How does therapy work?
If you’re new to therapy, or perhaps it’s been a while since you saw a counsellor, you may wonder what it is all about. Since Freud kicked off the whole psychodynamic analysis process over 100 years ago, lots of words have been devoted to how counselling works.
I can only tell you how I work and how it has worked for me. I’ve put this article together to provide a quick introduction to how I think therapy works. I believe it is based on four principles.
The Therapeutic Relationship
The relationship you develop with your counsellor is likely to be quite different to any other relationship in your life. It is based on the counsellor offering a genuine lack of judgement - whatever you say, goes - and empathy. That’s quite different from sympathy - empathy means trying to understanding your experience from your point of view.
A therapist won’t wait for you to finish speaking before telling you about their experiences that they think might be similar. They won’t judge you. They may share a little of themselves but the focus is entirely on you.
A good therapeutic relationship creates the trust and honesty needed to explore how you feel. It is the rock, the gateway on which change can occur.
Self Awareness
Freud talked a lot about the conscious and the unconscious. What he meant was that by increasing our awareness of who we are and how we ‘work’ we can begin to take more control over our lives. This can be difficult. That’s why the therapeutic relationship is important - it provides a safe place to explore this awareness.
Choices & Control
Greater awareness enables us to understand our lives and the choices available to us. It enables us to consider and have the courage to make different choices. To take more control if we need to. That can be over our feelings and emotions as well as relationships and life paths.
Self Acceptance
Experiencing a relationship where another person simply accepts us as we are, without judgement, can enable us to do the same for ourselves. By developing greater self acceptance, of accepting who we are as we are, can be an important step to improving mental health. It is about believing ‘I am good enough.’ You may still want to change and evolve, but if your starting point is that you are not broken, faulty or flawed then change and evolution begins from a much stronger and healthier place.