What is psychotherapy?
Just as in school, we’ll start with the definition: psychotherapy is a tool designed to help you know yourself (vulnerabilities, fears, desires, etc. – you get a kind of map of your mental life), change what you want to change in your life, and develop mentally and emotionally.
Why?
Why should you try it? Simple: you are first and foremost the one who lives with yourself, with your mind. Wouldn’t you like to have the best life possible?
A more complicated answer: We have nowhere to run from ourselves. Running away from the others might work, from ourselves doesn’t. Somehow, it is still hard for us to understand that we carry ourselves everywhere, our secret fears, our inner demons, our sometimes lost hopes, our small or big loves and misses, our fits of courage and acts of cowardice. Sooner or later, we are the same person, in the middle of Bucharest or on a beach in Bali. And that’s because the world makes sense in our minds, in each one of our minds. Psychotherapy helps you gain insight, that is, understand how your mind works, so that you can be the one who decides the direction of your life.
Who?
Me, you, anyone. Psychotherapy is not a select club where only those with mental or major life problems enter but is addressed to all of us. Let’s check: Have you ever felt stuck? Overwhelmed by stress or worry? Confused? Having a professional or personal dilemma? Having a problem in your relationship? Do you always know why you act the way you do? Psychotherapy deals with all that.
Alain de Botton says it clearly: the only qualification you need to go to therapy is to be a perfectly normal human being.
Why not talk to a friend?
We really encourage you to talk to a trusted friend: the social support network is very important for our mental balance. However, we often need a different perspective and specialized support. In addition, a psychotherapist has the following advantages:
- Science based training: a psychotherapist has learned about how the human brain works, about human behaviour, healthy human development, and pathology (how normal is behaviour X?).
- Soft skills training: listening and communicating without imposing personal judgments. A psychotherapist won’t judge you if you’re attracted by someone else than your steady partner, if you’re green with envy about a colleague’s promotion, or if you feel helpless, and instead he/she will help you understand what’s behind these issues.
- The psychotherapist is a person who has had his/her own therapy and knows how to observe his/her own mind (the chances of being influenced by one’s personal life history are significantly reduced).
- Psychotherapists are guided by an ethical/deontological code, and they must learn constantly in order to be able to practice (continuous training).
What about confidentiality?
We don’t call it confidentiality; we call it holy confidentiality. No mental health professional is allowed to divulge information about any of his/her patients or clients to third parties. Confidentiality is about respect for another person, but also about ethics and an essential condition for that specialist to have a job.
If you have questions/want to know more, drop me a line: cami@themind.ro
