I agree. More importantly, IMO, is a vast majority of people need a place to actually dissect and confront the issue. A lot of safe, effective coping mechanisms

I agree. More importantly, IMO, is a vast majority of people need a place to actually dissect and confront the issue. A lot of safe, effective coping mechanisms naturally come about when you actually understand what's wrong. A common symptom of mental illness, especially the more prevalent ones like depression and anxiety, is a lack of insight. When people are left to deal with these issues alone, the instinctual thing to do is to suppress it rather than confront and actually manage it. I think that distinction between motivations is what causes unhealthy coping mechanisms, like seeking drugs, to be the first pursuit of people suffering from these issues. Finding someone to talk to encourages one to actually evaluate and understand what the issue is simply by trying to explain it to someone else. This can be done with anyone you trust. Although, as you say, it's certainly not as effective as someone with training and experience that can keep the expression going in the right direction, I'd posit it's much more effective than trying to do it alone because the approach just tends to be circumstantially different.