FIVE UNIQUE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN TALK-THERAPY

In the therapy room, your wounds are openings into the best and most beautiful parts of you

The world out there demands us to be strong, simple, and predictable. In this story of easily purchasable and sellable identities our wounds are seen inconvenient truths we need to hide. And because of this, those parts of ourselves that are wounded begin to estrange themselves from the world. Talk-therapy is a place where this logic is reversed, and where the unspeakable becomes the source of the greatest hopes and growth.

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is (William James)

Talk-therapy breaks away from the popular notion that when we are speaking to one another the Me that is listening to You is all there is. There are many facets to communication, and many facets to our expressions that are not captured by words alone. In talk-therapy, you are acknowledged in your very full experience of life, the more and less obvious, the more or less subtle, the more or less known, the more or less important. Equanimity, is the healing potion.

Talk-Therapy sees you as the unique product of historical events, environmental circumstances, biological make-ups, and conscious and unconscious decisions

 Many forces, some of them historical and evolutionary, are giving fruit to your being right now. Besides what you desire and decide, talk-therapy acknowledges that your environment, your physical and psychological inheritance and your self-awareness, all make a big difference in your way of being. In this sense, in the talk-therapy space, failures and successes are the result of many forces interacting with each other, only a few of which are under our control.

Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all (Erik Erikson)

Relating to the ‘Other’ in us or outside of us with as much compassion and sincerity is a fundamental quality of well-being. Yet, most of the time if others could hear the kind of criticisms and downright abuse we often put ourselves through, they’d cringe. In talk-therapy we learn to recognise these self-destructive thoughts and actions and find back a healthy interdependence with ourselves first, and others after, through compassion, and the development of a healthy dose of wisdom.

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination (Carl Rogers)

Our lives are seen more and more as a product of someone else’s desire to consume, and to this end, we are all asked to be something static and solid, something predictable. But, this leads us to forget that there is ultimately no meaning to life but living itself. In talk-therapy we bring back the attention on the process of living in and of itself, and often let go to the desire to achieve particular outcomes. Fixing is not part of the picture here, a relaxed understanding is.

Wishing you Well,

Your Shrink in Bansko