What's the Point of Therapy?

What’s the Point of Therapy?

The idea of “therapy” can feel confusing, especially if you’re new to it.

You talk to someone who has been through therapy, and it gets even more confusing. Some loved it. Some hated it. Each therapist uses different modalities. It can get expensive. But ultimately, what’s the point of therapy?

I’ll start here.

Whether I’m working with an individual or a couple, no one can outrun their reality. At least I’ve never seen it. I can attest to that in my own life. Truth always reveals itself. It doesn’t matter if someone is blind to truth (a sociopath/narcissist) or wears it on their sleeve (highly neurotic), it affects them and every single person around them. Your relationship with truth literally impacts every relationship: with yourself, with your spouse, with your god, with coworkers, with your children and pets.

Therefore, a therapist will help you immerse yourself with as much of your true reality as possible, then work on healthily and safely unfolding that reality and truth.

I want to circle back to a phrase I said earlier: no one can outrun their reality. Perhaps it made you pause.

I’ve worked with clients carrying large and small burdens of untruth. I’ve had clients who have not told their husband he’s not the father of their child and clients who smile and fib to their partner that they had a good day to not stir the pot. Everything eventually shows up. We may think that truth or untruth is only revealed in the words that come from our mouths, but that’s a falsehood.

At some point, somewhere—likely in childhood—every person experienced on some level that expressing our truth was unsafe. Everyone has developed ways of covering up their unique self-expression. It’s revealed in ways we’d never guess….from the way we sit, to the quality of eye contact we give, to where we place our hands, to the clothes we wear, to where in our bodies our breath is log-jammed, to how we walk into a room, to the indistinct parts of our body that have become tight or numbed, etc.

Have you ever been around someone who helps you reveal your truth? Who allowed you to safely experience a deeper connection to reality? It could have been a teacher who allows you to creatively express your intellectual and artistic gifts. It could have been a friend who allows you to speak your mind. It could be a partner who allows you to move your body and soul in unfettered freedom.

As humans, we naturally want to orient ourselves to situations that push us to the edge of our comfort zones so that we experience our greatest expression of reality and truth. Some may call this a life purpose. If we experience too little reality and we’re ready for more, we’re bored; if we experience too much reality and we’re not ready, we’re traumatized. Ideally, therapy should be a balance between what you’ve never experienced with yourself and what you’re capable of taking on.

If you have any q’s with therapy in general, feel free to shoot me an email.