They're not here to tell you if you should call off your marriage or quit your job. "The real job of therapy is to get to know yourself better and change the way you're thinking, the way you're behaving, or the way you're understanding the world," says Smith. "The process of therapy is not to give good give advice."

Sure, they might tell you about strategies to cope with a mental illness like depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, but when it comes to your personal life decisions, they're more of a facilitator. "Do you really want to come to therapy to give your power away to someone else or do you want to learn to have that power on your own?" says Howes.