What is your happiness worth?
May 14th, 2008 |By Sloane Veshinski, LMFT, CAP
Click here to contact Sloane and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Are you aware that most Americans spend more on material items than they do on their individual happiness and personal relationships? In the United States, the average American spends upwards of $40,000 for a luxury automobile and approximately $5,000 for a two week family vacation. What if I told you that for far less than the cost of a car or a vacation, you can achieve individual happiness and relationship stability.
The truth is that individuals, couples and families experience a level of both internal and external conflict daily over their own wants and needs, the needs of their children, financial issues, sexual issues and life in general. It is when these daily conflicts become weekly and then last for a month or more, without any relief despite your best efforts that you may need to consider counseling as opposed to a drink, a drug, a vacation, new car, a sparkly bauble or a costly divorce to resolve your issues.
Counseling and therapy have long had a reputation for being only for those who are “crazy” or “out of control”. This is simply not true. Therapy and counseling are available for people who are having individual issues, relationship issues, family issues with children, in-laws or significant others in their life, career challenges, or are dealing with experiences that happened years ago which are still affecting how they are coping with things today. Therapists are not so powerful as to be able to change the past, but they are able to help you see the past in a different way than you currently see it, with a goal of processing and putting to rest uncomfortable or negative experiences so that you can enjoy your life in a full and successful way. The role of the therapist is to facilitate your process of change, not to do the changing for you, so that in the end, you hopefully get what you wanted for far less than you would have spent for some form of external gratification.
When looking for a therapist, the most important criteria to look for is whether or not the therapist is licensed; licensure implies that the person has earned a Masters degree, went through at least two years of post-graduate supervision with a licensed and state approved professional, and passed the state licensure exam. You can also check on a mental health professional’s licensure status by going to your state’s website and click onto the Licensee Look-up area of that site. It is also important that the consumer go to websites that are designated as only listing licensed professionals such as Goodtherapy.org.
This is clearly a field where there are as many types of therapies as there are therapists. Be sure to review the therapist’s website (if they have one) to make sure that their way of conducting therapy is what you are looking for, interview them over the phone prior to making the first appointment and don’t be shy about letting the therapist know what you are looking for in your therapy experience. Therapy is about you making a commitment to yourself to work on you and your spouse, partner, family issues. Make sure that this is a comfortable process for you and those who are important to you.
Make a commitment to yourself to move forward and be happy – you are worth the investment.
©Copyright 2008 by Sloane Veshinski, LMFT, CAP. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Sloane and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
May 15th, 2008 at 3:01 am
My spouse thinks I am crazy but I would love to go to therapy just to work on some personal issues that I know I am not equipped to handle on my own. I think I am going to make plans to go anyway and hopefully he will end up supporting me through the process.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Don’t you think that sometimes though we are just as equipped to handle issues on our own and that maybe a family member could suffice to talk to instead of always feeling like we need to be in therapy?
May 19th, 2008 at 5:37 am
My happiness and that of my family is worth everything to me. I am not so stubborn that I would not seek therapy to make all of us happy. I have trued to teach my kids from a young age that it is not “things” which is going to make us happy but the friendship and ove from others. Hopefully if we all emphasize this enough we will help future genrations break out of the cycle that perpetuates the notion that things buy happiness.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:21 am
There are so many people that get caught up in the whole idea of keeping up with the proverbial Joneses that they sort of lose themselves in the process. I have been there and have finally realized that the most important thisng is to keep myself healthy and happy and not worry about what others think. Happiness is worth so much more than that.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:26 am
Excellent point. Happiness has to come from within, and not from what others put upon you or even how they perceive you. I think that the best lesson in life is to learn how to make yourself happy without giving in to the petty notions that some have about what it means to live. It is such an individual thing and should not be judged by others.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:28 am
But it is judged by others and I think we are all guilty of doing it. We all look at the cars people drive and the clothes they wear and just assume they are happire because they appear to have more material wealth. Kind if sick that for some in society this is all it boils down to- who has what and how much of it they have.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I think that the most important thing of all is to have the ability to find happiness, so to me it is worth everything. I refuse to make others unhappy in my own quest for happiness but it would be nice if we could all go along for the ride together.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
And why do you think others would become unhappy as you pursue happiness? Are these the people who may in essence holding you back to begin with and they do not want the best for you?
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Happiness is unique to each of us and our contexts. I have to agree that happiness comes from within and not from “stuff”. The need to find happiness can be done with the help of family or an outside source (therapy) if more perspectives are warranted.
I thank all of you for your feedback and look forward to future posts.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I do think there are people out there for whom money can buy happiness, or at least their version of what happiness is. This is not what works for me but I am sure that there are many what you would call power marriages which are built upon this premise.