What is Psychotherapy?
When you Google, “what is psychotherapy,” you will find that the first entry out of more than 29 million search results is this simple definition. “The treatment of mental disorder by psychological rather than medical means.”
While this definition is partly accurate, it doesn’t help you understand what it is that a therapist will be doing with you in therapy. It characterizes the work to be done as something for a “mental disorder.” And if you feel like a basically mentally healthy person, you don’t want to participate in something that defines you as having a “mental disorder.”
A simple definition of psychotherapy is difficult because there are so many different types. And only a tiny number of therapists actually use one specific type of psychotherapy in their practice. Most therapists use a combination of interventions and ways of understanding you that come from various theoretical schools of thought. Regardless of their theoretical viewpoint, what it boils down to is that you are entering into a therapeutic relationship. This relationship has a specific set of boundaries where the therapist sets aside their own needs in order to help you understand yours.
Psychotherapy at Leah Benson Therapy
In psychotherapy at Leah Benson Therapy, your primary focus will be on accessing, understanding and “working through” unconscious feelings. The ones that are motivating your behaviors. This can be a difficult task. Because it is very likely that you were taught that you could “get rid” of an emotion through the use of self-talk and will power. You are probably very good at convincing yourself that you do not feel certain ways about certain things. Or you believe you should be able to make yourself feel certain ways about certain things and you are having trouble doing so.
This is how you were taught to be a successful, socially acceptable person. Which you probably are, or were, if you are not currently.
Unfortunately, this is lesson is completely wrong. You will never change your emotions by using logic and reason.
You might be able to trick yourself for a period of time. Perhaps even a very long period of time. Trick yourself into believing that you are not having certain emotions.
But rest assured, your body is containing the feeling and causing you to act in ways that you are not in control of.
This is why you have anxiety, depression, and anger outbursts. It is why you cannot do things you say you want to do, and why you cannot stop doing things you say you want to stop doing. It is why your life is not just the way you want it to be.
Would you like to have your life be just the way you want it to be? Call me. We’ll talk.
Contact me now to set up your free 15-minute phone consultation.
