Psychotherapy heals:
Hundreds of studies demonstrate its effectiveness. The most important explanations for why and when it works suggest a strong therapeutic alliance between therapist and client, an active collaboration working toward the client’s goals, effective checking in about progress and barriers to progress, and, in my observation, the belief that positive change is reachable. While there is no particular methodology that has been shown superior to others, approaches to therapy that activate emotional, cognitive and behavioral experimentation and change offer more than listening and empathy alone. Insight and awareness are incredibly helpful in the sense that understanding (under standing) offers pillars of support for the structures that get built on top of that understanding—our lives. Sometimes we have to rebuild brick by brick, and sometimes we just have to replace a few doors and windows.
Wiggle room
Wiggle it out, write it out:
What do you wonder about?
What do you wish for?
What do you woo into your life?
When do you wallow?
Where do you worship or adore what is?
Wiggle room acknowledges the space for breath, for appreciation, for being in the moment, feeling keenly alive. Each of us, as each atom in our bodies, is radiant energy. We are more porous than solid, more influenced than impervious, more part of each other than individual.
We live, work, love and participate in
a world that is epidemically busy. Some
of us try to keep up, shoulders tucked to our ears, some of us avoid the pressures of adult responsibility by turning to drugs, gambling, pornography or digital games. And some of us keep going back to the drawing board to revision what it means to be human.