how does Therapy help?
Therapy helps you understand your life story. Through therapy and the telling of your life narrative, you will make sense of your past, understand who you are today and discover how you prefer to be moving forward.
Understanding your past will help you to move forward. If you grew up thinking of yourself as the peacemaker in your family, you may continue to see yourself that way. You in turn may have a difficult time expressing what you want and need for fear of upsetting the peace.
You can identify patterns and unhelpful coping skills. As you begin to understand your life narrative, you'll discover that you repeat certain behaviors. You may also discover that the coping skills you acquired to survive your childhood, may actually be causing you more problems. As a child, you may have retreated to your room to avoid hearing your parent’s loud arguments. This helped you cope as a child; however, this same coping skill may be causing communication problems in your relationships.
Therapy helps decrease shame. Shame is one of the biggest triggers to depression, anxiety, addiction and feelings of “not good enough.” By telling your stories and sharing your shame in a safe, non-judgmental environment, the shame losses it’s power and effect. If you open the closet door and shine a light on the big scary shame monster, you often find it’s just a pile of dirty clothes that needs to be cleaned and hung out to dry. In other words, we often walk around paralyzed with fear and shame, but when we begin to share it with others, we realize it’s not so scary.
Therapy normalizes your problems. You are not alone! Just knowing the your not the only one that struggles with a problem can help you put things in perspective. Also, learning about how others may have dealt with certain issues and problems can help you figure out what will work for you.
Therapy helps you discover your strengths. Therapy is also a place to look at what you do right and what is working for you. By shining a light on your strengths, you can find ways to take those positive skills and apply them to other areas of your life. You have always had strong positive relationships with friends. Discovering the ways you communicate with and nurture these friendships might be the building blocks for your next romantic relationships.
Small changes lead to big changes. Therapy offers you a chance to take insights about yourself, your coping skills, and your strengths and begin making small changes towards the life you want. In therapy you can discover strategies and skills that will move you down your preferred life path.