WHAT GOOD WILL TALKING ABOUT IT DO?
I have been considering making an appointment to see a therapist, but am not
sure how sitting in a room discussing my problems is really going to help
me.
One of the most important aspects of being human is our use of language. We use it every day to communicate and to connect with one another. You may have even noticed that you talk to yourself. "Self talk", or that voice in your head that is running down your "to do" list, wondering if you look alright or if your presentation will be successful, is a very important, very intimate look at how you communicate with "you". Becoming more aware of how you talk to -- and thus think of and treat yourself -- is an effective tool in dealing with problems.
But it is in the talking to another person that we generally create coherent stories about our lives and our experiences. It is in this process of that we fmd meaning for our experience. We begin to put these smaller experiences into a larger context of our lives and make sense of it. Historically, women have found comfort and satisfaction in telling others about these life experiences. In "hunter-gatherer" terms, women could discuss their child rearing questions, their struggles with their mates, their changing bodies and any other detail of their day to day life while doing the "gathering" with the other women of the tribe. The questions of connection, belonging and acceptance were probably most often addressed. The men, who were doing the hunting, would not fmd that "chatting" was conducive to bringing home a bounteous dinner!
However, there is a long tradition in most cultures of male "storytellers" also. The wise elder, the shaman, the poet, all provided the "tribe" with more formal stories. These were perhaps more allegorical and moralistic in nature, meant to provide guidance, a sense of order, a hierarchy. So women have used language in a more "conversational" way to connect and men have been able to provide a more structured view of life's experiences in order to organize. Both genders have found value in "talking" and telling life stories in order to make sense of and find value and meaning in this endeavor of being "human".
Child psychiatrist Daniel Siegel writes, "Anthropology shows us that every culture on earth tells stories. For the past 40,000 years we, as a species, have been trying to bring what's inside of us out-- to make sense of what we see and put it out there for other people to hear. Stories bring together the external, observable, objective world and our internal experience of our minds. The capacity and need to tell stories is not only part of our culture, but part of our evolutionary heritage, built into our genetic code and embedded in the circuits of our brains."
What is different about therapy--- why can't I just talk to my mom or friend or sister and feel better?
Well, there is nothing to say you can't-if you have a compassionate, trustworthy person who can sit with you and really listen, then you are fortunate. And we all do receive a kind of "therapy" from these and many other relationships, on an every day basis. But if you are encountering a problem that is making you feel "stuck" and no amount of talking, thinking and worrying about it is helping, then therapy can offer some important differences.
First, when you begin a therapeutic relationship, you have the right to confidentiality. This means (aside from a threat to hurt yourself or others) that anything you discuss with the therapist will be held as a private, confidential conversation that cannot be revealed to anyone without your written consent. Probably everyone on the planet has had the experience of asking someone near and dear to listen to and keep something we've said confidential, only to find that the confidence was not kept. Perhaps keeping our secrets and shouldering our long-term burdens is asking too much of friends and even relatives. When those who love us give us advice on how to solve our problems, several things can happen. The advice can be right-on, we can try it and it can be successful. .. and that scenario is great. However, what if we don't like the advice or we try it and it fails or even backfires? Will we feel resentment toward that person? Will they feel slighted or disappointed by us? How will we repair this relationship?
A therapist is a person who has received special training that enables him or her to do several important things. One is to listen in a non-judgmental and compassionate way to what brings you into the room. The therapist can help guide you toward fmding and expressing achievable goals. These goals provide a hopeful framework for a new way of thinking and being, not merely "problem solving", although that too can certainly be a benefit of successful therapy.The therapist can also help you see the "bigger picture" to discover if there are patterns of unproductive thinking and being from your past. This process can be very freeing because it can "unbind" those ties that may be keeping us stuck and feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. Once you are "unstuck", then you will have more effective tools for all your future "problem solving".
The format of the therapy session-usually around one hour-provides a structure for becoming more aware, more open, more "mindful". Precisely because time is limited and you are speaking with someone you do not have a prior relationship with, you will necessarily work toward clarity and brevity, prioritizing and editing. In this "retelling" of your story, what is intrinsically important will be revealed. Then with the therapist's help, you can begin to "rewrite" your story into the one you really want to have going forward.
Dr. Siegel writes "If adults could create a reflective, coherent, and emotionally-rich narrative about their own childhoods, they were likely to form a good, secure relationship with their children-no matter how ... abusive their own parents were. It wasn't what happened to them as children, but how they came to make sense of what happened to them that predicted their emotional integration as adults ... we also need to acquire the ability-the mental and emotional wherewithal-to put our experience into words in order to fulfill our biological potential as human beings."
One of the most important aspects of being human is our use of language. We use it every day to communicate and to connect with one another. You may have even noticed that you talk to yourself. "Self talk", or that voice in your head that is running down your "to do" list, wondering if you look alright or if your presentation will be successful, is a very important, very intimate look at how you communicate with "you". Becoming more aware of how you talk to -- and thus think of and treat yourself -- is an effective tool in dealing with problems.
But it is in the talking to another person that we generally create coherent stories about our lives and our experiences. It is in this process of that we fmd meaning for our experience. We begin to put these smaller experiences into a larger context of our lives and make sense of it. Historically, women have found comfort and satisfaction in telling others about these life experiences. In "hunter-gatherer" terms, women could discuss their child rearing questions, their struggles with their mates, their changing bodies and any other detail of their day to day life while doing the "gathering" with the other women of the tribe. The questions of connection, belonging and acceptance were probably most often addressed. The men, who were doing the hunting, would not fmd that "chatting" was conducive to bringing home a bounteous dinner!
However, there is a long tradition in most cultures of male "storytellers" also. The wise elder, the shaman, the poet, all provided the "tribe" with more formal stories. These were perhaps more allegorical and moralistic in nature, meant to provide guidance, a sense of order, a hierarchy. So women have used language in a more "conversational" way to connect and men have been able to provide a more structured view of life's experiences in order to organize. Both genders have found value in "talking" and telling life stories in order to make sense of and find value and meaning in this endeavor of being "human".
Child psychiatrist Daniel Siegel writes, "Anthropology shows us that every culture on earth tells stories. For the past 40,000 years we, as a species, have been trying to bring what's inside of us out-- to make sense of what we see and put it out there for other people to hear. Stories bring together the external, observable, objective world and our internal experience of our minds. The capacity and need to tell stories is not only part of our culture, but part of our evolutionary heritage, built into our genetic code and embedded in the circuits of our brains."
What is different about therapy--- why can't I just talk to my mom or friend or sister and feel better?
Well, there is nothing to say you can't-if you have a compassionate, trustworthy person who can sit with you and really listen, then you are fortunate. And we all do receive a kind of "therapy" from these and many other relationships, on an every day basis. But if you are encountering a problem that is making you feel "stuck" and no amount of talking, thinking and worrying about it is helping, then therapy can offer some important differences.
First, when you begin a therapeutic relationship, you have the right to confidentiality. This means (aside from a threat to hurt yourself or others) that anything you discuss with the therapist will be held as a private, confidential conversation that cannot be revealed to anyone without your written consent. Probably everyone on the planet has had the experience of asking someone near and dear to listen to and keep something we've said confidential, only to find that the confidence was not kept. Perhaps keeping our secrets and shouldering our long-term burdens is asking too much of friends and even relatives. When those who love us give us advice on how to solve our problems, several things can happen. The advice can be right-on, we can try it and it can be successful. .. and that scenario is great. However, what if we don't like the advice or we try it and it fails or even backfires? Will we feel resentment toward that person? Will they feel slighted or disappointed by us? How will we repair this relationship?
A therapist is a person who has received special training that enables him or her to do several important things. One is to listen in a non-judgmental and compassionate way to what brings you into the room. The therapist can help guide you toward fmding and expressing achievable goals. These goals provide a hopeful framework for a new way of thinking and being, not merely "problem solving", although that too can certainly be a benefit of successful therapy.The therapist can also help you see the "bigger picture" to discover if there are patterns of unproductive thinking and being from your past. This process can be very freeing because it can "unbind" those ties that may be keeping us stuck and feeling unhappy and unfulfilled. Once you are "unstuck", then you will have more effective tools for all your future "problem solving".
The format of the therapy session-usually around one hour-provides a structure for becoming more aware, more open, more "mindful". Precisely because time is limited and you are speaking with someone you do not have a prior relationship with, you will necessarily work toward clarity and brevity, prioritizing and editing. In this "retelling" of your story, what is intrinsically important will be revealed. Then with the therapist's help, you can begin to "rewrite" your story into the one you really want to have going forward.
Dr. Siegel writes "If adults could create a reflective, coherent, and emotionally-rich narrative about their own childhoods, they were likely to form a good, secure relationship with their children-no matter how ... abusive their own parents were. It wasn't what happened to them as children, but how they came to make sense of what happened to them that predicted their emotional integration as adults ... we also need to acquire the ability-the mental and emotional wherewithal-to put our experience into words in order to fulfill our biological potential as human beings."