Despite the rise of mental health as a topic and the undeniable increase in the availability and accessibility of mental health resources, I still notice confusion and misconceptions about the process from both my clients and the public. Some of the more common assumptions are that therapy is about receiving advice, that therapists fix your problems, and that therapy is for people with psychological disorders.
What is psychotherapy really for? What’s it about? Who is it for? I will speak strictly to individual therapy in this article, not couples or family therapy, and from my own lens of what therapy looks like in my sessions.
Psychotherapy is the process by which the therapist and client co-create a plan to assess problematic thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, and develop and adapt strategies for the client to use throughout their life. This is the simple answer.
The more nuanced answer is that when you enter a space that is neutral, safe, and consistent, you have the opportunity to connect with parts of yourself that are otherwise inaccessible. Then there is the opportunity to understand those parts. Understanding means that we can connect to the meaning and function of our pain (discomfort, fear, anger, shame, anxiety, grief, etc.). Sometimes that pain is purely in the present, often it’s an accumulation of pain from the past. So therapy becomes the process of stringing this pain and connecting the dots to make sense of the internal experience.
Then, therapy can invite change. We observe what works and what doesn’t, and we identify options. There is a newly found freedom that comes from understanding the function of pain. When pain no longer rules our experience as an overarching reality, it releases us to be able to consider alternatives, and we can invest time and energy into actions that align with the life we want.
What follows is an actionable effort to do the things we want to do and observe when we are pulled into the old patterns, controlled by pain. And therapy helps there too. The therapist points out patterns and trajectories that are familiar and perhaps unwanted and remind the client of their skills. New skills can be learned and existing ones strengthened.
So therapy is for anyone who has pain. Pain that is bigger and louder than it needs to be. Pain in relationships, in memories, in sleep, in self-reflection, in thoughts or behavior.
