Therapy: What’s the Point, Really? Healing, Growth, and Finding Peace Within

Moonlight, Strandgade 30 by Vilhelm Hammershøi

---

“What’s the point in paying someone to talk about my trauma?”

If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that question, I could retire early to a crooked little stone cottage by the sea, sip tea in a mismatched mug, and write wistful diary entries by candlelight forever more.

It's a fair question though, really.

Why pay a stranger to poke around in your painful memories when you could just have a heartfelt chat with a mate or drown your sorrows with a bottle of Merlot and a sad playlist?

Because therapy isn’t just a glorified chat. It’s not the same as offloading onto a friend while folding the washing or waiting for the kettle to boil. It’s something else entirely.

Something quieter.

Deeper.

Braver.

Therapists aren’t here to give you advice, judge your life choices, or interrupt with stories of their cousin's best mate who went through something just like that.

We’re trained to hold space—real, sacred space—for the tangled things you don’t always say out loud. We notice patterns, unspoken feelings, and the deeper stories beneath the ones you already know.

It’s not always comfortable.

But it is transformative.

Therapy isn’t about “fixing” you.

It’s about coming home to yourself.

It’s easy to wonder why we’d ever bother dragging up the past.

It’s done, right?

Buried.

Boxed up in the attic.

But trauma, unfortunately, isn’t content to stay in the attic. It creeps into the wiring. It shows up in how we react to love, to stress, to being ignored or misunderstood. It reshapes the brain’s fear centres and the way memories are stored, like a storm that’s passed but left the foundations a little cracked.

Therapy gently traces those cracks—not to shame you or make you relive everything—but to understand how they formed.

And then, with care and patience, you start the quiet work of repair.

Friends are essential.

A good friend can remind you who you are when you’ve forgotten, and laugh with you in the dark. But friendship isn’t the same as therapy. Your friends have their own lives, their own blind spots, and their own feelings about your choices.

Therapy is different.

It’s a space just for you.

No one else’s needs.

No one else’s opinions.

No one else's judgements.

You’re allowed to bring your mess,

your longing,

your silence,

your contradictions.

And slowly, through the trust that builds, you begin to internalise that kind of holding. You develop what we call an “inner therapist”—a calm inner voice that asks, gently, what would she say to me right now?

That voice is gold dust on stormy days.

There’s something about the act of investing in yourself—putting aside the cost of a haircut or a dinner out, and choosing instead to sit with your soul for an hour—that’s powerful in itself.

It says:

I matter.

My inner world matters.

My healing matters.

You might come to therapy thinking you're there to talk about the past. And maybe you are. But what often happens is that you start to understand yourself—your patterns, your triggers, your hopes—in a new way.

You realise why you panic when someone doesn’t text back.

Why you overgive.

Why you shut down when things get too close.

And from that understanding,

new choices emerge.

You’re not just surviving anymore.

You’re learning to live.

It’s often said that the most healing part of therapy is the relationship itself. Not because therapists are magical beings, but because within that relationship, you get to experience something different.

Safe.

Consistent.

Unconditional.

Being truly seen—without judgement, without agenda—is rare. And when it happens, something inside us begins to soften.

I’ve sat on both sides of the therapy room.

I’ve cried into endless tissues.

I’ve tried to distract us with small talk.

I’ve turned up when I didn’t want to.

I've stayed silent because the words were too hard to find.

And I kept going.

Not because it was always easy—but because it was always real.

I came to know myself in a way I hadn’t before.

And that changed everything.

Is it worth it?

Yes.

A thousand times, yes.

Not because it erases your past, or fixes everything neatly.

But because it helps you carry your story differently.

Because it gives you tools to ride the waves, rather than being pulled under by them.

And because the point of therapy—of paying someone to walk with you through your pain—is you.

Your healing.

Your clarity.

Your peace.

And in the end, that is priceless.