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Psychotherapy: Powerful Tool for Growth and Well-Being
The idea that going to a psychologist or psychiatrist means that one is "crazy" or sick has been changing in recent decades. More and more people are discovering that psychotherapy can be a tremendous help for feeling better about themselves and others. It has also become clear that it is not necessary to be in a crisis in order to take advantage of this powerful tool for our personal growth and well-being. Additionally, we know that it can be very helpful in the treatment of many bodily ailments and diseases.
TRUST
The criterion to know if a therapist can help you or not is if he or her gives you confidence, if you feel "chemistry" with him or her. It doesn't matter if it is a very famous or highly recommended doctor. Unless you feel trust, this person cannot help you. On the other hand, if your distrust is extreme, you will always find a reason not to trust.
Trust in the therapist is the most important thing, especially when using methods that lead you to experience emotionally painful situations from your past. However, the experience of this pain has a very positive effect: by making you aware and reviving your emotional memory, you free yourself from the disturbing energy trapped in it.
As a result, the negative attitudes and behaviors caused by that energy change, and you find yourself reacting and acting in ways that are more constructive for yourself and others. The repetitive behavior patterns that caused you so much discomfort are disappearing and your personality becomes more harmonious and balanced.
But who wants to willingly feel pain? Are we masochists? These objections make sense. The normal feeling before the therapeutic process is fear, because we intuitively know that it will hurt. Hence the importance of trust in those who direct it.
THE INOFFENSIVE SNAKES
I use a metaphor to better explain what happens in emotional therapies: Imagine that you are four years old and you are walking in the woods. It is late, the sun is disappearing and it is getting dark. Suddenly, you see a snake on the road, a few meters ahead. Of course, you get scared, you stop and decide not to go ahead.
The pathway was a path of growth that was blocked in your childhood by fear, guilt and/or shame. Therefore, you did not complete it and you did not learn the lesson that it would have given you. Thirty years later, the lack of this knowledge creates problems for you, for example, you feel very insecure in social situations. So you decide to go to a psychologist. The psychologist is a specialist in reopening closed paths and tells you: "Come with me, we are going to remove the snake from that road." “No, no" – you say – "this snake is dangerous. I don't want to get close to it!"
But little by little the therapist convinces you and, little by little, because of the trust you have in him or her, you let yourself be led by the hand, getting closer and closer to the beast. You're sweating and shaking, re-experiencing the fear you felt back then, until you manage to get close enough to get a closer look.
And to your surprise, what you see coiled up on the road is not a snake, but a bit of rope. Thirty years ago, in the dark and as a four-year-old, the rope looked very much like a snake. Now, with a new adult awareness, you can realize that there is no longer any reason to fear this path.
In real life, as a result of your experience in the therapy, you begin to feel a lot more secure when you are around people.
When focusing on emotions as part of the therapeutic process, it can involve a painful encounter with the past. The goal is not to forget our past, but to achieve a release of the energy trapped in the emotional memories. Then it can lo longer influence our behaviour patterns as before. The impenetrable mask of our personality becomes more and more transparent and our way of being and relating begins to reflect more and more what we essentially are: happy, spontaneous, sincere, creative and loving beings.
By going through the healing process of psychotherapy, we can rediscover our true nature and acquire a deeper knowledge of who we really are. Then it is impossible not to love ourselves, because who we really are is marvellous. And the inner well-being and strength that this self-esteem provides us is manifested in an increasingly more positive and secure behaviour.
Through more than 30 years of experience as a therapist, and also through my own personal experience with psychotherapy, I have found the concept of the "inner child" and the encounter with the emotional past very useful for many people. But not for everyone, because we are different. Therefore, there are many different psycho-therapeutic theories and methods. Their effectiveness depend on many factors, such as the history, personality and current situation of each person; - and of course also on the professional competencies and human quality of the therapist. The best therapists have personally gone through the therapies they use.
For the same reason, not all therapists focus on past emotional trauma. For example, there are therapists who work more at the cognitive level (thoughts and ideas), others in the behavioral area and others again on the energy level. Sometimes you have to try different approaches. The important thing is not to give up before you find the therapist and method that work for you.
Source: Book “Self-Discovery” by Jan Moller
Link to the book:
HERE
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©2022 Jan Moller
