Swedish singer Robyn has spoken of the benefits of having therapy.
The 40-year-old said she started having therapy 10 years ago and it has helped her to figure out how to calm herself down.
Speaking to radio DJ and broadcaster Annie Mac on her podcast Changes with Annie Mac, she said: “So I think 10 years ago I decided to start therapy and I started because I was in a relationship that was really challenging. And I felt like I was like super-scared of what was going to happen with my emotions.
“I felt super-vulnerable. And so I started therapy. It wasn’t even a plan. I just did it like it was some kind of instinct to understand myself a little bit better.”
The podcast features Mac in conversation with artists, writers, musicians and a host of other people, where they talk about navigating and overcoming some of the biggest changes in their lives.
Author Caitlin Moran has already appeared on the podcast with Robyn, whose full name is Robin Carlsson, appearing next.
The singer, whose albums include the self-titled Robyn from 2005, her trio of Body Talk albums and 2018’s Honey, was speaking to Mac about therapy as something that had changed her life and had an effect on her adult life.
“After a few years, I went through a break-up and I decided to up my, like, ratio of therapy. So I was seeing my therapist and she was like, well, now that you’re coming three or four times a week, you know that you’re in psychoanalysis. And I was like, oh, cool.”
“And I started really embracing my therapy at that point. I think it’s easier to do that when you’re feeling like shit. Psychoanalysis is like a long-term thing. It’s very much goes against … well, you know, quick-fix ideas about getting your life together or whatever.
“It’s more about like breaking it all apart, disintegrating yourself and figuring yourself out again. So, you know, it’s like, hey, yeah, it’s a heavy thing, but it’s also a really, really cool thing if you’re up for it. So I was in therapy for six years.”
The Dancing On My Own singer spoke about being able to calm herself down more easily following therapy.
She said: “I feel like maybe the most important thing that I learned in therapy is to have, like, a calm to figure out really how to calm myself down because it’s, like, over six years, like you have so much time to work through things in a different way.
“And it’s because, you know, you have all that time, you kind of relax into things and you start … you can go deep and all of your relationships kind of pop up in the relationship with your therapist.
“So you have time to kind of like figure out what you do in different kinds of situations and why it’s like drawing a map over your life in a way, not like solving stuff, maybe, but just like understanding it”.
– Changes With Annie Mac is available now.
