What Even is Therapy?
Counseling has become very popular among some over the last 10 years, but it is fair to ask: what even is therapy really? Can’t I get the same benefit from talking to my friends or spending a day in the woods? While those things can be immensely beneficial and even most needed during different seasons of our lives, what therapy offers is often something more unique than that. Therapy can be different things for different people, and there are many different kinds of therapy. While not ideal, some people use it as a comfortable place to vent or to “pick someone’s brain,” but in actuality, good counseling is so much more than that.
People seek out therapy for a variety of reasons: a season of anxiety and stress, a troubled relationship or childhood wound, a desire to understand themselves better, or to work through a harrowing trauma. Therapy is ideally a place where you partner with someone trained to create safety and a vulnerable space so you can be heard by a skilled listener. You will be asked to share your story, strategically explore how you have experienced harm, or explore how you want to grow or make meaning of your struggle. You will learn ways you have coped and new ways to cope, to grieve and work through obstacles so you can better see how to know yourself, love others and God (if you wish) and be in healthy relationship with them. This is done through a variety of methods or “treatments” that are science-driven and empirically researched, and they are suggested by your therapist in a fashion that allows you to join in the process. A good therapist respects you and models healthy attachments styles by giving you kindness, as well as appropriate feedback to help you experience yourself.
Your therapist may also be skilled at helping you determine if you have some type of symptoms or diagnosis or may need to be referred to additional resources for medication, testing, or other interventions. They might also be able to provide some education around areas of psychological, emotional, cognitive, somatic or spiritual interest to you.
While we respect all people and all walks of life and are willing to meet you where you are, checking our own values at the door, we at Integrate do believe we not only partner with you but also with the Word and the Holy Spirit so that we might discover the goodness of that wisdom with you, while recognizing the Imago Dei in you that longs to connect with your creator, your true self, and your purpose. So many have found the process life-changing. What about you?
Toward wholeness,
Shan Alexander