Psychotherapy is a bond, a bridge established between childhood and today. The baby records everything in his mind from the moment he is born. The human brain, which records all positive and negative emotions and information, never forgets anything. If the child has not been able to separate from his/her mother during the period of approximately 18-24 months, which we call separation and individuation, it also records the mother's feelings. Thus, when an adult becomes an adult, there will be a high probability of hearing many voices speaking within the individual. In the process, these sounds can be parallel to each other or they can be completely opposite to each other. Even when it comes to choosing a simple outfit, the person cannot make a choice, and is stuck in a tangle of indecision that ranges from eating the food to choosing a life partner.
When doing psychotherapy with adults, I always keep in mind that I am talking to their child side. When an adult comes to therapy and is deep enough, childish and simple conversations begin. For me, children have always been a guide, and their games have been a guide in the psychotherapy games we will play with adults.
When children first come to the session, they often watch you with anxiety and unaware of what will happen. While some establish relationships very quickly and immediately start exploring the room and toys, some try to explore you first and then the room. Some children immediately include you in their games in the first sessions, while others prefer to play with you after they trust you. Adults are like that too. While a client who comes to therapy for the first time is sometimes very anxious, is very interested in your emotions and tries to discover you, some clients prefer to set up a game independent of you and keep you outside. While some people establish relationships very easily and bond quickly, some clients wonder for months whether they will trust you.
The child's primary need is to be in a physically protected place. Children love to play in closed places, and the situation is very similar for adults. An adult client seeks emotional shelter. The therapy room is a very good shelter for an adult client. The feeling of trust that the therapist provides in his emotional relationship with the client is very important for the client. Client facing therapist and therapy room They want to be given love, so to speak, they want to take shelter a little bit, so to speak.
Children want to be accepted as they are. For example, they want the therapist to ignore the snot flowing from his nose, and when he thinks he did something wrong, they want the therapist to accept what he did wrong. Adults, like children, want to be themselves in the session room. The individual who pretends to be outside, cannot live his true self, and is not accepted for the good and bad inside him, wants to be accepted in the therapy room. He wants his therapist to accept him with the mistakes he makes, mistakes, positive and negative emotions.
Children want a consistent therapist in the playroom, they want the therapist to be the same and not change in the behaviors he says or does. When we look at adults, an adult client also wants to progress on his inner journey with a consistent therapist. Most of the time, the child finds it difficult to open his/her inner world to a therapist whose reactions and behaviors cannot be predicted.
When playing, the child sometimes fails, and asks you to allow the sadness, anger and disappointment he feels in his failure. He knows these feelings are real. He patiently asks someone to teach him that he will not always be successful, that he will sometimes experience disappointment, sometimes unhappiness, and sometimes anger. In the playroom, the therapist also helps the child come into contact with real life. We often encounter similar situations in adult therapists. When faced with reality, the client sometimes feels very hurt, sometimes fails, sometimes feels lonely, and sometimes feels helpless. These are real emotions. Real life is like this. When the client confronts these, the therapist does not try to change the client's emotion, but allows the client to experience the emotion. He listens and waits silently.
Children teach me in the game that I cannot always know everything. They describe what to do and how to do it. Sometimes they turn me off the path I'm on and say, "I want you to tell me this in this game." The child teaches me how to relate to him. Every child is a different world, no matter how many children I play with, I have never repeated the same game a second time. Adult therapies are also the same; two clients who are very similar to each other will never tell the same things in the session. Even if the record is exactly the same. Every person is different, there are many things I know and don't know. In the process, children will continue to teach me.
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