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Key points
- Therapy is not magic, but it sometimes works like it.
- What we do in therapy is attempt to look at the world a little differently.
- A good therapist will provide you a nurturing space where you to get to know yourself and your hurts.
You can tell you're stressed. Things in life have been going a little haywire, but hey, you've been here before, no big deal. Right? Maybe someone close to you has suggested that you talk to someone, that you seek professional help, and seek out a therapist in your area. At first, you may be a little offended at the notion, but it does make you think. You may entertain the idea but only briefly before you begin to question what a therapist can really do for you anyway?
You think through your own perceptions of therapy. What am I going to do, just talk? How is talking about my problem going to fix it? I'm glad you asked.
What's the Point of Therapy Anyway?
Therapy is not magic. It's one of the first things I tell a client in our first sessions together. I don't do this to discourage them, but I want to set the stage and set expectations right at the start. Therapy is work. There is no pixie dust or magic word or insight that we will come up with that will make our problems "go away."
I often hear in these first sessions: "How do I fix this?" "How do I stop feeling this way?" "How do I get over this?" And they don't usually like my answer: You're asking the wrong question.
We need to start asking different questions and looking at this whole thing differently.
I do not blame my new clients one bit when I hear these expectations in the first session, though. They are saying: I want to be out of pain. And yes! I want that for them, too! In fact, it is brave of them to acknowledge this need and work to get it met. It is wonderful. It is also my job to show them the way to do it, even when the way is a little unexpected.
What Is Therapy Then?
If I'm not going to show my client how to magically fix themselves or their problems then what's the point? The point is, therapy is a place to learn new skills while also being heard and validated that their experience is real and their emotions are friends, not enemies (even the scary ones). In addition, we work to create a cohesive narrative of their life and understand themselves, which leads to greater acceptance and less avoidance overall.
When we ask the question: "How do I make this go away?" The answer is: "By inviting it to stay." Not what we thought, huh?
What we do in therapy is attempt to look at the world a little differently. As children, we are given the tools to read and write and do math, but we are never educated on how to live within ourselves and navigate our internal lives. There is a whole skill set that is just left out of our early developmental years.
More often than not, if we are raised by failable humans (which we all are) we are also going to be learning lessons, and gaining emotional and sometimes physical scars that we don't have any hope of figuring out as children. This creates a perfect storm in adulthood of repeating patterns that no longer serve us, believing scripts that were written over us, and not knowing how to cope or make sense of it. In other words; we're in pain and given no clues on how to get out of it.
Therapy Provides the Clues and the Tools
Once matched with the right therapist (and there are wrong matches) you will be able to start the work of understanding the story of your life. How you got there, how you coped, and how to make sense of the pain so that you can make choices to heal. None of this is magic. It is hard, hard work. But it is work that is worthwhile.
A (good) therapist will provide you with a nurturing space for you to get to know yourself and your hurts. They will allow you the security to experiment with meeting your own needs. They will guide you to get to know your emotions (all of them), and make friends with them (all of them), instead of trying to banish them from your life (a futile task).
What does that look like practically? It depends on the therapist. It is talking about what your life has looked like up to this point. It may be sharing your hurts. It may be getting challenged on some behaviors. It may be learning that even when you face a behavior of yours that is counter to your values and goals, you can be challenged without being shamed and you can step into change without being made to feel like you as a person are inherently bad.
Therapy is not a one-size fits all approach and is not easy. It requires work and self-reflection but if you feel you are at a point in your life in which things are unmanageable as they stand, a therapist may be the perfect person to consult to learn new management skills.
To find a therapist, go to the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
