I have been a counsellor of one sort or another for longer than I care to mention. And with time we learn much about our craft, what works and is useful. Therapy is nothing new, its been around as long as mankind. Therapy is the art of talking through life. Life is an art and a science. We learn to get good or bad at life and we all learn to be able to use our therapy to make life work.

Debunking therapy is important, not losing sight of the usefulness of therapy is important too. And knowing what therapy is for is the key to understanding ourselves and what makes life work.

The bollox of modern day therapy is its reputation and those who try to use therapy. Therapy is seen by some these days as the next best cure all for any ill that can be applied to people with damage of one sort or another. If you are depressed or have an ailment which leads to a breakdown in getting on with your life, you can guarantee there is a therapist lurking in wait, or worse someone ready to refer you to their therapy treatment of choice.

I never wanted to be a counsellor or involved in structured therapy. I just got on with people and usually understood where they were coming from. Maybe I got involved in therapy because I am able to help people find their way. I have met many a therapist, and had therapy and been in the process of therapy. And generally speaking there is good in most therapy as long as it is part of the natural process of sorting things out which are going on in our lives.

These days there are moves afoot to institutionalise therapy into health care and there are many clever people being hood winked into believing that therapy is the key and can resolve much which ails people. I disagree with this whole development of an industry of therapy.

Therapy attracts many types of people, who want to be therapists and counsellors, when in fact their motives and their capacities make them the worst kind possible.

The attraction of therapy as a vocation, it’s the attraction often sought by people who need control and power over others. Where people talk of vocation I am suspicious of many therapists, corrupted by their backgrounds, useless as therapists, simply because they apply themselves to their vocation as if they knew answers through its process.

There are fuckwits out there, tossers and wankers who believe they have the answers.

Cognitive based therapy, the next big bollox to arrive on the scene to help people with issues. I have been involved in the cognitive therapy process as a client and as a person who knows what it is. And in the main if you know what you are doing, therapy works.

All too often with anything good these days, everyone jumps on the case. From leaders to followers, from experts to novice, there has been a rush to therapy.

Society in the last few decades has lost much natural therapy. Religion and family have become less strong. People have become more isolated and the skills of living have been watered down.

And as we have broken our strong links where family and friends learned therapy as part of life, we have seen this growth of unnatural therapy, made into a learned and practiced skill.

I have long thought the people who can qualify and learn the knowledge of therapy, have yet to demonstrate their ability to do therapy in real life. My argument is simple, knowledge in how to do something is not the same as being able to do something.

Would you let a person operate on you to do a heart transplant from them learning “how to” from a book, or from doing the operation over and over again? Answer to those who learned from a book, "not on your fucking life!"

Teach yourself therapists are usually full of shit knowledge and have no skill. Teach yourself cognitive therapists tend to be rich in judgment and knowledge and fucking dangerous let loose on people. Teach yourself therapists are usually ego driven superior types who are full of their own shit and don’t have a clue.

So when I hear the bollox the cognitive based therapy, and the general use of therapy as a panacea, I am alarmed at the people who think they know how to help.

Therapy is like any other life skill, or skill learned from life. You can’t be taught the art and skill of anything, you can learn the knowledge, it does not make you a practitioner.

London Taxi drivers spend years learning the knowledge of their job. Doctors spend five years getting to trainee doctors, psychiatrists spend seven years learning their profession before embarking on their careers. A train driver spends intensive time learning their dangerous job. Teachers spend years getting good at teaching and it is the same at any job we have in our world. We seek out expertise based on experience, which is recognised and developed from knowledge and application.

Learning therapy is no different from any other profession. It requires great skill and determination, practice and learning. There is no easy route to being a therapist.

Yet this world is full of therapeutic quacks, pedlars and charlatans who profess in one way or another to know you and process you and make you better. They are deluded, they are a fucking menace and they make me feel angry. Therapy attracts the best and worst of people. And most good therapists would most likely prefer to be something else as well as a therapist. Most bad therapists see therapy as their vocation and their salvation dispensing their do-gooding and doing no good. Nobody will employ them to do anything else.

So when I say I am a therapist and counsellor, I am good at some things and useless at others. When someone says they can “CBT” (apply cognitive based therapy to you) you to health, they are at worst deluded. At best they have some appreciation of what therapy can do, and no idea how to apply it.

In our world we learn that knowledge is a dangerous thing. When we let dickheads and arseholes loose on our minds, we best be prepared for the worst of all worlds. And even more profound are politicians and professionals who do know better, do not challenge this move to therapy of our world.

The bollox of therapy, is knowing what it is, and thinking you can do it. If we could learn how to live in this world from a book, what a wonderful world it would be.

When you need therapy, don’t forget to check out your therapist, indeed your therapist can fuck you up more easily and for longer than you would have been had you sat with a friend and talked it all out.

No person has the right and wrong of you, no person will make you well. If a therapist can help you on your journey, all well and good. Be choosy and be sure that your feelings about therapy need be trusted, and that you never trust a therapist who knows better than you!

If they or I do, tell ‘em or me to fuck off.