THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (May 21, 2023) – Sometimes it seems as if everyone is in therapy. And the language of therapy is certainly everywhere these days. So we dedicated this year’s Health Issue to a topic on all our minds.

THE THERAPY ISSUE

Does Therapy Really Work? Let’s Unpack That.

By Susan Dominus

Research shows that counseling delivers great benefits to many people. But it’s hard to say exactly what that means for you.

In my late 20s, living alone in New York, I found myself in the grip of a dark confusion, unclear of how to proceed — and so I started seeing a therapist. During most visits, I sat in a chair with a box of tissues on the small table beside it, but the office also held a couch, on which I occasionally reclined, staring at the ceiling as I wrestled with what I was doing with my life, and even what I was doing in that office.

Want to Fix Your Mind? Let Your Body Talk.

An illustration showing two bare legs standing on a green background with some daisies growing up around the toes. A small blue person with an orange head is touching one of the legs, and yellow circles are radiating out from the blue person’s hands.

By Daniel Bergner

Somatic therapy is surging, with the promise that true healing may reside in focusing on the physical rather than the mental.

I had been describing a looming fear about my writing, about encroaching failure. Price sat in front of a dangling plant in her home office in Austin, Texas. With her red-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her delicate features communicated a mix of candor and vulnerability that created a sense of shared space, of intimacy, even by Zoom. She listened, took notes and, with a gesture of her hand, suggested that we leave my account of the situation off to the side.