitude was one of ‘knuckle down and get on with it’, today, counselling is seen as a normal and essential part of any healing process.

Those extolling the value of therapy include celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, who this month admitted that it had helped her cope with family members asking if she was pregnant; Brad Pitt, who has spoken of how it helped him through his split with Angelina Jolie; and British stars including singer Ellie Goulding, presenter Fearne Cotton and — of course — Prince Harry, who has admitted having had therapy for some five years.

In recent months, in an effort to encourage others to speak out about their ‘trauma’, the Prince has even publicly aired his grievances about his life in the Royal Family.

But can there be such a thing as too much therapy?

Alex Delaney (pictured)  was 34 and about to embark on a second cycle of IVF when her previously healthy husband died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism. Now  37, she says at first she greatly soothed by her weekly appointments. However, two-and-a-half years down the line, by which time Alex, from East London, had someone new in her life, she’d had enough

It is a controversial view, almost taboo. Yet some therapists admit the concept of ‘analysis paralysis’ is real and that, far from helping, too much therapy can make you self-centred and unable to accept the past or move on.

‘Becoming dependent on multiple therapy sessions each week for years just isn’t helpful,’ says clinical psychologist Mairead Molloy. ‘In fact, in my view, the more sessions someone attends, the less likely they are to be effective. I call it therapy overload.’

What, you might wonder, does someone like grief-stricken Alex Delaney make of such a stance? Well, in fact, she agrees wholeheartedly — and is relieved that she managed to escape her therapy sessions.

‘After two years of therapy, I was pretty much having the same conversations with friends for free that I had with the counsellor,’ she says, ‘about how I would always miss Nic but needed to focus on creating a new life for myself. Yet still it took me another six months to convince my therapist that I no longer needed her support.

‘Given that I was paying her £65 a session (a total of £8,450), I found the whole process of quitting therapy awkward, wondering whether she wanted me to keep going for my sake or not. There is definitely a culture in some therapy to keep clients long term, and I don’t think that’s healthy.’

To start with, however, Alex, now 37, was greatly soothed by her weekly appointments. ‘Nic was very fit, a keen cyclist and the last person you would expect to die in his 30s. I was distraught after his death,’ she says. ‘I really needed to talk, and cry, with someone who was sympathetic and caring but wouldn’t be upset by my pain. I still believe therapy is important for anybody in the early stages of bereavement.’

However, two-and-a-half years down the line, by which time Alex, from East London, had someone new in her life, she’d had enough.

‘I had reached a point where I thought: ‘I just don’t want to talk about how sad I feel about my husband’s death any more with this person. I’ve cried a river of tears but I need to move forward.’

Susie Ramroop, who attended weekly therapy sessions for almost two years after the break-up of a ten-year relationship, parting with £8,320 of her hard-earned cash in the process, agrees that there is a saturation point when it comes to therapy. After nearly two years of sessions, Susie, from Harrow, North London, told her therapist she was taking a break and, feeling no worse without her weekly sessions, never went back

‘By then I was living with my new partner, who is very supportive and happy for me to have pictures of Nic up in my home office. It felt strange leaving him at home to go and talk to a therapist about my late husband. He didn’t mind, but I felt as if weekly therapy was keeping me in my widowhood. I’d met people at support groups who had lost their spouse 15 years earlier, yet that was the first thing they told a new acquaintance about themselves.

‘I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want to mourn for ever, or for widowhood to be my primary identity. I knew that if I continued with therapy, that was likely to happen.’

Alex has since turned her experience into something positive, from which others could benefit, by setting up the Good Grief Gift Company, selling bereavement cards, journals and memorial tree-planting kits. And although she will never forget Nic, she feels so much better for finally having ‘let go’ of her grief.

Susie Ramroop, who attended weekly therapy sessions for almost two years after the break-up of a ten-year relationship, parting with £8,320 of her hard-earned cash in the process, agrees that there is a saturation point when it comes to therapy.

Instead of the sessions freeing her to move on from the heartache, Susie, 45, says they kept her stuck. ‘Initially, I found it helpful having someone to talk to because most of our friends had been mutual, so I didn’t feel comfortable offloading on them,’ she recalls.

‘However, I discovered that therapy re-bathes you in the pain every time you go; and that inevitably stunted my progress. I’d be feeling as sad as I did the day my boyfriend and I broke up, when I should have been focusing on more joyful activities.

‘Therapy provides a place to talk about your problems, which made me more emotional. But there wasn’t really any talking about solutions.

British artist Georgea Blakey, 49, saw a therapist in San Francisco while she was living there with her husband James, a lawyer who had moved to the U.S. for work. Shortly after they arrived in 2013, Georgea’s father, back in the UK, died from pneumonia, aged 79. Within weeks of losing him, Georgea’s daughter Romilly, who was then aged two but is now a healthy ten-year-old, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a solid tumour on one of her adrenal glands. American friends were insistent Georgea should see a therapist to help her cope with this devastating double dose of trauma 

‘Therapy doesn’t seem to offer much optimism. I’d have been better off spending that money on six months in the Caribbean. I’m pretty sure I’d have felt a lot less heartbroken afterwards!’

After nearly two years of sessions, Susie, from Harrow, North London, told her therapist she was taking a break and, feeling no worse without her weekly sessions, never went back.

Shortly afterwards she was given the opportunity to work with a life coach through a workplace scheme — and quickly realised that this approach, which focused on finding personal solutions rather than ruminating about problems, suited her much better.

‘I felt I achieved more in my first session with a coach than I had in two years of therapy,’ says Susie. ‘She helped me see that the relationship with my ex hadn’t actually made me happy, so it was pointless to go on mourning it.

‘It also dawned on me that I was no longer enjoying my job, so I made a decision to go freelance. Coaching helped me so much that within a year I trained and qualified, and now practise as a coach myself.’

That following year, finally over her heartbreak and no longer feeling so introspective, Susie met her husband, the father of her nine-year-old daughter.

Sadly, they have recently separated. Yet Susie didn’t even contemplate counselling to help her through this break-up.

‘I wouldn’t have therapy again. It kept me stuck, repeatedly looking back rather than looking forward,’ she says.

‘A short burst may have been helpful, but I spent too long wallowing in the same dirty bathwater each week, when what I needed was help moving forward with my life. This is the value you get from coaching.’

Clinical psychologist Mairead Molloy recommends short bursts of therapy, followed by periods of reflection, to clients, whom she sees both face-to-face and over Zoom.

‘Without the opportunity to step away, people can become addicted to their therapist and feel they can’t cope without them,’ she says.

‘[Therapy overload] means the process can become more about venting on a sofa — which might feel good but doesn’t alter the root of the problem — and less about implementing whatever changes are needed to improve your life.’

Denise Spragg was undergoing therapy for the third time — the first time, in her 20s, was to help her navigate a difficult friendship with a ‘narcissist’; the second, in her 30s, followed the death of her father; and finally, four years ago, to cope with the demands of a fledgling business — when it dawned on her that she was once again covering the same ‘tedious’ ground of her ‘low self-esteem’.

A solicitor who had spent 25 years working as a legal adviser in a magistrates’ court, Denise was in her mid-40s when she and her husband, an IT programme manager, decided to up sticks and leave their home in Bedfordshire to set up a holistic therapy business in Taunton, Somerset. ‘My issues with self-worth resurfaced. I began asking: ‘Have I made a terrible mistake? Am I cut out for this? Am I jeopardising our life savings?’ ‘ recalls Denise, now 49.

She booked a course of 12 therapy sessions, costing £480 in total (her previous two courses had been on the NHS). But by the eighth appointment, she realised she needed less, not more, psychological support.

‘By that stage I was boring myself with the same old nonsense about me not being ‘good enough’,’ says Denise.

‘I’d spent too many hours telling one therapist that the reason my narcissistic friend treated me so badly was that I wasn’t good enough and explaining to a different counsellor that the reason a family member got angry and wasn’t demonstrative was because I wasn’t good enough.

‘And here I was again, describing to yet another therapist the ways in which my business might fail because, guess what, I wasn’t ‘good enough’.

‘Hearing myself banging on about the same stuff, the penny finally dropped. I thought: ‘I can’t keep focusing on this nonsense. I need to crack on, work hard and I’ll be fine.’

‘I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was all therapied-out, so I went through the motions during the final four sessions, even squeezing out a few tears.

‘I felt fraudulent, like I was wasting her time. I will never put myself in that position again.’ Of course, the idea of therapy overload is even less palatable in the U.S.. 

British artist Georgea Blakey, 49, saw a therapist in San Francisco while she was living there with her husband James, a lawyer who had moved to the U.S. for work. 

Shortly after they arrived in 2013, Georgea’s father, back in the UK, died from pneumonia, aged 79.

Within weeks of losing him, Georgea’s daughter Romilly, who was then aged two but is now a healthy ten-year-old, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a solid tumour on one of her adrenal glands.

American friends were insistent Georgea should see a therapist to help her cope with this devastating double dose of trauma.

‘Being British, I felt it was all a bit embarrassing — we usually just talk our problems through with our friends — but as an ex‑pat whose close friends were in a different time zone, regular chats were nearly impossible,’ says Georgea, who now lives in Liphook, Hampshire.

‘I was having some really difficult issues with certain members of my family and the therapist said bluntly: ‘They’re toxic, just cut them out.’

‘I was horrified and told her I couldn’t possibly do that. She just didn’t get that British sense of duty to family members. Everyone has issues with their relatives, I told her, but we also have a responsibility to try to work things out.

‘This was my sixth session and it got quite heated, with us arguing our different points. So I told her we were done and I wouldn’t be coming back.’

Luckily for Georgea, her relationship with those relatives has subsequently healed — without therapy. Perhaps there is a lesson there for us all.

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