Psychotherapy already has improved my life. I have an anxiety disorder for which I take medication every day. The medication helps with my sense of well-being, but therapy is what helped me change my behavior.
As an anxiety sufferer, I would avoid situations that made me anxious. The problem with that defense mechanism is that it severely limits one's life. You begin to find that more things make you anxious and you keep closing the door on so many opportunities until your life becomes one very.small.room. My therapist helped me learn to take chances again, to risk having things go wrong. I in turn learned that things go wrong for everyone, and that I need not die of shame if I fail at something. My therapist also helped me re-gauge my sense of reality, to figure out which mountains were really mountains, and which ones were really mole hills that I had just made into mountains in my mind.
Psychotherapy can't do everything, but it can help you have a better understanding of yourself and give you an opportunity to tell someone the troubling thoughts that you've kept bottled up inside of you.