I wish I knew how therapists got people to feel better. The human mind is just so vast and intricate that I don’t understand how it is possible for therapists to do what they’re paid to do.  The way I see it is that there’s two options for giving advice: optimism or reality.  If you try to make people feel better by being optimistic and trying to get them to hope for something better and/or see life in a brighter light, you may help them realize that life isn’t so bad after all.  On the downside, you may also fill them with false hope, which they will regret you for later on.  On the other hand, if you throw reality at someone to try and make them feel better, you may encourage them to try and fix what’s wrong in order to put their life back together.  On the downside, you may also cause them simply to feel worse as you push reality in their faces.

What about a mix of the two?  That would be ideal, but it’s hard to accomplish depending on the situation.  The easiest way to mix them up is if you’re giving advice in a situation you’ve gone through.  Then you know what to do and what to say.  However, what if you weren’t in that situation?  What if you don’t know how the person is truly feeling because you’ve never gone through their problems?  What do you say to them then, optimism or reality?  And how will you know which option is the right choice?  I’ve always gone with optimism, but lately I’ve been questioning my hypocricy.  In reality, life is not always sunny happy rainbows and flowers.  Life has problems and issues.  Instead of telling people to hope, maybe telling people to take responsibility for their actions and fix things up would be better, but would that be too harsh?

Of course though there’s always the option of humor, but that’s just a temporary sidetrack before the sticky situation hits you again.  It may be good for a short time, but eventually it’ll wear off.

I really don’t know at this point.  These are just random thoughts that have been going through my head recently.  I want to help people who are feeling down, I truly do, but sometimes it seems like I don’t because I don’t know what to say, and that is far from what I really wish.