Often it’s a single crisis or a series of unique events that brings people to therapy. In these instances, initial work focuses on fully understanding the impact of the event(s). The participants must regain their sense of safety, agency, and connection. Life must again feel hopeful . This work may be just what some need to continue fully in life.
Others may struggle with uncomfortable feelings or feel unsatisfied with patterns in relationships or in other areas of life. Psychotherapy helps people recognize underlying feelings and experiences that are being managed by repetition of those patterns. Such work helps shift a person, a couple, or a family from being stuck or even destructive toward feelings of love, fulfillment, and creativity.
Psychotherapy is a relationship between you and the therapist that works, in part, within the collaborative, interpersonal space between you. Psychotherapy requires a very active effort on your part.
Psychotherapy has both benefits and risks. Risks may include experiencing uncomfortable feelings because the process of psychotherapy partly requires discussing unpleasant aspects of your life. However, psychotherapy has been shown to have benefits for those who undertake it. Therapy often leads to a significant reduction in feelings of distress, increased satisfaction in interpersonal relationships, greater personal awareness and insight, increased skills for managing stress and healthier resolutions to specific problems.
~Mary Straus, LPC
