[gerbilly]

> It can produce plenty of insights, but insights almost never lead to change.

Insights by themselves can't won't lead to change, but they can be a starting point.

Look at it this way, say I am overweight and want to get in shape. The insight that I need to eat less and exercise by itself of course won't make me immediately fit.

But that insight combined with work and support might.

Also therapy, to me isn't about self improvement, it's about feeling better in one's skin. Often it not that the presenting problem even goes away, but that the way you relate to it changes.

[Michelangelo11]

> Look at it this way, say I am overweight and want to get in shape. The insight that I need to eat less and exercise by itself of course won't make me immediately fit.

> But that insight combined with work and support might.

Putting aside the fact that your example isn't actually an insight (diet and exercise as a way to lose weight is also something you hear suggested from every corner, although with more justification), the "insights" produced in therapy are supposed to lead to change largely on their own. That is, it's assumed the client already has all the resources needed but, poor dear, he's held back by flawed beliefs, which therapy is supposed to undo. Needless to say, this has little resemblance to reality.

> Also therapy, to me isn't about self improvement, it's about feeling better in one's skin. Often it not that the presenting problem even goes away, but that the way you relate to it changes.

Putting aside the fact that this kind of contradicts the first part of your post, where you argue for how therapy can in fact help solve your problems, sorry, this is pure cope. Changing the way you relate to a problem, in that sense, or reframing, is talking yourself into believing something bad isn't actually that bad. Auto-gaslighting with a therapist's assistance, really. I prefer to solve my problems instead of trying to trick myself into thinking they're not what they are.

[gerbilly]

Ha thanks, I love a good argument.

>Putting aside the fact that your example isn't actually an insight

So put it aside then, and think of your own better analogy. It changes nothing from the point I was making.

> the "insights" produced in therapy are supposed to lead to change largely on their own.

No one has believed this in a long time.

> I prefer to solve my problems instead of trying to trick myself into thinking they're not what they are.

So do I but sometimes things break, permanently.

I can't bring dead people back to life, if I'm injured or disabled by an accident I can't 'fix' that, but I can find a way to change how I relate to that unfix-able problem. This goes beyond re-framing, of course.

As to childhood experiences and trauma, they are real and often elicit means of coping which later become ingrained habits which can cause dysfunction later on.

Therapy can help you recognise these (insight!) and then start you on the long slow path of unlearning them so they don't cause you problems anymore.