Notes On is a series of short reflections about therapy, relationships, and the inner world. These pieces are written for anyone who is thinking about starting therapy, or curious about how therapy works, as well as for therapists and trainees who are thinking about psychodynamic ideas in practice. Each note is intended to be simple, conversational, and reflective. A way of opening ideas that can sometimes feel complicated and making them easier to think about.
There are many types of therapy. But I’m going to put down here a bit about how I work, so you can get a sense of what it would be like talking to me as your therapist or counsellor.
The important thing to understand here is really that none of us are these people who just operate on our own. What happens in psychotherapy or counselling is much like any other relationship. Ideally, because it is a boundaried relationship, people feel safe in it. They can then open and trust. The gist of it is that you talk and you start to form a relationship. In a sense, you internalise what it is that you talk about, or how it is that you feel and experience the sessions. In so doing, change then starts to happen from the inside.
For example, we might be talking about relationships in the past where things felt very inconsistent. Or you didn’t feel that you could depend on others because they were unreliable. Therapy and talking with a therapist, for example, would hopefully give you a sense of consistency and reliability. This is because it is typically done week to week. What happens inside the room is that we talk, maybe repeatedly, about the same sort of thing. Here is a chance to gain new insights or perspectives and start thinking differently about something that might have felt quite stuck. It can also give feelings that never had a chance to be expressed, or even identified, room to emerge. This might then form part of your sense of being. In a way, this can bolster parts of yourself or add more support to yourself. You might start to think and feel in ways that were different and more supportive of yourself.
If you like, it’s a bit like putting a little deposit in the bank. Then you put a bit more in the bank. Eventually, you have saved up something that feels substantial to you. It is something that you can start utilising outside the therapy room. For example, the next thing that might happen, if you’re using the therapy and we’re talking, is that you might start to think, “Ok, so I understand this about myself now. I’m going to do a little test of what it would be like to be more expressive about myself. I’m going to express my needs more with people that I think could be more trustworthy.” This is particularly so if you’ve been let down and understandably feel more guarded about opening with people.
So, this is a way of giving you an idea of what therapy is about. It is also a way of explaining what this client/therapist relationship is for. It is a space to lay out feelings and maybe understand and know what they are for the first time. It is also a place for a therapist to validate your experiences. This is so important if you have not had this consistently.
In short, therapy is a space where something can begin to take root. Through talking, being heard, and slowly understanding yourself in new ways, you may begin to feel more supported inside yourself and more able to take that understanding into your life and relationships.
Coming next
Next time, I’m going to talk about why a therapist might keep asking, “How do you feel?”. I’ll also be thinking about trust: how it builds, and how you might learn to trust yourself and others, especially if you have been let down. What might that look like?
After that, I’ll talk about projection, what can happen in family dynamics, and why understanding these dynamics can help you begin to separate yourself out from them.
I hope this gives you a small sense of what therapy can feel like, and how something meaningful can begin through talking.
If this resonates with you, and you feel you might like a space to begin talking things through, you are welcome to contact me for an initial conversation at:
emiliayaucounselling@gmail.com
Tunbridge Wells, and Online Worldwide