My Support Forums - View Single Post - What your Therapists want you to know about therapy

CANDC · Jan 14, 2019, 05:01 PM

I read this interesting article about what your therapist may be secretly hoping you will find out about therapy. Here are a few excerpts. Link Here

Quote:

Therapy is an investment, and it can be hard work.
Sessions might be painful or uncomfortable, and the experience might be frustrating at times. Therapy is not about avoiding pain, it is about learning how to deal with it. The good news is that you no longer have to shoulder it alone. Your therapist is there to help.

It is important to realize too that healing and/or progress aren’t linear. Therapy and recovery is a process, and the road from problem to solution isn’t always smooth and straightforward. Clients often get aggravated when it seems like change is slow, or after a lot of work they still slip-up and engage in old unhelpful behaviors.

Healing often requires reorienting oneself in the face of a setback, but all the hard work will pay off. Each step forward, even if it’s overshadowed by steps backward, creates new pathways in the brain for lasting change.

The therapist’s job is to help you help yourself.
Our role is to guide you, but therapists cannot do the work for you. We can help motivate you towards change, assist you in gaining insight into what’s holding you back, aid you in adjusting your perspective, teach you skills to cope, etc., but the bulk of the work must be done by you, the client.

Similarly, your therapist cannot make decisions for you. We can help you figure out what you want or what makes the most sense for you to do, but it isn’t your therapist’s job to tell you what to do. We simply do not have all the answers, and we’re only privy to whatever information you share with us. Unfortunately, we are not all-knowing or all-powerful, but your therapist brings an objective view and professional perspective.

We can perceive patterns and symptomology, which can help make sense of what you’re going through. If you aren’t sure what is important to mention in session or have a hard time remembering what happens from week to week, it might be a good idea for you to jot things down as they happen or to keep a journal throughout the week. This further enables you to help your therapist help you.