Why Medication is Not Enough

My post last week, Do I Need Medication, discussed why medication may be useful in conjunction with talk therapy. If you haven’t yet read it, I would encourage you to before reading this post. In that post, I talked about why talk therapy may not work on its own in certain situations and when medication may be needed to assist in the work of therapy. So, in essence, medication is not always needed alongside talk therapy. However, talk therapy is ALWAYS NEEDED alongside medication, and that is what today’s post will be about.

Imagine a pinball machine. The game starts with a ball on the launcher pad, with the ball remaining still. When you choose to start the game, you pull the lever and the launcher launches the ball into the rest of the game arena. Medication is like the launcher. It helps to throw you into the game and can give you some momentum. Now, once the ball is launched into the arena, you must pull more levers to keep the ball playing and to keep the momentum. This is therapy. You could take medication and launch yourself, get momentum, and then lose it if you don’t continue pulling levers (or talk therapy). The alternative is you could launch yourself and choose to continue momentum so long as you are willing to play the game.
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Medication is only the launching pad and cannot continue momentum on its own. It can help to assist you in doing the work of therapy. It can help to alleviate some of the thoughts and feelings that are getting in your way of getting better, but it cannot get you better in isolation. You likely will feel better than you did without medication, however, if you’re reading this, I bet you want to feel even better and be your best self.

With all of that said, use your medication as your launching pad, but don’t lose momentum. Seek a therapist, show up to your appointments, do the work in and out of therapy, and you can get better.

I hope you found this post useful and please share with anyone else who you think may find it helpful. If you have any questions, concerns or requests for future posts, please leave a comment or message me privately.
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I wish you momentum on your journey to finding your State of Balance!

Read last week's post here:
Do I Need Medication?