To make sure therapy is effective, and you get the help you need, it is important to have an accurate idea about what therapy is and what it is not. Simply stated, therapy is the process of meeting with a trained and licensed counselor for the purpose of receiving treatment, coaching, mentoring, skills training, education, comfort, and more, for emotional, psychological and relational problems. Marriage therapy, for instance, is often misunderstood. Marriage therapy is not a place to punish the other person but to work on one's own approach to the relationship. Regardless of the type of therapy, all therapy that the counselor uses may require work to be done outside the therapeutic environment. In this way, therapy requires the person seeking help to be open and do work that will help them heal.