In The Psychotherapist's Office. We Open The Veil

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

What kind of beast is this, "psychotherapy", what opportunities does it open up and my colleagues have already written many wonderful texts about how to choose a psychotherapist - so I will try not to repeat myself. Perhaps the most difficult obstacle in describing what is happening within the psychotherapeutic process is the uniqueness of each client's experience, an experience that each person experiences in his own way. Probably the easiest way would be to say - "try it, and then you will understand everything yourself." But how then can I look behind the scenes and determine for myself whether I need psychotherapy or not?

Let's start with the fact that there is some confusion in terms of who should be called a psychologist, who is a psychotherapist and, accordingly, what is psychotherapy. This confusion mainly revolves around whether a psychotherapist should have a medical degree and whether he has the right to prescribe medication. Therefore, let's agree that in this article I will call a psychotherapist a specialist who, regardless of education, “heals” only in words, and does not use pharmacological aids.

Well, we figured out the terms - great.

The next important question. We are already accustomed to the word “psychosomatics”, many of you have read Louise Hay for a long time, and we all know that if you get nervous a lot, then you can really get sick with diseases that are not directly related to “nerves”. But for some reason, little is said about the fact that this rule works in the opposite direction. When a client comes to me with complaints about “nerves”, ie anxiety, depression, mood swings, weakness in the morning, apathy, sudden outbursts of irritability, distraction of attention, etc. - the first thing I suggest this person do in parallel with psychotherapy is to undergo a medical examination. Because, as you can imagine, there is no point in working in psychotherapy with mood swings if they are associated with disruption of the endocrine system.

Next, I will try, using the example of the most popular requests that clients come to me with, to show what can happen between the client and the therapist. After all, despite the uniqueness of each client story, you can find a lot in common between them.

For example, a very frequent request is about joy. People formulate it in different ways - they don't want anything, everything around is Chinese, fake, they don't make me happy, I don't know what I want from life, I don't have the strength to do something, life has lost its colors, and so on. This is the very state that is called depressive. And if this is not a story about some tragic events in the client's life, then, as a rule, this is a story about some unlived strong feelings. About sadness - so big and sharp that a person can get scared and decide that it is better to freeze it like that. To not be able to do that. Or is it a story about unlived anger - which must be hidden away in oneself so as not to ruin a relationship with a person dear to his heart. Or is it a story about some other betrayal of oneself. After all, when we refuse to experience any feelings, we betray ourselves, whether we like it or not. And the trap here is that it is impossible to "freeze" unpleasant feelings for oneself and leave pleasant ones. Together with sadness and anger, joy also leaves. Everything becomes colorless.

And what we do with such a client in therapy is looking for the very place in which he betrays himself. We are looking for what his feelings are so intolerable that it is easier to freeze them. And in small, edible portions we learn to live these feelings. In order not to betray yourself anymore. To return feelings to your life, to return colors to your life - the most different.

Or here's another frequent request in therapy - about relationships. It sounds in a variety of variations - this is about masculine-feminine, and about relationships in a team, and about the fact that “no one loves me”, and about the fact that “why is everyone around so angry”, and about the fact that friends for some reason then no, and so on. And with such clients, we investigate directly on ourselves how their relationships with other people are arranged. Because nothing unique happens between client and therapist. Everything that the client does in contact with the therapist, he usually does in contact with other people. And one more, no less interesting and important layer of this request - we investigate how this client has a relationship with himself. Is he interesting to himself? With what eyes does he look at himself? Does he respect himself? And in general - what does he think about this strange imperfect person whom he sees in the mirror every morning, and what feelings does he feel about himself? And from this point, a very deep and exciting work usually begins. And as a result, it turns out that if a person has managed to build harmonious relations with himself, then relations with others no longer seem so complicated.

Or here's another curious request, which can be reduced to one common phrase: "help me make him (she, they - the necessary to underline) …". Do you understand, yes? When a client wants someone else to change as a result of his work with a psychotherapist (husband, wife, relatives, child). And in this place, the client usually has to cope (or not cope with) severe disappointment, to accept the fact that the therapist is not a magician and cannot influence anyone in any way, and he, the client, will not be taught how to manage these nasty people. If this test is passed and the client remains to work, we will investigate what is happening in his relationship with these people whom we so want to change. And why do they, these people, need to be changed. And what happens to the client within this relationship. And why is it so important for him to stay in this relationship. And what are his, the client's, important needs within these relationships - are not satisfied. And is it possible to somehow satisfy these needs. And the changes begin exactly at the moment when you finally manage to shift the focus of attention from another person to yourself.

And I will perhaps confine myself to these few examples of requests in psychotherapy. Because it is impossible to describe all the specifics on the one hand, on the other hand, it is meaningless. I hope that I managed to tell at least a little what is happening there, in the psychotherapist's office.

And finally, a few recommendations (well, how can it be without them:)

1. Psychotherapy is generally not a vital need. If you are satisfied with the quality of your life and do not want to change anything, let me be sincerely happy for you, you most likely do not need psychotherapy.
2. If you decide to start working with a psychotherapist, then tune in to a relatively long process. Some requests can indeed be resolved in 1-2 meetings - and perhaps this is your case. But as practice shows, deep work in psychotherapy is an extremely intimate process. Which requires a high level of trust. And trust, as you know, is extremely rare at the first meeting.
3. Everyone has probably already written about this, but I would venture to repeat myself. The key to the success of psychotherapy is your active participation in this process. The therapist does not know what is best for you, what decision you should make, what exactly you feel and what is the root of all your troubles. But with it, you can find your own answers to these questions.
4. Everything that happens to you in the course of work is important. If you are angry. If you are angry with the therapist. If your work with a psychotherapist seems meaningless to you. If you are upset and disappointed. If you suddenly want a psychotherapist to take you by hand. If you want to urgently stop therapy and never return to this office. All this should be discussed with your therapist.
5. Choosing a therapist can sometimes be like choosing a life partner. It can be love at first sight and forever, or it can be a series of divorces.
6. And, perhaps, the most important thing - in contact with a psychotherapist, you should have the opportunity to be different. Wicked and kind. Loving and not so much. After all, this is the only way to learn how to build deep trusting relationships in order to transfer this skill later outside the office.