Therapy can be beneficial for a wide range of reasons, including improving mental health, strengthening relationships, developing coping skills, and navigating life transitions, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and well-adjusted life.
“Will a therapist fix me!”
What I am really hearing when I hear “fix me” or “tell me what to do“ is that the person in front of me is in a lot of pain and just wants to feel better.
I like to depathologize (leaving behind whatever symptom brought the client to therapy) and meet the client in their whole identity (finding out who they are) The process that can allow one to move away from shame and the thought that there is something wrong with them, internalized shame and stigma.
Clients come to me in pain and despair, hoping I will cure their suffering and magic away their toxic energy. Client tend to have magical thinking about what is within my super power to do. Clients come to talk to me, in part because they don’t feel anyone else has the patience or interest to listen to them.
My role is to listen to people’s stories, help them to collaborate on a different narrative version that is more self-empowering: and introduce stories in the form of metaphors, disclosures, modeling and teaching tales.
It is not what I do as a therapist that is necessarily important- whether I interpret, reflect, confront, challenge or introduce stories as metaphors- but rather who I am as a person. Am I vibrant, inspirational, charismatic, sincere, relatable, positive?
Am I wise, confident, and self-disciplined?
That is how I will have an impact through the sheer force and super power of my essence, regardless of my theoretical allegiances.
