But I Have Multiple Struggles…

Our world gives so much attention and enthusiasm to the idea of quick change and quick healing.—Try this 60-day workout routine and change your life! Take this pill and you’ll loose 10 lbs! Start a gratitude journal, and you’ll learn to let go of negativity and self loathing. Try this therapy, and you’ll feel better in 15 sessions.—Quick solutions and quick relief. Who doesn’t want that?! Most of us do.

And perhaps you’ve tried many of these quick solutions with some success. You did, after-all, feel better after that 60 day yoga challenge. Or, you did notice less anxiety when you started meditating every day (side note: I do highly recommend mindfulness practices at various points in most of my work with clients, including yoga and mindfulness). But… there are still some sticky parts of life that continue to exist that were not fully addressed by these endorphin-enhancing lifestyle changes.

A lot of us struggle with a variety of aspects of life. Perhaps you have panic attacks, but also difficulty with relationships with a sibling, a partner, and work stress. Or you have had depressive symptoms on and off and smoke a lot, but don’t feel like the books and podcasts available have fully addressed your symptoms and habits, leaving you to wonder if you are an anomaly. “I must not be doing this right…. This therapist must not want to work with me and thinks I’m a burden... I guess I’m just not normal… I guess I’m not meant to feel better…”

Nuanced Therapy

If you are desiring a deep change in your life you have to have healing in tandem with the change. No single, quick approach can address all your needs. You likely need and deserve a long-term healing relationship with lots of room to acknowledge all your nuance. To both honor the complexity and help you sift through it.

For example, you might need more immediate solutions to a conflict with a spouse, while at the same time a more open-ended space to be held as you grapple with the pending loss of your alcoholic mother from the big C. Or, you may need a place to not understand yourself, despite having worked with 3 different nutritionists and therapists who were helpful but still left you feeling to blame for your overeating and dating struggles.

Why is change so hard?

Most of us enter therapy and any life-changing experience with a lot of ambivalence (mixed feelings). We both want to change, and we don’t. We want to be fixed, and we don’t want to be that easily fixed. What’s more, we are often unaware of this ambivalence AND resentful about even needing help in the first place. In our do-it-yourself world, there is a lot of shame around needing to ask for help. Certain careers, systems, religions, and family dynamics can especially exacerbate the shame around needing outside help at all, let alone from a mental health professional.

All change requires loosing a sense of familiarity and, in that way, comfort in exchange for something as of yet unknown and frequently scary. If you start to change yourself, you can become dissatisfied with many of the current realities your find yourself in, such as your marriage, the way you parent, you friends, your job, etc. You may in the short term find yourself feeling worse—more lonely, more dissatisfied, more impatient—starting any change, especially therapy where a large part of the beginning may be understanding the problems in your life, therefore raising your awareness of them and all the feelings that go with it.

Lastly, we often times have to deal with the grief that comes up around the person we were, why we were that way, and what makes it hard to become more. It is so hard to grieve! Some days or months you feel anger, then you can feel fine, then you can feel bereft, or even numb. And of course, none of these experiences fall in to a linear sequence that feels like a “stage of grief”, leaving you to ultimately feel all-over-the-place.

Therapeutic Relationship as the Tool for Healing

In my approach to therapy, we work through our relationship to build a healing experience to address the nuanced needs your bring to the room (therapy office or virtual platform). You are allowed to exist with all your rawness—your vulnerability, your defenses, your strengths, your pain, and your joy—and receive a willing person to meet you where you are with warmth, curiosity, and a desire to understand it all.

Few people have had the opportunity to be the focus of healing attention for a full hour. It may feel luxurious or uncomfortable. Some people think—Finally! I can say whatever I want and not have to worry about your feelings? I’m allowed to just focus on me? Yes please!—Others may think—I don’t have that much to say! This is going to be so awkward…—The reality is that you do have a lot to you. You have existed in the world for years and have learned so much about Life. You have experienced so many challenges, connections, ruptures, and meaningful moments that have led you to believe what you believe about yourself, other people, and the world. I am curious to know your unique perspective and to understand all the nuances that contribute to it.

At the beginning, you may find me providing structured problem solving for various stressors in your life while at the same time exploring aspects of yourself that may be hidden to you, all the while viewing you in a very compassionate light. We work to understand the emotions you feel in certain situations to help guide us towards goals—what is working well in your life and what isn’t working well. I’ll provide concrete solutions for ways you may go about addressing stressors, perhaps role playing ways to have a conversation with someone or suggesting ways to get in touch with your own emotions.

During that time, I’m also getting to understand deeper patterns that you may or may not be aware of (your conscious and unconscious aspects of self). What is the role you play in your family of origin? What role do you play now with your chosen family? How aware are you of yourself, your flaws, your strengths?

Our relationship does not stop in the room. Over time, you may notice yourself thinking of me outside of the therapy space. Perhaps you notice thinking you saw me in the grocery store when someone had similar glasses. Or, maybe you hear my voice in your head when you talk to your partner. You have begun to internalize different aspects of our relationship. These experiences will be important to pay attention to and bring in to the room to discuss your sense of me—do you find me warm? Inconsistent? Compassionate? Distant?

Eventually, we develop a rapport and collaborative dynamic where you can feel comfortable to share your experience of me in the room as it relates to the here and now and similar experiences in your life (Drawing parallels between patterns from the past and patterns in the present). Perhaps I will remind you of your sister, who was a source of comfort in very uncertain times. Or, I could remind you of your critical aunt who forgot to pick you up from school and left you to sleep there overnight. All experiences in our therapeutic relationship are relevant and important. The goal is that our relationship ultimately provides for the corrective, healing, and reparative experiences in your life that you needed and need to receive to heal and change.

Towards the end of therapy you will hopefully find yourself in interpersonal and intrapsychic experiences that are more ego-syntonic. You will be in evolved-relationships or new relationships with people who help you become a better person while also accepting and loving who you are now. Your relational dynamic may shift, allowing you to make space for yourself and others in ways that are very life giving and energizing. You might notice yourself engaging in habits that you’ve always wanted to, but never been able to start. Or even giving up on habits you thought you loved but in the end don’t serve you.

In order to fully bloom, you have to be able to see and be seen with all your nuance. See if our therapeutic relationship might be the the one for you.