What is psychotherapy REALLY about?
I very frequently receive requests such as “I want the bad thoughts to go away” and “I want to stop feeling so bad”, and then questions about techniques, methods, and perhaps even medications which can provide the desired solution.
I truly wish there was a simple answer, but if I were to hazard to boil everything down to a yes or a no, I would lean heavily towards the side of “No, there is no such method, technique, or medication”.
We cannot cheat ourselves into forgetting about what is troubling us.
But what we can do instead, is to take the path towards facing what is troubling us head on. Instead of searching for a way to put the bad memories, thoughts and emotions into a box and burying them in a deep dark hole, never to be seen again, we all know that this is just a temporary solution, a diversion, and at best, a convenient distraction from the truth.
Psychotherapy does not aim to provide a soothing balsam for the pain. It may do so in the process, but the goal is anything but that.
The real goal is to find the Truth. With a capital T. YOUR Truth. It aims to provide a time and place to explore what is a really actually troubling you, not just what is going on on the surface.
The drug abuse, the constant anger, the depression, and panic attacks… all that is the surface. It’s not even the Problem (yes, with a capital P!). These admittedly troubling patterns are the result of months, years, perhaps even decades of trying to come to terms with the Truth. The exhaustion, worry, and dismay that we see in ourselves daily is the cost of avoiding to reconcile ourselves with the Truth that we are hiding from everyone, including ourselves.
This is the real Problem, and that’s exactly what we tackle together when we engage in psychotherapy.
