Why In-depth Psychotherapy?
By Licia Ginne, LMFT
"As individual persons, the conversations we
engage in define the limits of our conscious awareness of
ourselves and others. Minds need other minds to see themselves.
Isolated minds know everything about everything, except about
themselves" C. Roger Hastings.
I have discovered that what creates lasting personal change is
psychotherapy that understands our beliefs and feelings and
where they originated. You could also call this educating
your emotional intelligence. These beliefs and feelings set
the foundation for how we relate to people in our lives and
the world at large. It is the foundation of our attitudes
and perspectives, our self-esteem and faith that we have in
ourselves.
In-depth psychotherapy is based in the psychoanalytic school
of thought. It examines early childhood experiences, the types
of attachment, intimacy, how one feels about oneself, relationships
with others, painful memories and experiences. The relationship
with the psychotherapist is very important for it serves as
a vehicle to understand how the patient relates to others.
Your first thought might be that it is Freudian analysis.
Sigmund Freud was the creator of the “talking cure”
and through the years different schools of thought have evolved
from this early theory. Self-Psychology & Intersubjectivity
are two schools that have blended the early childhood experiences
and relationships with the current understanding of attachment
theory and how the therapist impacts the therapeutic relationship.
It has been my experience that people who come in for psychotherapy
have negative thoughts and doubts about themselves. As their
awareness of their feelings and desires increase (growing your
emotional intelligence) your options and behaviors expand. You
can't change how you feel but you can change how you respond
to your feelings.
Our attitudes and beliefs are learned from our relationships.
How people treat us reflects how we treat ourselves, especially
from early childhood when we were the most vulnerable. It is
not about blaming our parents or caretakers, but realizing they
could only teach us what they knew and perhaps we were not given
all the tools we need to navigate our way through life. We learned
how to communicate, set boundaries, work with others and how
to nurture ourselves in our families, or where we grew up.
Through In-depth Psychotherapy we come to understand ourselves
in terms of these relationship models. We connect beliefs we
have about ourselves to how others have treated us. For instance,
you may have been taught how to prepare nutritious meals, but
were never helped with financial matters. As an adult you find
you are great at feeding yourself but your budgeting skills are
weak and you need help with your financial matters. You may have
come from a divorced family where your parents still cannot get
along, so it’s a good guess that you were not taught how
to resolve problems. Your parents couldn’t do it, so how
could they teach you to do it?
In-depth psychotherapy is a talking mode of therapy: the therapist
does not usually offer advice and is more apt to offer alternative
perspectives or interpretations of the current situation, make
a possible connection to where you might have learned it and
how to know now what you are feeling and needing. It is a therapy
that is about thought, insight, consideration and understanding.
We have two means of gathering information: one is through our
intellect, and the other is through our feeling, or emotional
intellect. We may feel cold and our brain says to put on a sweater.
Most often people who come from a traumatic life have been forced
to abandon one mode or the other at different times. You might
be having a feeling but not know why you are feeling that way.
At another time you may be able to tell the story but realize
you are not having the feelings that might go with the story.
When you have access to both, you increase the information available
to you and increase the possibilities for resolution. When you
can tell a story and have the feelings that accompany it you
have joined them together.
Change comes from the relationship you create with the psychotherapist,
a healthy relationship where your thoughts, opinions and feelings,
needs and wants are taken into consideration and valued. You’ll
be amazed at how successfully problems can be approached when
you feel like a valued and wanted person. In therapy, you will
learn how you make relationships, how you treat those in relationship
with you, and how you would like to be treated. |