It isn’t possible to change your behaviour and still be the same person you were before.
—Epictetus1
Psychotherapy and counseling are colloquially referred to as ‘talk therapy’ or the ‘talking cure’. Verbalising one’s thoughts and feelings with a non-judgmental counterpart can help to diminish emotional distress and elicit insights that foster growth. Ideally, though, talking is only one component of the therapeutic process. Without corresponding efforts to alter one’s behaviour, a commitment to talking about problems can become its own vice.
People enamoured with talk—with theories and explanations about why they are the way they are—risk becoming detached from material reality. Their constant need to discover new ways of analysing their problems gets in the way of their taking action.
If this isn’t something you have personally experienced, you have likely come across one or more people who fit this description. They have read all the self-help books, attended all the seminars, taken all the online courses, and are capable of explaining (in vivid detail) the origins of their suffering. Yet, there’s just one problem: they aren’t doing anything about it.
This imbalance of talk versus action is not uncommon. For many, it is much easier and less psychologically taxing to read or think about a problem rather than address it, behaviourally. Thinking differently about one’s distress can foster future action but is not a prerequisite for change. In fact, the belief that one must first understand a problem—the why, the cause, the origins behind it—can keep us stuck in the past and prevent us from making changes in the present.
The past is not unimportant; an exploration of our personal histories can be immensely valuable. But generally—and this may seem somewhat counterintuitive or heretical to those holding a more traditional view of psychotherapy—it is not necessary to first acquire insight before making positive lifestyle changes. We can act differently and reap the rewards of those changes without comprehending why they worked. To reiterate, although it is nice to be able to explain the origins of one’s psychological suffering, it is not always necessary. Simply behaving (rather than thinking) differently is often enough to achieve your desired result.
Plumbing the depths of one’s psyche can be an immensely enriching experience and I do not intend to dissuade you from such a pursuit. But for those who may have already spent a considerable amount of time getting to know themselves (without noticing much tangible progress in their day-to-day lives), perhaps a break from talking in favour of a more pragmatic approach, is in order.
