Good therapy and a good emotional support networks are not competitors, but rather two great tastes that taste great together.
The hard part is finding friends who would give you emotional support by actively listening to you, without giving you unsolicited advice or trying to solve your problems. An even harder part is to be a friend like that to others. I used to volunteer on an emotional support website for several hours a day for a couple of years dong just that, and it’s amazing how much we all crave an empathetic listener while rarely being one.
The hard part is finding friends who would give you emotional support by actively listening to you, without giving you unsolicited advice or trying to solve your problems. An even harder part is to be a friend like that to others. I used to volunteer on an emotional support website for several hours a day for a couple of years dong just that, and it’s amazing how much we all crave an empathetic listener while rarely being one.