"There are two types of people in the world: those who think everyone needs therapy, and those who have never been."
Author Jenny Mollen writes this memorable phrase in her first book I Like You Just The Way I Am. For a long time, singer Harry Styles was firmly in the latter camp. Now, though, it seems his thinking may have flipped.
In an interview with DJ and producer Zane Lowe, Styles reveals that he thought he didn't need therapy for a long time — but once he went, it changed his life.
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“I think for a really long time, especially when I started coming to California, there was a big thing for me where I felt like everyone went to therapy," Styles told Lowe in the interview, which ran on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio Friday. "And I think for a long time I was like, ‘I don't need that.’”
“You know, it's very like British way of looking at it, I think,” Styles continued.
Styles says he was prompted to seek out a therapist's help when he reached “a point where I kind of was trying to work out a lot more stuff about myself.” Writing music gave him the extra push he needed, he says.
“When you're trying to make music, it's so navel-gazing,” Styles says. "Making an album, I feel like, is the most self-indulgent time you can think of really. Because you're just like, ‘How do I feel about this?' I think with the therapy thing, I just realized I was just getting in my own way.”
Styles is hardly alone. (Stars — they're just like us!) Making the decision to go to therapy is personal. Considering going for the first time can feel intimidating and overwhelming. But many people find the experience ends up being positive. Ultimately, Styles says that therapy made a difference for him.
“It's been a thing where I've definitely felt it have an impact on my life, and something that I've kind of introduced some friends to, who were going through stuff. And they were very skeptical about it.”
But sometimes skeptics change their minds. Styles is exhibit A.
Styles' new album Fine Line will be released on December 13.