[sjg007]

I think a therapist is necessary, at least to bootstrap the process. You can listen to podcasts and read books by therapists. You can think and try to reason about it yourself. You can expose yourself to the ideas. You can learn about cognitive behavioral therapy and try out worksheets etc... But that takes time and you may not cover everything or know what will be effective for you. A therapist can keep you accountable but mostly it takes a long time. Plus it's hard to do that when you are depressed. Even with a therapist you will be reading a lot on your own anyway.

[_bxg1]

This. It's similar to a personal trainer. People don't hire personal trainers because they can't figure out how to exercise, they hire personal trainers so they have someone guiding them, supporting them, keeping them on track.

In my personal battle with depression, a big part of it has been self-distrust. So I could reason about it all day but I struggled to make any actual changes because I was always questioning. Having someone there actively giving me permission to reshape my thought patterns and giving me confidence that I'm on the right track has been absolutely essential.

[wpietri]

Totally agreed. When I pay a therapist, it's not really for facts, which I can get from books. It's for their long experience with a lot of different people. That gives them the ability to immediately spot patterns in my life that might take me years to recognize. And also the skill to point out my self-fooling BS in a way that I can listen to and understand the point.