Your therapist's office is (supposed to be) a void that you can shout into and it will never come back in a later argument.

I've also been through some psych classes before I changed my major to English/pre-law and the downside of this is that I sort of know a lot of the tricks my therapist will use, like 'active listening' is really just rephrasing what the person just said as a question to get them to think more about it. I found therapists who relied on that sort of unhelpful.

I really needed medication though, because my anxiety gets so overwhelming that I can't employ any strategies on myself, so ultimately going on sertraline is what helped me. I ended up stealing my most helpful strategies from the internet and TV.

For someone like my mom, who is very clinical and sucks at emotions in general, therapy was helpful because she tends not to acknowledge her own emotions and having a third party to come in and say "Well start doing that. Like now" was very useful to her. She started keeping a journal because it helped her express those emotions she normally doesn't.

I think it can be helpful to some people but for me it wasn't very. I had several really bad experiences with therapy when I was younger that also made it very difficult to be open and honest with my therapists later even when I was no longer a minor. I was very scared of being hospitalized so I would never ever disclose when I was feeling suicidal even if it was every third thought. I was depressed for so long I didn't think I'd live past 20, I was really convinced I would kill myself.

Anyway, for me, meds and self-employed strategies. For my mom, guided journaling. For others, it takes a few sessions to decide if the therapist you're working with is right for you so be mindful of that. Of course if your problem is something like an unsustainable lifestyle (bad diet, working too many hours, not exercising or socializing, etc) you'll need to make those changes as well. It depends.