What is psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is one of the greatest achievements of the modern era. Never before have we had the freedom to explore ourselves and navigate through life more according to our own needs, and less according to roles others have tailored for us. Psychotherapy provides the space for a better self- understanding and a clearer view into the causes and mechanisms of what troubles us or keeps us stuck.
The therapeutic relationship gives the client the space to freely explore themselves, their experiences, memories, relationships, and understandings. Psychotherapy offers a secure environment in which the client is allowed to acknowledge the existence of experiences or needs they might fear admitting to themselves or others. In this gradual process, the client sifts through what harms them, strengthens and encourages what empowers them and brings it to life.
Psychotherapy allows the client to obtain knowledge and new insights from within, and only then is that experience named, defined, and contextualized. Insights acquired in such a manner don't fade; on the contrary, they deeply affect us with their freshness, novelty, and strength.
Through psychotherapy, we learn to reduce our fears, share our shame, better understand what truly matters to us, what we will invest in and what we won't. We grasp the complex dynamics within us and gain a clearer understanding of what happens in our relationships. With support and compassion, we establish the previously invisible connections between today's feelings of anxiety or depression, complicated relationships, addictions, heartbreak, isolation, restlessness, phobias, and other issues that plague us – with what we learned about ourselves at the earliest age and with all the other events and situations whose true impact we never truly comprehended. By having the opportunity to experience all our needs and feelings without diminishing or avoiding them, we see things in a new and truer light. Perhaps most importantly, we learn to understand how we contribute to our situation and take responsibility for making more mature choices.
Psychotherapy enables us to connect our diverse experiences and who we are today into a more unified and coherent narrative. It provides us with the tools to better handle situations, endure very difficult experiences a bit more easily, and offers room for new, different, and freer choices and decisions.
Despite all of this, psychotherapy is by no means a guarantee that we will live forever problem-free. Nothing can prevent the nature of life from changing things, from us being disappointed, from facing illness, from losing a significant person or relationship – the list is endless and includes various gains and beautiful things as well. We can't predict or control them all. We can only go through them with more awareness, responsibility, trust, and self-support.