Emotional and existential layer
Therapy is a process of profound learning. Not at the level of cognitive skills or practical knowledge, but on the emotional and existential layer that underpins everything: our self-image, our emotional life, our intimate relationships, our career, our parenting, our friendships, and the many great and small choices that shape our lives.
Therapy uncovers which of our earliest experiences hold us captive and maps our emotional currents. It shows the unhealthy ways in which we deal with difficulties, such as addictions, aggression, lying, withdrawal, pleasing, or perfectionism; strategies intended to protect us from pain, but often the source of great(er) difficulties.
Therapy also brings us into contact with our shadow side, i.e. those parts of us that we are ashamed of, that we have suppressed or cover up. Perhaps there wasn’t any room for these parts in our past or we were excluded or bullied for them.
Therapy also heals the trauma caused by the actions or negligence of others. Think of abuse, absent parents, verbal and physical violence, divorce, but also lack of boundaries, neglect, pressure to perform, emotional poverty, harsh punishment and being rejected on the basis of gender or sexuality.
Relational human beings
Rather than applying a model or set of techniques, therapy should speak to the relational nature of human beings. After all, we have a relationship with ourselves, with others and the world around us. The possibilities and difficulties that we experience are never isolated, but exist in relationship to other things. This requires a holistic view of being human that goes beyond identifying and managing symptoms.
For this reason we have clients rather than patients. We do not work with DSM diagnoses, because in our view an isolated label of a disorder or disease creates an obstacle. We seek a deeper, more humane understanding of why people do what they do and what they need for a better life. This makes clients feel seen and accepted by us.
The fact is that every person stands to benefit from therapy. We all have ‘something’ we struggle with, something that holds us back. The same goes for couples. Relationship problems – e.g. hurtful conflict, doubt, infidelity, difficulty with intimacy – often arise because partners inject their personal struggles into the relationship and then those struggles interact. So problems aren’t one person’s fault, but the interplay between patterns. Which is why the same problems reappear in future relationships, unless of course we tackle them at their root.
Therapy offers an opportunity to do this, to heal trauma, strengthen the relationship with ourselves and to learn healthy coping mechanisms. Therapy also allows us to come to terms with ourselves, let go of old emotional burdens, embrace our shadow side and become emotionally free.
Therapy enables couples to give their relationship a boost. This can save the relationship from a painful breakup or improve the relationship for children after a divorce. In therapy, partners learn to let go of old pain, to have healthy conflict, to set boundaries, to make more room for emotions and to enjoy more intimacy. Other couples deepen their friendship and have more shared meaning.
Inner foundation for life
Essentially, therapy offers us three important things.
First, therapy reduces our suffering. When we let go of old pain and emotional burdens, we have less need for unhealthy coping and experience less emptiness, despair, anger, inferiority, fear or sadness. Therapy is not a recipe for a pain-free life, but it does give us a stronger inner base.
Second, therapy makes us more free, happier and vital. We feel better about ourselves, connect more easily with others, and treat others with more compassion. We also become more resilient and less likely to get upset by setbacks. Plus, once we’ve anchored validation, safety, and appreciation within ourselves, we don’t have to look for them so frantically in the outside world. That makes us more authentic and relatable.
Third, therapy opens up a path to profound change. Trauma traps us and saps our energy, but healing trauma frees up space and energy for new growth. Our clients find it’s suddenly within their grasp to take their relationships, family and career to a higher level, for example with more intimacy and deepened communication. Liberated from old pain, we come into contact with new needs, emotions, qualities and desires, which give direction to our life.
All in all, therapy provides us with a new existential blueprint, a firmer inner foundation for the rest of our lives. On that, we can build richer and stronger relationships, with ourselves and our loved ones.
Therapy for parents – whether still together or already divorced – is a precious gift for their children. It allows children to grow up in a more harmonious home, where love flows more freely and they can develop more fully, instead of copying the painful patterns of previous generations or getting stuck in a loyalty conflict between their parents.