Therapy is…
- Teamwork and partnership
- Open
- Supportive
- Equal but with professional boundaries
- Authentic
Therapy is Not…
- Competitive
- Defensive
- Exploitative
- Suffocating
- Forceful
The psychotherapeutic process almost always includes change, and change can be uncomfortable. Even if you find yourself falling into some of the last 5 behaviours, don’t worry; sometimes, these feelings are normal for certain stages in psychotherapy. A good therapist will work with you on your feelings and you’ll together try to find where they’re coming from. As long as it’s not your permanent view or constant behaviour on your sessions, there is no reason for serious concerns.
Lastly, Rollo May sums up what therapy is and is not nicely:
“Therapy isn’t curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human. Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, ‘This is me and the world be damned!’ Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.”
– Rollo May
