Do I Need Therapy?
It is quite common, particularly when we are young that experiences and feelings we have to deal with are just too much. We become overwhelmed and our mind attempts to lessen the ill affects with various techniques, in order to protect us from harm. In the protection process, the mind obstructs some or all of the conscious memory of the overwhelming circumstances and feelings.
One important way that we protect our selves from pain is to unconsciously create physical tension in our bodies. This can sometimes be called “steeling” our selves against a situation. It works by blocking or disrupting the energy pathways that transmit pain signals to the brain.
Another way our minds attempt to protect us from overwhelming and painful situations is by engaging a sophisticated mental system of denying the experiences and feelings. In some cases we make an attempt of outright externalization of the anxiety, through a process called dissociation.
Over time, and with repeated exposure, we tend to respond to pain and other difficult emotions in familiar ways. And while this familiar process of protecting our selves from hurt is pretty effective, other related and troubling physical and emotional symptoms are usually left over, like depression, anxiety, stress, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, confusion, anger and frustration. And we are left consciously unaware of most of the tension, denial or dissociation.
In the young, these coping strategies can be literally life saving. Often we had no other option but to grapple with difficult situations, the best we could. As we grow up, however, the consequences of these habituated, unconscious modes of behavior begin to affect our daily lives. Our minds are actively operating at cross-purposes with the truth of our experience and feelings. Moreover, the habituated, unconscious process of creating tension, denial and dissociation, set up to block our old painful situations, also blocks our feelings of pleasure and fulfillment! And where, as children we weren’t mature enough and didn’t realistically have the opportunity to figure this all out – as adults, the situation is different.
Through a supportive, connecting and safe therapeutic relationship, we begin to trust and honor the truth of our past and present reality experience as the pathway toward healing. Then if someone or something is causing us pain, we are fully aware of this truth, and we possess the tools of both the desire and the power to make another self-empowering choice. We want joy in our lives, yet if our mind is habituated and unconscious of the true present reality of our experience, we cannot move towards and enact the appropriate behavior that will lead us toward that joy.
My next post will describe a revolution in therapeutic treatment pioneered by Carl Rogers and how his work swung open a critical gateway to uncovering our truth and achieving what we really, really want in our lives.
