> There's no one to trust more than a good friend to be there for you when the ride gets bumpy, not some guy in a suit doing it for the money.
I couldn't disagree more.
Your good friend most likely doesn't have the slightest idea how to handle things if your trip goes south. Especially when they're on their own "ride". That's not to disparage anyone, but just to state the fact that there is training around these things that comes from lots of experience.
And therapists are not "some guy in a suit doing it for the money". You don't get rich doing psychotherapy -- you do it because you genuinely want to help people. And never in my life have I seen a therapist in a suit.
This isn't to say that every therapist is great or that every friend is terrible -- just that the relative success rates of being able to help someone on a bad trip, both during and after, are going to be a lot higher on the side of trained therapists. Because of the training.
Before it was just a "good friend". Now they've also become the "trip sitter" who is "experienced"?
Sure, that's going to help. But empathy isn't everything. Just because you've personally experienced of a bunch of trips, doesn't mean you have the knowledge of how to handle things when a trip goes south for someone else, in a way that you've never experienced.
That's why there's genuine training in these things, the kinds of training psychotherapists in this area learn. That draws on many thousands of peoples' experiences, and the knowledge of what has worked and what hasn't.
Your "good friend" probably doesn't have this training, I'm guessing. And if they do, then what counts most isn't that they're your friend -- it's the training they've learned.
I couldn't disagree more.
Your good friend most likely doesn't have the slightest idea how to handle things if your trip goes south. Especially when they're on their own "ride". That's not to disparage anyone, but just to state the fact that there is training around these things that comes from lots of experience.
And therapists are not "some guy in a suit doing it for the money". You don't get rich doing psychotherapy -- you do it because you genuinely want to help people. And never in my life have I seen a therapist in a suit.
This isn't to say that every therapist is great or that every friend is terrible -- just that the relative success rates of being able to help someone on a bad trip, both during and after, are going to be a lot higher on the side of trained therapists. Because of the training.