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What Happens in Psychotherapy and What Do You Get From It?
By: James R. Iberg, Ph.D.
Everyone, while growing up, learns that certain feelings, thoughts, and experiences are "bad." Naturally, we want to avoid bad things. But we cannot avoid such things in normal living. If an experience seems bad, we may label it as "not me" and ignore it. We won’t acknowledge some of our feelings even though they are influencing us. Repeatedly avoiding certain feelings produces obstacles to accurate perception of ourselves and of others.
At several stages of life, we must sort out anew what we feel and want for ourselves and our loved ones. This would be challenging enough without obstacles to accurate perception. It can feel overwhelming to have such sorting out to do in addition to maintaining everyday routines. We rarely have spare time, yet if we don’t take time to do the sorting, we may be busily going along in a direction no longer "on course." Proceeding in a wrong direction tends to deaden the spirit, which can make it impossible to find the energy to do what needs to be done.
How can you find more time and renew energy? The work of therapy is to create a situation in which it is possible to feel more of your problematic and conflicted feelings and thoughts, and to feel and think them through more deeply. A good therapist is adept at finding passages that could remain hidden to you searching alone. The therapist listens to your "heart" — not just your mind. Where you might only see "bad" (or "pain," or "selfish," or "angry," or "ugly," or "stunted," or "mean," or "weak," etc.), the therapist can sense complexity — healthy positive impulses tangled up with what is correct and what is incorrect from ancient lessons about good and bad. With the therapist’s help, you remove distortions from past lessons to clarify perception of the present. Opening up our feelings and mind this way loosens "knots" which can then be untied without cutting any important threads. This leaves you intact, but more flexible, with access to more abilities and bodily wisdom — a condition in which to determine more authentically and efficiently where you want to go and how to get there.
Although psychotherapy takes emotional work and time, a therapist can help make the discomforts tolerable and minimize the time required. Developing your ability to perceive without distortion from conditioning simplifies living, which saves time every day. Finding a path truer to your whole person can revive a tired spirit.
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