How does therapy work?
Psychotherapy is a process of working through mental and emotional struggles. This starts with identifying what the problem is and how best to treat it. Sessions are typically between 50 minutes to one hour.
Who can benefit from therapy?
Anyone with the desire to try it. In many cultures throughout human history, self-knowledge and “care of the soul” were prized pursuits, whether it starts because we are experiencing symptoms or not. In our increasingly busy and more distracted age, it is as essential as ever. Whether someone is depressed, anxious, feeling emotionally out of control, lacking confidence or finding themselves struggling in relationships to others, beginning the process of better understanding yourself can only help. It is a process that takes courage and can be helped with a trusted therapist.
How long does therapy last?
Everyone’s journey in therapy is different. The desire to have a specific time frame is understandable given the time, money, and energy investment that therapy requires. But to give specific answers as to how long therapy should last for each person would be disingenuous. So long as a client is benefitting from their work in therapy, it would be unhelpful to end treatment. Conversely, if a client is not benefitting from their work in therapy, it would be unhelpful to move forward without assessing the impasse and finding appropriate ways to deal with it, which might include terminating therapy or making a referral to a different therapist. In my view, therapy may be better compared to a martial art or yoga practice than a doctor’s visit.
What is required to succeed in therapy?
The best outcomes in therapy, as in any practice or discipline, are achieved by those who put in effort. Sharing our inner life with another person can be a frightening, but liberating, step to take.
What should I talk about?
This is a question that will likely come up in the course of therapy for nearly everyone. The answer is anything. Therapy is most useful when it is an honest dialogue about the client’s thoughts and feelings. Fantasies, dreams, and impulses are all welcomed subjects in the consulting room. All of these are windows into our selves.
Ways that therapy can help people:
- Greater confidence
- A healthier, more realistic, and more authentic sense of “self”
- More adaptive responses to stress and conflict
- More creativity and trust in one’s own instincts
- Clearer and stronger boundaries
- Greater compassion for self and others
- More honest relationship to self and others