Why Therapy?

Why Therapy?
Talk your way to happiness
by Calliope Hart

You call your coach hoping that they would see that dark cloud of unhappiness that's been shadowing you for a while now… finally moving on. But instead of foreseeing a more productive, happier life for you, they've been predicting more of the same.

Use your free will they've advised… take some time, look inside, make some changes. Intuitively you may know they're right. But maybe, despite the best of advice from friends or loved ones, that pile of self-help books you've just poured through… you're still stuck, unhappy, and behaving in a manner that isn't productive. Perhaps it's time to consider therapy.

Maybe it's not you! Why me?
Because therapy is all about making changes. It's about looking into what's going on right now in your present and making changes so you can look forward to a better future - the one you were hoping the psychics saw, all mapped out for you including, love, happiness and success. But wait…. isn't therapy for people with really big problems, you ask?

Actually, therapy is for relatively healthy, high-functioning people, who are stuck. Choosing to go to therapy can be considered to be an act of sanity, because as crazy as it sounds, staying stuck, resisting help, continuing to live with self-sabotaging behavior, impossible situations or relationships, or emotional pain and unhappiness can appear to be easier and more comfortable than facing problems.

Be courageous
Therapy takes personal courage. Yes, some people are frightened by the prospect of looking inside themselves deeply and intimately, because they're afraid of the unknown. But what does anyone have to lose, if their life's not working, anyway. In therapy you will consciously work to find, identify and change the things which are inhibiting your life's progess. It's an education into what make's you uniquely you - how you think, what you believe and what you feel. Plus, research proves that it is successful - and it lasts!

Consider therapy a gift to yourself and your future - an indulgence, even. From personal experience, many people can attest to it leading to immense personal happiness. Just like any education, it can help you evolve and live a richer life. In therapy, you will spend 50 minutes a week with a supportive person, who is trained and licensed to help you find solutions to those things in your life that are blocking you from living a more satisfying life.

Only you
It's a process of talking about the issues you want to work on - anxiety, depression, irritability, why you can't sleep or find love, or maybe even what's stopping you from sitting down to write the great American novel, lose weight or adjust to life as a new parent.

The choice of subject is yours. Anything goes. Some therapists specialize in specifics like sex, marriage, anger management, anxiety or depression. But in general, therapy can be about anything you want to talk about - the excitement is where it can lead you!

Be honest
The poignant thing about talk therapy is that you have to be unfalteringly honest in therapy. Sometimes that hurts, and sometimes that makes therapy very emotional. It can take some uncomfortable probing and unraveling to become aware of your unconscious agendas, convoluted beliefs and unproductive behaviors that are keeping you from living your best life.

You see, the more you understand about what's going on inside your head, the more control you have over what you do. With the insight and the coping skills you pick up in psychotherapy, you can learn to understand yourself as you really are - you can learn to see what you're doing as if you're watching yourself from a distance. The goal is to look at your behavior, work out your discomfort and unhappiness and learn to manage your behavior and your feelings - or anything else that interferes with your ability to live happily.

What's exciting is that changing little things in your life over the course of therapy can make a huge difference in your life in general. As one therapist, describes to his clients as a metaphor for how therapy works and the subtlety with which you will start seeing improvement, "You don't need to throw a boulder into a pool of water to make a big splash. If you throw in a pebble, the small ripple from the pebble will turn into a series of larger, meaningful ripples."

Coach Sherrie says: Sometimes it takes some therapy whether it be individual or group to get you to the point where you're ready to let go of the past and move on. All I can say is IT WORKED FOR ME. If you've worked through your major issues or are one of the lucky ones who doesn't have any, then you're ready for a coach.