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Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is at the heart of all the work that psychotherapists do, whether working in groups, families, or couples, with children, adolescents, or adults. And all effective therapists listen carefully to their clients--listening to the actual words, listening from the heart , listening to what is being said or not said, listeing to feelings that are present but often not said, listening to what is needed, wanted and longed for. If we have not been carefully listened to lately we might be surprised at how relieved we feel having been fully heard and seen. It is one of our most basic human needs, the core of what we wants most from other beings.
The act of being heard starts in motioning a process of recovery that is what activated our desire to seek a therapist in the first place. Now that there is help available, what is needed next? What do we want to do with what is being stirred up in us?This takes us to the process of responding, the other half of communication, the give and take in a relationship. What helpful comment can someone make about a problem we have been wrestling with for months or even longer? Usually advice is not what is needed at this tume, we have already listened to a load of advice, from well-meaning others as well as our selves. What is useful is a response that encourages a deeper investigation, a curiosity, a comment that tells us that we have been understood, that invites us to take another step forward...or deeper in.
"Your job is to focus on my happiness, she said and I've got big plans so break time is over." -Brian Andreas
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And in this going back and forth between two people something changes, something occurs to us that was hidden before, an understanding arises. More listening happens, and more responding, both from the therapist, but also from ourselves. And now that we know there will be listening on the other side, we can start to listen to ourselves more and more often. We start to hear things we were afraid to hear before. And we can talk about our fears as well as our new understandings.
Now that the reciprocity has been established, trust can grow, trust in the therapist, in the process, in ourselves and our ability to make changes. An aliveness emerges in the therapy hour, and we fund that inquiring deeply in ourselves can be rewarding, fascinating, even enjoyable.
Some of us are afraid that if we look deeply in oursleves we will find something bad there, or at best something empty. But maybe that is not true at all, maybe we will find a gift. Once we get started on this therapy journey we canset our own course. Maybe we just need a few sessions to discuss an important decision, maybe we need to address our issues for six months, or even two years, or maybe we can get what we want in a single session! Sometimes it happens like that.