The Discomfort of Therapy

Over the years of being a therapist, my expectations for outcomes have changed. I used to think that it was about healing or making people happy; now I see it as enabling people to question their core beliefs and create their own "reality". I suspect that sounds arrogant or presumptuous - after all, who am I to suggest that that is what they need and that I am the person to provide it? Do I have the right to impose my attitudes on them, even if they are paying me?

The answer is that I'm emphatically not imposing my attitudes, I'm not giving clients a ready-made, stock answer and I'm certainly not saying that their original, core beliefs are wrong. However, if somebody is consulting me it would tend to indicate that their life is not going too well, which in turn suggests, quite strongly, that whatever they've been doing, thinking or believing is no longer working for them. I have a responsibility to help them to see that and then to find for themselves a solution which works for them. That is what they are paying for, and that is what makes therapy potentially so difficult for the person undertaking it.

Sometimes, it can turn a person's life upside down. But what is the alternative? Remain in that unhappy place, unfulfilled, never changing, stagnant? Well for some that will always be preferable, they can never face the inevitable difficulties, which is their choice, but therapy can never succeed by avoiding the real issues and in my opinion (of course!), the benefits usually far outweigh temporary distress.