Change is different for each person. There are so many factors that lead to change, or that hinder change. I want to change, but I have to do it in my own time, in my own way. I have to do it in an atmosphere of acceptance and honesty. I need my therapist to be beside me on this journey, helping me, but I don't want him deciding what I need to change. That feels too scary to me. But I will listen to suggestions

There is one story that I find fitting to this thread that I'd like to share. (I may not remember it exactly) It is from a psychologist that I like to read. His patient is telling him about a dream he had. The patient is in a tall building that is on fire. The patient's therapist is running up the stairs behind the patient trying to save him. The patient is throwing stones down at the therapist telling the therapist that he will never reach him!

The building represented the patient's self, and the therapist was trying to save him from himself, thereby invalidating who he was. It was actually about resistance, how the patient was fighting the therapist because the patient knew the therapist was trying to change who he was, not what he did. These are my words, but I think the patient just needed the therapist to help put out the fires and start rebuilding his self. This story really moves me for some reason. I just love it. So, I think the patient has to be the one who decides what to change and he has to be given the time it takes to put out the fires and rebuild before he can change. Plus alot of other factors.