When it comes to therapy, most of us think of scenes from movies or TV series; The therapist sits with an expressionless face, the client lies on the sofa or sits in the chair with a pained expression in front of the therapy, followed by the cult sentence: "Let's go down to your childhood..." In fact, what happens throughout the therapy is much different than this, to the extent that even saying it is more is not enough. This distorted image gives us an idea not about what therapy is, but rather about what it is not.
Except for a small minority, clients resort to therapy when they have exhausted more traditional or at least other solutions. For example, they have realized that drug use does not work in the long term, and that it is futile to blame others for their problems or to let the situation they perceive as a problem disappear on its own. Hiding under the duvet can make you feel safe... until it's time to change the sheets!
Sigmund Freud distinguished therapy from other methods such as drug treatment and introduced the following definition; therapy is talking therapy. So, what does the therapist do and clients change, heal and become different by talking?
The human need to be understood is a very understandable and human emotion. In therapy, sometimes clients just want this. At this point, the misconception is the thought, "I also talk to my family and friends, and they understand me." These shares with our relatives and friends are also very valuable, but these shares are mostly about "sharing our troubles"; The focus is on trouble. In therapy, the focus has always been on solution and change. Clients, of course, talk about the problems they experience during the session and talk about their intellectual and emotional reflections on them. However, in therapy, there is an expert eye, a process of going behind the visible face of the problem and changing the existing situations by working on them. People may forget their neighbors, their teachers, even some of their friends, but they never forget their therapists. What clients remember about their therapists will probably be elements such as a new idea or a new perspective on a familiar concept. If the therapy has reached the client, these internalized processes will always be with the client even if the therapy process ends after a while. It will be a.
The therapist sees the client in three dimensions during the therapy process. Seeing not only the problem he is experiencing at that moment, his role as a mother, father, husband, but also the other person in all aspects means going beyond empathizing with the client. In the therapeutic process, the therapist understands the nature of individuals' individual belief systems and attachment dynamics, as well as examines individuals' broader social and support network contexts, stage in the family life cycle, past-present-future time frame, and, most importantly, the solutions clients have attempted so far and their relationships with them. The therapist who can see the problems the person is experiencing and the invisible processes and role in these problems, what he brings from his family of origin or his past life, his role in ongoing and unchanging relationship patterns, and the interactional patterns behind a behavior is the one who can provide the best service to his client. Being able to see these is the first step for the therapist, and the next thing to do is to work with them and manage the process that will enable the client to reach a point that will enable him to get better.
With therapy, people become aware of their own and others' individual belief systems and their "appropriateness". During meetings and evaluations, they are encouraged to understand the circular nature of their interactions, embrace their projections, and take individual responsibility instead of the notion of "your fault." One of the strengths of therapy is to see the situations that people experience as problems and their contribution to the development of these situations in order to get them out of the problems they are stuck in, and to help them take responsibility for their behavior for change by showing them to the client from time to time and working on their sources. In other words, being able to see the clients' recurring patterns that they cannot get out of and intervening in the nature of these patterns helps the client to remove the obstacles to change and development.
What else does the therapist do? There are some periods of life where the client performs below his/her strength. The sources of these are identified and intervened, and the obstacles to the client's better performance are removed. Everyone has negative thoughts about themselves. They have their picks. We see that there are many reasons behind these thought patterns, such as childhood experiences, traumatic experiences during adolescence, and parental relationships, and sometimes this process curls up inside the client like a knot. Each person's process, if any, is unique, and the therapist tries to understand the client's process rather than formulating solutions, identifies the blocked points, and works on them to liberate the client. Therapy is actually, first of all, a creative process. The therapy process aims to make discoveries from time to time and to bring new meaning patterns to human experiences.
We have stated that the client wants to be understood above all else. What the therapist does at the point of understanding someone is to reach the client's feelings and respond to his presence. The therapist who can reach the client's emotion is the one who has reached the client and is ready to take action. A therapeutic alliance is established through the therapist's empathy and ability to help the client. This makes it possible for the client and therapist to set out together. In this process, the therapist walks with the client for change and continues on his way with an authentic stance rather than a sterile one.
Of course, the therapy and therapist-related processes written in this article represent therapy methods applied with a certain approach, rather than being an absolute truth. . Just as every client is different, so is every therapist. Therapists create a therapy style with the training they receive and their personality and character traits. The important thing is to break down your resistance in the process of getting support, which is the first step, and to start this process by finding a self-trained therapist who you think will help you.
Read: 0
